rec.autos.simulators

I read a glowing review of Andretti Racing on one
of the big games sites and purchased the game today.

I was pretty e***d about this title as I had recently
purchased another Electronic Arts product NFS2 SE
which was absolutely perfect in every way.
Buying Andretti Racing however was a big mistake.
The guy who did the review must have been paid to
lie like a stoat on this one. This is the second car
racing turd that Andretti has dropped on us this century.
Still, I guess these guys don't always know how
something is going to turn out when they sign up for
their names to be used on something. Nevertheless,
I would feel pretty guilty about duping my fans with
rubbish like this.

I fired it up on my well equipped system
(Pentium 233mmx 32mb SB AWE32 3DFX etc.)
I have to say that this game is a really poor
effort, in fact it is a disgrace to the Sim-Racing category.
Although the graphics might be considered fairly good
for a Direct 3D title,  there is a distracting level of pop-up
which is unacceptable in a racing title. From the***pit
of my Indycar there are no front wheels visible and no
sense of speed or acceleration. I am driving on the
Toronto circuit (One of only two actual CART circuits
available, the other is Vancouver). I join the race already
travelling at speed, just in time for the green flag
(Someone must have parachuted me into the***pit for
the race start). I approach the first corner,  thinking
"Where are the Princess Gates ?", then whoops - the
giant Princess gates archway pops up in front of my face
as I reach the turn (This is just not funny anymore !).
Heading out onto the Lakeshore straight I reach 221mph
(The real cars top out at around 180mph here !)
This is a 40mph discrepancy! I am also thinking that
this track is much wider than the real thing, the frame
rate doesn't exactly hum either because I have every
detail turned up to maximum but I shut off the music
to make it playable. The car appears to be driving itself,
such is the lack of feel and/or control in the driving model.
There is no feeling of driving a car here at all.

Another thing is that I am unable to exit from a session
in progress (Good job I chose 3 laps for the race distance
because I don't really want to pull the plug on my Win95
system in order to abandon a race.

The games menu system is impossible to make any
sense of. It is illogical and very confusing to use. Quite
the worst I have seen in any racing title. Couldn't
these guys learn something from NFS2-SE which
was professionally executed in this department.

Controller setup is very poor, with no support for Joystick B.
(Tough luck all those owning CH Pedals or Pro Pedals).
I have a set of these great pedals which I cannot use in
this game. Luckily I also have another rubbishy set of
pedals which work on Joystick A (Y axis), so these have
to do. Once again comparing controller support in this
title with that found in NFS2-SE is like night and day.
NFS2-SE was perfect with full customisation facilities
and superb execution.

You would never guess these two products (Andretti Racing
and NFS2-SE) were produced by the same company.
Whoever did the Andretti effort knows diddly squat about the
auto racing genre. Whereas those NFS guys know exactly
what to do.

John Cookson (Canada)

I love both sims(Nascar 2, Indycar 2, Grand Prix 2) and arcade racers(POD,
MotoRacer, NFS2SE) and I was also looking forward to Andretti Racing as
maybe a hybrid(arcade with some sim aspects). From what I could tell after
purchasing the game, changing the few settings for the car that were
available did little to the actual handling of the car.

Agreed on both counts. Fortunately, I bought mine from EB so I was able to
return it. Overall the game is just bad. Normally I can find something good
about a game but not in this case. To sum it up:
Poor frame-rate and pop-up even with a fast Pentium II with 3DFX card.
Poor control and few options for wheel/pedal setups.
Poor user interface.
Terribly cheesy full motion video tips from the Andretti's.
Terrible sound(listen to the sound of gear changes when running manual
transmission?!?)
No sense of speed or actual wheel to wheel racing with the AI. Just boring.

Any magazine or web site that gives Andretti Racing a good review just
can't be respected. However, I am sure we will see some more as this seems
to be the trend these days. Give a game a great review, don't mention the
bad points, get more ad revenue from said *** company, continue to get
free games for review, repeat.

Don Chapman

If I remember right...before I returned the game....you pause with "P"
and then choose quit from the pause menu.

I agree with your reveiw. I also agree NFS2SE is excellent. Really
makes TD4 pale in comparison.

-=Don=-

And I agree with your comments whole-heartedly ..

I disagree with some of these, but that's just because I view the game
for what it is, a 80% arcade racer.  It has a few 'simmy' features in
it, but the handling and physics model is really not comparable to the
more 'serious' sims.  I think its fun simply because the tracks are
kind of cool and wide enough to allow a lot of passing.  Its sort of
like having all the passing of ovals combined with the style of road
courses.  I think it is a better Playstation game than PC game,
though.

That's your right.  I tend to look at what the vendor is trying to
sell, and then judge them by what they say they are trying to do.  I
nailed Accolade for Test Drive 4 in my review because they promised
true to life physics and didn't deliver in my opinion.  Had they just
said the thing was an arcade game, I would have gone in with different
expectations and might have enjoyed the game a little more knowing
they weren't trying to pass it off as a spot-on simulator.

About the only thing we get on Digital Sports is the review copies of
games, but that can sometimes be as much of a curse as a blessing.
Once you get a copy of a game, you're obliged to review it, even if
you realize within 5 minutes of playing it that you'd rather be
scooping cat litter than continue playing it, but since you have to
write the review, you can't just stop there, like you do if you have
no obligations.  Other than that, there's no pay, just a passion for
sports games and writing detailed, informative and fair reviews.

But I do agree with what you say in many ways.  I tend to only look at
the general *** sites from curiosity, rather than an expectation of
seeing a well-written  review.  These guys are generalists.  They play
Mario 64 as much or more than they do CART Precision Racing.  They
also get more multi-player time if they have magazine offices, so they
are less likely to deal effectively with AI problems, because chances
are they will spend a lot of time playing each other. I notice this is
true with console football games.  A Playstation game like Gameday 98
wows 'em with its polygonal graphics and because they are playing 2
player with their fellow reviewers they completely fail to notice that
what happens after the snap resembles football like Dennis Vitolo
resembles Alex Zanardi.   I think you'd be pleasantly surprised if you
visit our site.

Randy

I think that is an excellent point. Games reviews written by
volunteers tend to be much better since a) they tend to know more
about the genre they are reporting on. b) They probably know the
particular product and what it should be delivering. c) They don't
have any hidden agenda. Provided the review sites pick their reviewers
well (writing style, content etc) it will beat the pants of any
commercial site (all this IM"H"O). They are of course more susceptible
to being swayed by generosity from *** companies (it being
relatively new), so it still requires a fair old pinch of salt when
reading. Just like music magazine reviews, you soon find which
reviewers have similar tastes to yours and which you can trust. For
that reason beware any site that doesn't put the reviewers name on it.

Amen to that! Here kitty, kitty....

Cheers!
John

The only place I can get a good review from seems to be PC Gamer Magazine,
the others you just cant trust.