Ok, I've recently "gone public" here as a physicist with automotive
experience.
Let me tell you a little story.
About 5 years ago a friend and I were sitting in a pub. I brought up the
fact that I would like to learn to program games for *the specific reason*
of making a "retro" driving game, based on the, you guessed it, 1937 season.
He made the argument that the market would be too limited. I countered that
this was indeed the case, but I wouldn't even bother marketing it through
traditional channels. I would market it exclusively online and in the
enthusiast automotive sporting press, targeting the small but dedicated
market directly.
He won the argument by noting that it would take 5 years total dedication of
my time and did I really want to do that? At the time I was tied up with
other pursuits and he was right. Even if I wanted to I couldn't.
Well, imagine my delight when GPL was announced! Ok, they got ONE digit of
the date wrong, but at least it was one of the CORRECT dates. ( The others
being '57 or thereabouts, and '24, or thereabouts).
I downloaded the demo. Cool! They included F3s and F2s! If this thing has a
"carrer mode" as well this is going to be really hot! And obviously they'll
expand the theme into a franchise and eventually produce GPL 1957, and GPL
1937.
Well, of course we all know how that went. F2s and 3s got downgraded to
"trainers" without a proper model or proper racing capability against AI.
Carreer mode, right out. And worst of all, as a Sierra product it got
marketed as a standard PC game and my friend was right, the market was too
small.
Bye bye franchise.
So, along comes the announcment of SOS. Cool! The perfect year and
everything. I couldn't wait to get the demo. I checked the web site every
day for its release.
And we all know how THAT turned out!
I fired it up the first time and the first that hit me was great graphics,
but wait, why are the cars sitting up in the air like big wheel trucks?
These cars didn't have any more ground clearance than cars of the GPL era.
Then I drove it. Uck. Complete dreck. All the pretty pictures in the world
can't help that.
I spent some time pokeing at the file system, but it all seemed wrapped up
pretty tight. Too bad.
Now we come down to it. I read here that someone who has the game claims
that the final product has a very open structure. Is this the case? And:
Is there anyone out there who has a copy of this piece of drek they will
sell cheap/donate to the cause of poking to see if it can be made to work? I
am NOT going to give any money to Microprose for this, but I'd dearly like
to get my hands on a copy to tear apart.
If not, guess I'll just to wait a few months until all available copies have
the financial value of a beer coaster and see if I can pick it up cheap
then.
As an aside, times change. I find that I now DO have the time and
inclination to undertake such a project and devote five years of my time to
it, and over the past several months have been making active preparations.
The West Bros. and Dr. Paul Hoad, each in their own way, seem to have had
similar ideas though and have "beaten me out."
I'll keep plugging away for a bit with my own project groundworks while
watching what they come up with. Perhaps I'll post more on this subject at
a later date.
