I got this game from Best Buy (fortunately I didn't spend too much money
on it). Like the console ported World of Outlaws (the sequel to Dirt Track
Racing: Sprintcars), the menus are cumbersome to navigate around for the PC,
being more suited to the consoles. Also, there's a derth of setup options
compared to the older Ratbag games.
The biggest thing I'm having a hangup about are the physics. The cars
are much harder to drive, but I'm not sure its in a realistic way. In Dirt
Track Racing 2, when I drive the cars rarely spin out. I can really feel
the forces on the car. In SNS, when I approach a corner, and I'm going a
little too fast, I will move the wheel to the left. The wheel depicted in
the game (in the cockpit view), WON'T move. The car either will slide into
the wall, or the wheel will snap around in the cockpit view and the car goes
into a really bad spin. To top it off, the wheel in the cockpit view seems
to lag a bit sometimes, even just driving straight down the track.
So is this behavior realistic? I tried World of Outlaws for comparison
(granted, they are different cars) and I didn't see this behavior at all-
the cars were much easier to turn around and I didn't get the "canned spin"
feeling. What's the deal, is DTR 2 too easy to drive (I'm racing on 100
percent physics), are the controls bad (is there some control issue with the
Logitech Momo, maybe needing a patch?), or does Saturday Night Speedway have
bad physics?
OK... I figured it out. The car was understeering. The default setups
for this game are lousy.
After racing DTR 2 and Saturday Night Speedway head to head for a few
hours, I think Saturday Night Speedway has much more sophisticated physics,
to the point that DTR seems like childs play now. I raced some of the
tracks head to head just to compare, and I tried to use similar cars. In
DTR 2 it is impossible to get a real spin with a car, whereas in SNS it can
happen if you aren't careful. Also, in SNS it's easier to get the cars
airborne and flip them over, whereas I haven't seen this happen in DTR 2.
Saturday Night Speedway could use a full number of setup options, and the
tracks don't have as much variety (only one D oval, no tri-ovals like in DTR
2, and no real lopsided ovals... I really like tri-ovals), but I do think
the physics work for the most part. There are some very challenging tracks
in SNS too where you just cannot powerslide your way through the turns.
There are some fantasy tracks in the game you can unlock (apparrently sort
of Powerslide style fantasy tracks), but they don't make up for the cookie
cutter ovals. The career mode is OK, but I really preffered the older
Ratbag career mode layouts (specificly, the ability to have different
difficulty levels for the whole career mode), and the menus are not very
streamlined.
Using the improved game engine, with more setup options and more oval
variety, this might make a good Dirt Track Racing 3.
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 09:20:21 -0400, "magnulus" <[email hidden]>
wrote:
In Saturday night speedway you cannot turn the wheel unless you are
either braking or accelerating. This game is hard, but in my opinion
the physics are spot on.
Yes the game could do with some improvement, but overall I think it is
quite good.
