CART Review up at Digital Sports Page

I'd like to compliment you on a even handed review. Although I disagree with you on the physics model of CPR (I still think it has an unrealistic amount of grip regardless of setup) I agree with the rest of what you say and value the obvious work you've put into expressing your opinions. I think its must reading for anyone considering buying CPR.

I too read the review and think Randy did a great job. Since I have been *** him lately, I figured an atta-boy couldn't hurt. It does seem like the AI in the game is as lame as in the real released product. And it seems that UBIsoft is using the same AI in their F1 title :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. > >Enjoy and please limit your shots from flamethrowers to short bursts please -- > > I'd like everyone to have an equal shot at my newly acquired flameproof vest > Pretty fair review I would say. Emphasised the good without glossing > over the bad. Even gave these bad boys here on r.a.s. a mention! No > flames from me on that score. > Andretti Racing 98, now THAT is another story.... ;-) > Cheers! > John

Thanks :) has an unrealistic amount of grip regardless of setup) >> Oh well, at least I mentioned that some people disagreed completely with the physics, obviously when opinions vary so widely no one can really tell anyone else what they will think of it. the obvious work you've put into expressing your opinions. I think its must reading for anyone considering buying CPR. >> Thanks for the endor***t. Its gratifying to see that the hard work pays off. Btw, did you see Mo Gugelmin's eval of the game on the MS web site? Of course <include disclaimer about how you have to take anything on vendor web site with a heavy grain of NaCl>: "Finally there is a race simulation game with the real feel and characteristics of a CART racing car. The speed perception, GRIP [emphasis mine] and braking capacity, mirror exactly what we have on the 'real thing'. Also, all the possible set ups we can change in the real car are available in the game. The race tracks graphics are fantastic and absolutely real. What will happen is that those players used with the so far available race games, will have to re adapt their playing, because what they've played so far are games that don't have the feeling of a real car." ? Doesn't it sound like the CART team went to Big Mo after reading from the 'net about how unrealistic their grip was? It seems to be directed right at peoples' complaints about the grip and unfavorable comparisons to ICR2! As you know, I tend to favor the grip level as its done in CPR and we disagree on it, but you have to admit that in order to refute the statements from the drivers, you kind of have to allege that they were paid to lie. Mo's comments don't leave a lot of room open for alternate interpretations, do they? Randy Randy Magruder Staff Writer Digital Sportspage [link lost in import]

Sure they do, we don't know if Mo was paid or not, athlete's are paid to endorse products all the time.

Well, the particular aspect of Mo's comments that interested me was... ...the reason being that the above comments strongly suggest that he has also spent enough time with the other race games to know that they are wrong. Had he only played CPR he would be unqualified to make the statement he did, wouldn't you agree? Soooooo, do you think Mo has sat and played ICR2, GP2 etc, has he only played CPR when requested by MS/TRI, or is he really just comparing CPR with other race _games_ as he said? :) Cheers! John

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>Well, the particular aspect of Mo's comments that interested me was... >> What will happen is >> that those players used with the so far available race games, will have to re >> adapt their playing, because what they've played so far are games that don't >> have the feeling of a real car." >...the reason being that the above comments strongly suggest that he >has also spent enough time with the other race games to know that they >are wrong. Had he only played CPR he would be unqualified to make the >statement he did, wouldn't you agree? Soooooo, do you think Mo has sat >and played ICR2, GP2 etc, has he only played CPR when requested by >MS/TRI, or is he really just comparing CPR with other race _games_ as >he said? :)

Is it the chicken or the egg? Did he come up with these comments based on his own experience (which were repeated here by the CPR reps in response to our complaints) or did the CPR reps suggest to him that these were some of the complaints and could he perhaps "address that issue" in his comments? We'll never know. Before you send me UCE, I know what you're thinking... Did he complain to five or six postmasters last month? Now, you must ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do you, punk?

It does sound rather like that <g> There is another interpretation: CPR has a very realistic model when driven in a realistic manner with the default setups (or slight variations of them). This would almost certainly be how Mo was driving. But the fact that we were able to break the "sim" within just a few days by demolishing the lap times proves that the model CANNOT be right when driven by a simmer who does not have real world experiences to shape the driving style. For instance, if Mo "knows" that he has to lift quite a bit for T6 in real life then he is going to do the same in CPR, especially if he can feel the rear end starting to slide. But we're not that intelligent <g> We just increase the speed through the turns until we find that we can't get through them anymore. Yes the rear end slides, but it is miracuously caught again, so we can get through T6 flat out. So the model is both very good & , in places, very bad. Drive within the limits of the model and it provides a "just so" feeling - but it allows unrealistic driving. Some tightening up of what happens when the grip level is exceeded would do wonders for the model. I don't think it would actually take a particularly large change to the model, but TRI really, really, REALLY need to get one of the better SIM drivers on board to advise them and test the product. As it is I just cannot believe that any experienced, fast sim driver (and especially a hotlapper) had any input whatsoever to the model - or if they did then they were ignored / overruled :( BTW - nice review; well thought out, balanced and a nice turn of phrase. Cheers, Richard

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>>? >>Doesn't it sound like the CART team went to Big Mo after reading from the 'net >> about how unrealistic their grip was? It seems to be directed right at >> peoples' complaints about the grip and unfavorable comparisons to ICR2! As >> you know, I tend to favor the grip level as its done in CPR and we disagree on >> it, but you have to admit that in order to refute the statements from the >> drivers, you kind of have to allege that they were paid to lie. Mo's comments >> don't leave a lot of room open for alternate interpretations, do they? > Sure they do, we don't know if Mo was paid or not, athlete's are paid >to endorse products all the time.

True, and as I said,some degree of salt is in order. However, it doesn't look as though his comments were particularly edited. Anyway, its an interesting contribution, even if the source is biased. Randy

>...the reason being that the above comments strongly suggest that he >has also spent enough time with the other race games to know that they >are wrong. I got an e-mail once from Paul Page of ABC answering my query about IndyCar II and whether the drivers played it. He said "they all do and they love it!". John, I may be in a position to answer that question at some point, and lets leave it at that :) Randy

>BTW - nice review; well thought out, balanced and a nice turn of phrase. Thanks :) Helps restore energy for the next review! :) Randy

>>Enjoy and please limit your shots from flamethrowers to short bursts please -- >> I'd like everyone to have an equal shot at my newly acquired flameproof vest >Pretty fair review I would say. Emphasised the good without glossing >over the bad. Even gave these bad boys here on r.a.s. a mention! No >flames from me on that score. Thanks :) Can you elaborate? All I did was write a hands-on preview, not a full blown review, and I believe I fairly indicated it to be an arcade game, which it more or less is. Randy

>I too read the review and think Randy did a great job. Since >I have been *** him lately, I figured an atta-boy couldn't >hurt. Thanks, man. It was a nervewracking review to write after seeing how passionate people here are! <G> Well, that's what I'd think, but I have been contacted by TR. They say I did NOT get the final, final product. I told them to send me something in shrinkwrap and I'll look at it to see what, if any, difference it makes in my review. But we WERE told by Microsoft that the gold version I had was final. Stay tuned... :) Randy

drivers, you kind of have to allege that they were paid to lie. Mo's comments don't leave a lot of room open for alternate interpretations, do they? << Lie is a extreme term, but regrettably its sometimes warranted. What happens more often, I dare say, is that a would be endorser is sat down and shown a product. They are fully aware that its hoped they'll find something nice to say about the product. They are also fully aware that if they cannot find something nice to say about the product then they are of no use to the products' promoters and therefore won't get paid anything. They will no doubt realise that the promoter would then simply find another seemingly creditably endorser who will find something nice to say, and who will then enjoy the remuneration that they could of had had they found something to prase about the product. There're not being asked to comment on a objective level but on a subjective level, and therefore any praise about any part of the product that they see fit to make is always an 'in my opinion' endor***t anyway. In this case the issue of lying is conveniently irrelevant. I don't believe that any serious thinking person would give any weight at all to these kinds of endor***ts. The only kind of endor***t that is worth anything is that which comes from expierenced, intelligent, unsolicited, unpaid for, and fully independent outside parties. This kind of thing is not as easy to get as the other kind of course. The logic that goes - " these are real world drivers and therefore their opinion must be creditably" is flawed IMO, for the above reasons as well as for other reasons. IMHO - In making comparisons between one sim and another, the endorser must be very competent at both. A two or four hour stint on the particular product you're being asked to praise is completely inadequate. The fine subtleties that can mean the difference between bad, reasonable, good, or great, cannot possibly be properly accessed in this time frame even by people familiar with the gene. The very fact that this inappropriate kind of endor***t approach was made makes it entirely obvious that this was an exercise in endor***t for endor***t sake, IMO. Its meaningless and is not worth a fig - but good luck to the drivers concerned who ( presumably ) 'got money for old rope'. race games, will have to readapt their playing, because what they've played so far are games that don't have the feeling of a real car." < This is an arrogant claim to say the least. Perhaps its true of some arcade style games but by tacitly claiming that games like GP2 or NASCAR2 "don't have the feeling of a real car" is an insult. One perhaps could remind the writer that GP2, for instance, was modelled with a considerable amount of input from the Williams GRANDprix racing team. To claim that your cars' feel is superior to GP2s' you're either, 1) a liar who's counting on the gullibility of your readers, 2) self deluded with your own achievements, 3) ignorant, 4) a true genius of the car racing simulator gene, 5) or just a loud mouthed idiot. I suspect that at least item 2) is the case here. CART PR has some problems. Its an acceptable racing 'game' as it stands but its too far towards the poor end of the simulator scale to say it's a great racing sim. Although I think its too soon to say this too sternly and only time will tell. IMHO the following are just a couple of obvious issues of either large or small importance that come to mind as I write here. The Road Surface. The road surface is too dark. It's a fact that real roads are very dark, and nearly black in some cases. So if you just took a snapshot of a real road surface and used that to depict the sims' surface you could rightly say that you were 100% realistic. But this is a case of what's technically realistic being functionally unrealistic. ( You must always go with what is functionally realistic IMO, else your facts will be right but the feel will be wrong ). The point is that in the real world, even with a very dark road surface colour, the unlimited resolution and frame-rate of actual vision allows a driver to distinguish enough detail and subtleties to read the road surface. This ability to read the road surface is the major point, not the incidental colour of the track. In order to achieve the same real-word surface readability the colour in a sim needs to be lighter. This is a point that every creditable racing sim to date seems to have implemented. Also the road surface needs to 'stream' in the direction of the cars' travel, or track-made-good, or velocity, call it what you will. The road surface texture streaming effect, as can be seen in other sims give the essential feel of car grip and slide. The best exponent of this I feel was actually GP1, or World Circuit as it was called in some places. The streaming road surface gave a great sense of feel for how the car was sliding on the track. Even GP2 seemed to have lost a bit of ground on this score. The***pit View. This is only passable as far as good looks go. Its below passable as far as car perception against the forward track is concerned. If you look around on the net you'll quickly find some really excellent looking***pits designed by amateurs for GP2. If I may be so bold to say, there are quite a number of these that are a lot better looking than yours. I would think that you might find this as a source of embarrassment. A facelift is in order here I believe. Apart from***pit aesthetics, the real problem is the feeling one gets when looking out from the***pit that the track seems too narrow. Much narrower proportionately than it really is. You can make the car the real width, you can make the track the real width, these things are just points of fact. But the perception of 'where you are in space relative to surrounding objects', depicted from the drivers position, are not a simple mathematical formula. The job is to simulate on a flat 2D glass screen the sense of ones' position amongst their surroundings as you'd get in the real world. This is a tall order and will require an 'unreal' solution as there is no real-world equivalent. Plain mathematics won't do here. You need to play around with false perspective's until you get the 'feel' as good as it can be. It'll never be perfect, but I think it can be better than you've achieved so far. The issue is to simulate the unmeasurable experience, not just the cold hard measurable facts. Real-world-facts LESS allowances-and-compromises-for-the-flat-glass-PC-world EQUALS a-bad-feeling-sim. For what its worth which may not be much. In any case best of luck. I do hope the CART team can do a good job of this. I'll buy the game in any case. It'll be interesting to see how some of my favourite circuits feel, eg Vancouver and Mid-Ohio. Cheers Phillip McNelley

On 17 Nov 1997 01:00:47 GMT, "Phillip McNelley" <a most thought-provoking post> I had mentioned this elsewhere. A member of the CART team (sorry, I forget who) pointed out that the + and - keys can be used in the ***pit view (much as they are used in the replay) to alter your viewing perspective. Trying fudging with that. This high degree of customizability of CPR is one of the important factors in its favor, IMO. I still haven't made the plunge yet, though (although I haven't found it on the store shelves and turned it down yet, either :). Before you send me UCE, I know what you're thinking... Did he complain to five or six postmasters last month? Now, you must ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do you, punk?