Having d/l the 9.6mb. demo and played around with it for some hours, i
thought i'd write down some of my impressions. I used a P90 with 32mb ram,
Ati-Mach64 graphic card, SB16 and a T2 for my "test" and ran the game in
DOS mode.
This i what i think:
Good stuff:
- Wet weather racing.
- Pretty fast graphics.
- Lots of setup stuff.
- Many cars and engines to choose from.
- 4 Test tracks.
- Cool airjacks in pit!
- Spotter function.
- Pitboard. (boy did i miss that in N2)
- Paintkit
Can be improved stuff:
- Dash board layout:
Way to simple in my view. Tacho with no digits will make it hard to "see"
how high you're revving on the various parts of the track. Guess some of
those lamps on the dash is for a shift-light etc.
- No. of instuments. Fuel and water temp. gauges is a must in a racecar.
- Spotter: Kind of weird a "fellow" i would say. I know this is just a
demo, but for him to just say "left" and then "clear" is not enough. I feel
"he" lack professionalism (sp?).
- Sound: Way to low in my view. Engine sound should be louder as should the
spotter. (think about it: you're wearing a helmet and an earplug directlly
into your ear, hence; you will hear the spotter quite good)
- "Controlabillety": The control/steering menu is way to hard to understand
and i hope it will get easier once you have a manual to guide you. I for
one could not get my T2 to work properlly.
- Cars: They kind of look odd, but i guess that's 'cause they're
"fantasy-cars". I've heard some rumours about a car editor/builder and that
souns great!
- Framerates: I feel all the graphics "mumbo-jumbo" steal way to much fps.
When i raced in the wet it felt like the car went faster (i.e. more feeling
of speed) since the game didn't have to waste to much energy on displaying
a whole bunch of thees etc.
- Track: To me it looked like the track was way to small compared to the
***bit-view you get inside the car. I'm not quite sure why but to me it
looks like the ca take up the whole width of the road. Anyway the ratio
between the seating posistion and the track you see, i feel is wrong.
- Roadholding: I have to agree with the person who wrote that it seemed
like Berthesda (sp?) didn't quite make up their mind as to if they where
making an sim or an arcade game. It's quite easy to correct spins and
control a "loose" car, in my view way to easy. It's bloddy hard to correct
a spin when you're doing 100mph. in a real racecar, belive me - i've tried.
With this came you can almost go completely sideways and survive. On the
other hand, if you have a car that understeers/pushes you almost have to
completely stop to regain some grip. There seem to be a balance problem
here. I do however think that the "driving-physics" would be quite good for
a rallycross "sim".
- Standings: Where are the standings/timesheets during practise? I know
this is just a demo, but......
- Wet weather racing: How about rain and not only fog? I think F1GP1 really
did a good job on their rain feature. Is it so hard to "copy"?
Really bad stuff:
- Misc. sound: This really has to go. In a racecar there's no way you'll
ever hear the people on the stands cheering when you've got 8.000 rpm's
from a V10. No way! That this feature is even there in the first place,
strengthens the theory that they didn't know if the should make a sim or an
arcade game.
- "The hud": What's this s*** doing there in the first place? I know you
can toggle it of, but then - how are you going to get all that vital info.
Besides the text is way to small and hard to read.
- Graphics: All the "mumbo-jumbo" is waisting framerates! You don't see
birds flying miles up when you're racing - you consentrate your on the
track. I want a sim that _is_ a sim not a movie. Far to much has been put
into graphics related stuff instead of the simulation of driving a racecar.
- Brakeing: How come no-one's been able to simulate braking as good as they
did in GP2? With Carbon/Carbon breaks you sertainly lock-up quite often. I
also feel that the difference between using all steel brakes and
carbon/carbon was way to little.
- Telemetry: Way to difficult to get any sense out of it. Better if they'd
dropped it all together.
- Ai's: Advanced Ai's it says - well i'm _not_ convinced! The first race i
did at Mid-Ohio i lapped the whole field within 8 laps. Okey, it was on
rookie but i was a rookie. When i tried Pro. later, i started dead last but
passed half the field exiting turn 1. Advanced? Nop.
Conclusion:
Arcade game or sim? Hard to tell. I do asume i will buy it when it's
released, but that will depend upon what types of tracks it contains and
what features it's got.
Just my $0.02 - any others ??
--
Ed_ - Norway
"Early on, the cars were getting faster and faster. And with
good reason: everybody was cheating." - Richard Petty