I've been driving SCGT for about four days now and here are my comments so
far on it.
I have a Voodoo3-card on my machine and at first I used Glide for SCGT. Then
I read somewhere that D3D gives a better quality and framerate so I switched
and I do agree that D3D works better than Glide. Ok, now to to the point.
I didn't want to use the cheat codes to have access to all cars and tracks
at once so I decided to start SCGT in career mode. I did select opposition
strength as medium so that might be counted as kind of cheating though (the
cars are noticeably slower than the human driven car). Anyways it was my
first try at it so I didn't know what to expect and choose the middle ground
as far as difficulty goes.
I bought a Porsche 911 and started plugging away in GTQ-category. From the
very first practice runs I felt that this sim really is FUN. When I had
driven the first couple of races (race length set to medium so my races took
from 20 to 35 minutes) I noticed that the AIs were a lot slower in turns
than I was so I was able to beat them but I also noticed how much FUN it was
to exit a corner tailing an AI-car and accelerate as hard as my Porsche
would go and stay neck and neck with the AI in front of me. Sure enough I
was able to brake later and pass the car in a medium to tight turn.
I improved my Porsche as I got more funds and continued with the GTQ-car to
GT3-category and found it to be very competitive there too after I installed
level two turbocharger. So far the drivability felt very neutral to me and I
was using the default setup except for some aero changes and changes to
gearing. At this point I wasn't real sure whether SCGT was arcadish or just
gave very little feedback drivingwise. I did start to notice the effects of
tire wear and lighter fuel load on the handling of the car. Since my races
were fairly short my tires never really went totally away but when they hit
70% condition the car felt different and after I had pitted for just a few
gallons of fuel at the end of the race (and taken new tires) I nearly always
improved on my best lap times. This felt very promising.
Then it was time to jump to the GT2-class. I noticed the AI-cars had around
400kW (multiply by 1.36 to get horsepower reading) and my trusty ole Porsche
911 GTQ with every available part installed had 326kW. So I was underpowered
but then the medium class AI-cars were slow in the corners. I decided to
give it a try and see how it goes. The first track was Donington (short), a
great track imho, and I got a decent qual run but was only 10th out of 12
cars :-( I started the race and was doing fairly well. I gained on the
AI-cars on the corners as expected, my straight line speed was ok too but I
really took a hit when exiting corners since I was low on power and torque
too. I climbed all the way to 5th but after some driving errors and close
call situations I ended up as 9th out of 12.
Being the first career drive I decided to sell my trusty old Porsche and
bought a BMW M3 GT2-car (a friend of mine <G> said he'd like to drive a BMW
in SCGT so I chose it). I had spent most of my money experimenting with the
911 GTQ and didn't have fortunes to spend while improving my new M3 for the
Donington track. After I had exhausted my bank account (and the bank manager
didn't want to give me a loan for $1M <G>) I hit the track for practice.
Wow, was I surprised with the car I had under me now. Fast as a cheetah and
PLENTY of excess power and very little grip. Again, the FUN factor kicked in
and I was eager to tame this new car. I now went to the garage and tweaked
the setup to make the car better suited for my tastes.
With this GT2-class beast I now had to use every inch of the track to go
fast, control my throttle and brake use in order not to spin the car or hit
the dirt. With the limited mods in the car I could easily be exiting a
corner, being on 3rd gear and mashing the pedal and instantly lighting up
the rears and doing a nice little spin-o-rama. The chassis was rigid enough
to make the car bop up and down when going over a bump or in a high-speed
corner. Suddenly driving the car in SCGT was on a whole new level for me!
And it was even more FUN than when I had started three days ago.
It turned out that the M3 was, again, clearly faster than the AI-cars but
that's my own fault since I had adjusted the difficulty to medium. This is
as far as I've come in my career and I am anxiously waiting to test the GT1
supercars!
All in all I would heartily recommend SCGT Racing to anyone who uses his
computer for driving simulations. I guarantee you will have FUN with the
game. Depending on many factors it may take you awhile to find the optimum
settings for the AI-opposition but when you do not only is the driving FUN
(I could drive my Bimmer in Donington alone on the track for a week finding
spots where to improve my line and lap time) but the competition too!
It must be a difficult task for the software company to simulate cars
ranging from 200kW to 600kW WITHIN one piece of software. For me some of the
cars didn't feel right but others simply clicked and the FUN factor was
guaranteed. I am sure there are improvements to be done but even as it is
right now I am happy to have spend the money on SCGT that I did.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with EA or any other organization
which might benefit form the positive things i've said here about SCGT
Racing :-)
Pekka Heino
Team BHMS
www.bhmotorsports.com