Here's a note by Steve Smith (former editor Car & Driver, and author of
the book "Winning" included with CART Racing by Papyrus), posted in the
SportsSim forum on Compuserve. It points out the state of magazine
reviews regarding some of our favorite racing sims. Enjoy! =)
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** I'm Mad As Hell an' I'm Not Gona Take It Any More! **
I'm getting a little steamed about the heat SODA is taking in the press.
I mean, it's been obvious for years that the game mags neither know nor
care about sims, unless--maybe--they're flight sims. But about auto racing
sims, they've been clueless, neither able to separate the bad (X-Car, RTI,
NFS2) from the good (NFS1, IndyCar, SODA), nor able to pinpoint why a
promising sim like CPR isn't ready for prime time (it's the AI, stupid).
Let's take a couple of for-granted's: the SODA buyer probably has never
heard of SODA-the-series, and buys on Papy's brand alone (even tho Papy is
only publisher, not developer). Stands to reason: buyer owns other Papy
sims (CR, N2) and, thus...probably...also already owns Rendition board.
End of argument No. 1: SODA has extreme h/w requirements. With a P133 or
better, and any run-o'-th'-mill Rendition board (including the new Diamond
Stealth II), the game runs as slick as alien chyme on a glass doorknob.
And two, you're not gonna get too many A.D.D. newbies to stick with SODA.
Granted, it's a steep learning curve. But there are two significant
groups I've noted who do well with the new driving model: masters of the
sim universes...and real car guys. The real car guys are new. I've never
set any sim down in front of a real car guy (by which I mean guys of either
sex who can--or do--acquit themselves well as talented amateurs in
club-level races like Sebring) who wasn't initially confounded by
it...until SODA. It's a testament to the game that it was immediately
accessible to drivers who have chauffeured Chenoweths in the real Baja
1000. To brain-dead Gen-Xers who like to run around dungeons blowing up
poor, innocent dragons, SODA is apparently too much trouble to waste the
seat-time on. They're missing the smoothest, most accurate driving model
available on any platform in the known universe.
Marc ("L8BRKR") Nelson, late of these pages, has asked me to "road test"
SODA for the newly reborn Sim Racing News. I've replied with vigor in
favor of this lovely piece of work. If you don't agree--eat me at
<<--Hysteresis>>
