rec.autos.simulators

02 Menu's:
The menu's are rather poor and lack inspiration, but I don't find that very
important. GPL menus are far more stylish (retro look) and F1 2000's are far
more flashy. F1WGP is better too.
The good thing about GP2 was that you could save a race in the middle of a
race. A bad thing was that when u wanted to restart a race, you always had
to go through 5 menu's to get back to bussiness again.
As you might have guessed: They didn't bother to change this. Anyway: this
is not a reason NOT to buy GP3.

03 Graphics:
F1 2000 looks much better (and so does SCGT, SUPERBIKE, ....) It obvious
they only added more detail to GP2. The graphics engine is still the same,
and its a disaster: if you want an acceptable framerate the game just slows
down, and just like in GP2, you can't trust the estimate framerate indicator
in the graphics panel. Anyway they should have dropped this graphics engine
long ago, because its way behind todays standards.
The only thing I find ok are the scenery (horizon). The Cars all have the
same shape and what really very ANNOYING is that the cars just don't blend
into the rest of the picture. This is very obvious with rain: the cars look
as if they are DRAWN upon the rest of the image, which makes it hard to
enjoy the feel of the game. Its as if you are looking at a bad cartoon.
The pit sequense is still the same: cars flying in the air: would it have
been so hard to draw a jack? The pit crew looks awful, really 1996-ish. The
graphics of this game are bad.

04 Sound:
In 6th gear it sounds as if you are driving HARD TRUCK 2. Totally worthless,
GP2 was better in this respect.
And the fact that you can only hear your own car is unacceptable too, even
if you can only hear your own car while racing in a real F1. When racing on
a PC you want to feel the ambience of a real race. When you have spinned in
GP3, and you wait for all the other cars to pass, you hear NOTHING AT ALL.
Its really awfull. In this respect GP3 is just a very bad game.
What I hate the most is the awful sample you hear everytime you go to a
lower gear: its a real joke.

05 Car physics
The same: GP2 level, which by todays standards is VERY BAD.
SCGT, F1 2000, F1WGP, .. are all MUCH MUCH better. And the implementation of
a wet track are done badly too: when you slightly touch your throttle at the
start you will spin like hell, but if you hit your brake full at 300 km/h in
the wet the car will just ..  stop... Realism?
Overal the feel is bad: its no fun to race GP3: you never feel u are
fighting a car, although I must admit that I like the tracks.

06 Artificial intelligence
Just as bad as F1 2000, unfortunately. When you spin all the other cars just
run into you if you are on the racing line.

Conclusion
If you compare GP2 AND GP3, its obvious that very little effort was made. I
wonder why it took so long to make an upgrade for GP2. All the effort went
into advertising, not programming, thats for sure.
The game is virtually the same, just SLIGHTLY better graphics on an ever
worthless graphics engine. Gameplay and realism are the same (which were ok
by 1996 standards, but not by todays), only rain was added and done badly by
the way.
If you are looking for a nice modern F1 game: buy F1 2000, it looks far
better than GP3 and it simulates far better the overal feel of a F1 race.
If you want a modern F1 sim: wait, or stick to MGPRS, F1 2000, ...

Note: For those of you who feel we should pay for GP3 just to stimulate
future Racing simulator makers to keep on producing racing sims: think about
this:
IF GP3 becomes a HIT, what lessons will the *** industry learn from it?
Just look for a name (Crammond) and do a good advertising campagne, and DONT
worry too much about the programming: and the money will come in.
I just hope PAPYRUS WILL NOT DECIDE TO FOLLOW THIS STRATEGY.
But chances are they will... :(

DONT BUY CRAPPY GAMES: TRY BEFORE YOU BUY

--
Todd S.
Life - ***ly transmitted, Always fatal

What kind of computer do you have? How are your graphics set? You must be
looking at something different than I am if you think F1200 and SCGT have
better graphics than GP3.

Yes, the textures are not the best but overall I feel GP3 is easier to look
at than F1 2000. I hate the way F1 2000 uses blan textures and a color
pallet that causes everything to blur together. If you want to see painted
on then take a look at the chase camera in F1 2000 - looks like the old old
acrade game where your car is a platic cutout on a stick going back and
forth over a moving graphic of a track. I'll give you Superbike because it
has the best graphics of any sim out there.

AI - well, other than being too agressive and overshooting corners while
trying to out brake you I don't think the AI is as bad as you say. Have you
really played this game because they do avoid accidents nicely, they just
like to cause them with aggressive blocking.

Physics - wow, you blew all your credability here because you said GP3
physics are worse than F1WGP - did you play that game because I know you
wouldn't say that if you had...4 wheels in the grass - automatic 180.

I think GP3 is a good game but  there will probably be a lot of people who
are really upset because expectations where so high - perhaps yours?

I like GP3 better than F1 2000 only because the visablity, ai and weather
appeal to me more than F12K's did. GP3 reminds me a lot of MGPRS2 with
slightly better physics and graphics. Oh, and I still like MGPRS2 more than
F1 2000 - don't know why, just something I didn't like about that game. It
was just hard to look at for me but then again, Id rather see astectically
pleasing low res textures over poorly implemented 3D glitz. - but thats just
me.

Andre

I must say that of all the criticism I've read of this game, this is the
only point that will prevent me from buying this game.  You should be able
to hear your competitors cars (even if not realistic), because our driving
experience is so limited.  In a sim you need all the "clues" you can get to
compensate for what's missing from the driving experience.

Thats just what I think..

Yes, to a certain extent. Remember that at 300 km/h the car weighs about four
times it's own weight because of the downforce. I trust the braking distance is
longer however?

And how does this differ from real life? <g> Besides, occasional stupid moves
from AI drivers is a refreshing change. I'm hard pressed to belief they
implemented the AI worse than GP2.

--

Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
GPL hcp. +69.95

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
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