rec.autos.simulators

Hello!

I am the writer of The Adrenaline Vault's CART Precision Racing review.
First, let me set the record straight -- we are not sleeping with anyone at
Microsoft. :)  The review I wrote was based on my honest response to the
game after approximately 20 hours of vigorous gameplay.  I thoroughly
enjoyed the title and consider it deserving of high praise.  I have read
the
critiques of the game (and my review) in your newsgroup, and feel that many
of the comments are very fair and show a great deal of insight into the
workings of what makes a good, or a defective, racing simulation.

Your response is certainly appreciated.  I hope you will not allow one very
significant difference of opinion to alter your over-all impressions of our
site.  All of the writers are to dedicated to generating accurate,
informed,
and intelligent reviews.  We are hard-core gamers, and strive to deliver
the
best editorial content on the Internet.  This time I sided firmly with the
minority. Why not stick around and see what happens next?  I would argue
that you would agree with a majority of our reviews.

David Laprad
Staff Writer/Reviewer
The Adrenaline Vault
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
The Web's Ultimate *** Site!
Phone: (615) 597-8128
Address: 370 Smith Road, Smithville, TN 37166

Hi David,

Interesting that it was felt necessary to show up here to comment upon
the review (I hesitate to use the term "justify", but it's hard not
to). I personally felt that the review was extremely overgenerous, but
perhaps this is not surprising if favour needs to be curried, and that
in a profession where a "bad" rating generally means "less than 80%"
(not directed at you, just a general observation of magazine and web
reviews).

CPR is undoubtedly "fun", but then so is Carmageddon but that doesn't
make it a racing simulation. To properly review a simulation with
consideration of the target market, how true it is to the real-life
experience must be considered alongside the fun factor, as well as how
each component compares to what has already been achieve in the genre.
Take a look at Philip McNelley's excellent post from earlier today
outlining what sim fans expect from a product classified as a "sim",
rather than as a "game". It boggles my mind how anyone could try
Indycar Racing 2's AI and driving model around any of the ovals, and
then still consider CPR as being ready to take Papyrus' crown.

This is not to knock you, MS, TRI, CPR or whoever, but I do feel
strongly that reviewers have a duty to be honest with their readers,
and consider very carefully before they spend people's money for them.
In this case, IMO, Avault's review was so far off base that I have
trouble assigning it purely to differences in opinion. Given your
above post I suppose it must be, and perhaps we focus on the details
far more than Avault, where reviews are done on many different types
of game.

I never looked at Avault's reviews before, and the review of CPR is
unlikely to make me do so now - I suppose nothing lost for you :)  I
tend to prefer Games Domain's style of having the reviews submitted by
fans, since these reviews tend to be more in depth and done by people
with detailed knowledge of the type of product they are reviewing, and
how it will appeal to others that share their interest. Again no
comment on you personally, I'm speaking only considering my own
experience. I know that if someone asked me to review a flight-sim I'd
decline, since I know absolutely nothing about them and couldn't hope
to do it justice.

Thanks for taking the time to comment,

Best Regards,
John (Sim Racing News)

: I am the writer of The Adrenaline Vault's CART Precision Racing review.
: This time I sided firmly with the minority.

Apology excepted.  ;)
--
-------------------------------------

l8er
ronny

--
          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Date: 20 Nov 1997 23:52:59 GMT

About: Re: CART Review from Vault
[e-mailed and posted, please reply to rec.autos.simulators if
possible]

I have not personally checked out the CPR review on avault, but dit
the reviewer actually post a 8 MB Voodoo card as a part of his system
specs? A typo then, or complete incompetence. Flash 3D is a 4 MB card.
There are NO 8 MB cards based on Voodoo Graphics.

<large snips>

While I cannot disagree with your assessment of the sim or AI aspects
of CPS, I had a very different experience with the visuals.  My
framerates on a P200 with 32 MB RAM and a Monster 3D card (hardly a
super system) were good.  No terrain popping, decent frame rates, and
great visuals.  The "angora sweater" fuzzing common to mediocre 3D
programming was noticable in the cars, however.  Your implication that
the reviewer is just lying about his visual impressions is
unacceptable.  

As for the overall structure of CPS, I thought the garage elements
(the "smart" mechanic) were quite good, and the game is a good first
try that's fun in spite of some obvious short-comings.  Frankly, there
are things it does better than ICR2.

It must also be noted that Sierra/Papyrus continue to***users of
3Dfx cards by developing for Rendition only (which, of course, is at
the heart of Sierra's Screamin' card).

TLMcD

And you wonder why the OS/2 crowd is so critical of Microsoft....

Developers are far from stupid, and if enough people demand support
then there is no option but to follow that. Remember too that these
people are also fans of racing sims, and want their games to be
everything that they can make them. If that means using 3dFX then it
shall be so, if it is at all possible. Why else do you think MS/TRI
are looking into a Glide version of CART Precision Racing after the
D3D version was so badly received?

All we need now is some 3dFX support for GP2 and we'll be laughing.
Mind you, F1 Racing Simulation is doing a pretty fine job so far.

Cheers!
John

I will be delighted if SODA and ICR2 had 3Dfx patches, and will humbly
admit my error.  Please tell me where I can get them, since I'd love
to see what these games look like with 3D support, and so I can eat my
words.

Tom

ICR2 won't be patched. The other patches aren't available yet. It does
appear to be true that Sierra/Papyrus is finally starting to see the
[3dfx] light, but it is also true that they will be one of the last
large game companies on the planet to offer support for this
technology. And to be fair, the 3dfx Nascar2 patch would NOT be done
if it was up to Papyrus, 3dfx is doing that. Papyrus makes great auto
sims, but so far their lack of support for leading 3d cards has been
very disappointing.

Joe

Looks like we still have quite a lot to thank the Papyrus guys for,
but a lot more to thank ourselves for. If it hadn't been for the
pressure from areas like this group I doubt it would have happened. To
be fair, every producer wants their game to be the best and to have
all the support it can. I'm sure Papyrus were no different with
NASCAR2, and at the time of laying out the product they had to make a
decision which 3D cards to support. Having already had experience with
Rendition thanks to ICR2 it was the logical step, although as we know
now it was the wrong one. That's readily apparent with hindisght, but
at the time 3dFX cards were two or three times the price of Rendition,
and unlikely to make any major steps into the market.

As for why it took so long to support 3dFX, when you consider what the
possible answers are then it's pretty obvious we're unlikely to ever
find out (that doesn't mean simply the obvious - think about it for a
while). We're now getting 3dFX, and just in time for dual-card Voodoo2
solutions - anyone fancy 120fps around the original Nurburgring?! :)

Cheers!
John

Sierra made the call on this one I'd bet, not Papy.  Papy wasn't selling
a Rendition card, but Sierra was trying to.

Cheers!
John

Papyrus have been developing sims with the Speedy3D interface for a while
now.  Their fans have bought rendition cards to play these Papyrus games.  If
Papryus were to have any perceived duty then it would be to these customers.

As it is there is already plenty of reasons to buy a 3DFX, and I have done so.
I look forward to the 3DFX patches of these games with anticipation.  BTW I
don't think there'll be an icr2 3dfx patch and I don't think anyone ever
promised one.

Brian

Joe