Just to add my 2 cents worth--I agree with you completely, Randy. It is
much more helpful to know and discuss the good points and the shortfalls of
each title. They ALL have shortfalls and you are correct that even the
"bad" titles have a few good features that could improve some of the "good"
titles if they were incorporated.
Marc.
>>I have to agree with you, I prefer *sims* to arcade games, and
>>personally I think TOCA is somewhere in between, as it handles like a
>>sim, but does not have the set-up options of a real sim?
>Once again, the r.a.s refrain of "what's a sim" is brought up. I've
>said it a thousand times and what the heck, I'll say it again...these
>things aren't boolean values. Its not a light switch where you flip
>it from arcade to sim and back to arcade. Its a realism scale.
>Arcade games like Sega Daytona are farther to the low end of the scale
>and sims like NASCAR 2 and F1RS are towards the right. There are a
>fair number of games that sit somewhere in the middle. So far I've
>heard that TOCA isn't a sim but an arcade game because there are no
>setup options, because there is no damage, etc. I agree that those
>are factors in a decision, but I continue to urge posters to r.a.s.
>not to try to do the simple-minded move of saying "not a sim...just an
>arcade game" as if its a dirty word and nothing further need to be
>said. The people at Codemasters obivously spent a great deal of time
>trying to capture the feel, the tracks, and the environment of BTCC
>cars. Obviously most people agree that in some areas they fell short
>and perhaps there are a couple of areas in the physics model where
>they just missed (or so we believe). So the needle isn't as far on
>the scale as it might be for a Papyrus sim, for example.
>But I submit that if we decided to pick and choose a 'vital' feature
>of a sim and say that if it didn't do it right we'd say the whole game
>wasn't a sim...well, we wouldn't have any sims. First, some people
>have criticized CPR because you can't blow an engine by overrevving
>it. Okay, neither can you do this with GP2 or F1RS -- guess those
>two newsgroup darlings aren't sims anymore...Then the damage
>model...okay, since many ICR2 leagues mandate arcade damage because of
>some problems with AI cars, the damage isn't realistic anymore...toss
>ICR2 out in most offline leagues. If you want to pick and choose any
>one problem with a sim and toss the whole thing out the window as a
>result, we have no sims left. And real NASCAR cars will catch air
>and flip...guess NASCAR 2 is out, now too, huh? Some of you people
>are so intolerant that you have a very selective viewpoint when it
>comes to sims and if it doesn't fit YOUR idea of a sim in specific
>areas you feel is important, then you sneer and say "its just an
>arcade game" and feel like you've laid the definitive opinion down.
>It would be far more constructive if you could say, "hey this thing
>simulates X, Y and Z well, but they missed on A and B.." then people
>could decide how important X, Y and Z were relative to the downside of
>A and B not being right and make an informed decision. Even ABC's
>Road to Indy racing...which has gotten trashed here quite a bit, does
>model what happens when you jump out of the throttle when cornering at
>the limit (you get trailing throttle oversteer). In the interview
>with Papyrus on NASCAR 3, it was stated that the new physics model
>would do that, because its something that doesn't really happen in
>NASCAR 2 (i.e. if the car is pushing in NASCAR and you jump off the
>throttle, you're generally not going to spin). While OT Sports might
>have screwed up a lot of things with Indy Racing, they were a little
>ahead of the competition in that area...Yet no one mentioned this in
>favor of the ABC sim because they were too busy calling it an arcade
>game. It would be constructive to point out that, hey, OT did this
>right..I'd like to see it in more sims, even if we just can't live
>with the poor AI and damage model in Indy Racing.
>Just my 2 cents towards a more constructive newsgroup...Can we not get
>away from just throwing "sim" and "arcade" around as if everyone
>agrees what they are and instead focus on praising what's good and
>criticizing what's bad about specific titles?
>Randy
