rec.autos.simulators

I being a die hard Papy fan every since the first Indy 500 sim, have a hard
time trying to like something else, but there is just enough difference (a
good difference) that
EA is fianlly getting in the right direction.  No, its not perfect, but i've
never seen a sim that was.

I think Papy is still the King, especally after the patch, but Thunder is
worth the price, just took a long time to get a good feel in the wheel,
thanks to memebers here for that.
the -100 on the feedbaack was the key.

Long live Papy......

The front straight is flat, the outer loop is a descending radius
near-hairpin, and there's a huge dip after the esses (the car actually
bottoms out here).  It seems less wide than I remember from the brief
time I had NT03 installed.

There are some weird physics quirks in the game too.  When drafting,
the lead car doesn't gain anything, so a draft train basically travels
at the same speed as a car by itself.  The AI is incredibly sloooooow
everywhere, but makes up for it by qualifying over a second faster
than their practice times at most tracks.  The career mode was clearly
not play-balanced at all...  basically with a brand new career and a
car that is lucky to finish in the top 30 or 40 your sponsors will
immediately bolt and your reputation will worsen if you finish out of
the top 20.  I dunno, it's better than NT03, but it's still
disappointing.

Jason

Notice how so many games are like that these days?  The driving school in F1
200X was completely ridiculous too.  Maybe there's too many jaded beta
testers out there that seriously need a kick in the pants.

It's not a *** sim, but V-Rally 3 (which is finally coming out
for the PC soon) has a pretty nice career mode.  The physics are
passable (better than CMR3 - and I've actually managed to crash out of
rallies already, which is unthinkable in most rally games) but the
career mode is great.  You basically sign up for a 1.6 liter team, one
of the crappier ones offering you a job, and you build your personal
and the team's prestige and get offered new rides with other
manufacturers depending on how you do.  The balance was pretty nice
tho - 1.6L class was fairly easy as long as you worked hard at it, and
the 2.0L class upped the difficulty significantly.  I don't have an
xbox anymore and I'm seriously considering getting the PC version even
tho the physics could be better and the graphics are just so-so for a
modern game.

Jason