My take on MS:CPR

I've had MS:CPR for a couple months now, and have downloaded Arne's track fixes (which are great) and Jose's new car sets (the F1 cars are superb). Here's my take: On Pro mode, with no cheats on, the game doesn't exhibit the problems I've heard people complain about, namely magnetic walls and steering problems. I think, with Linear steering and speed sensitivity the game actually simulates driving well, as far as adhesion to the track. Now, the tires temp is modelled, and weaqr down effects definately impede your ability to get around corners as time goes on. I've only driven sports cars on a closed track, never open wheeled racers like these. The acceleration seems close to what you guage from watching TV cams, perhaps these cars are a bit too quick from 0-100. I also don't really have any Pit problems, the crew makes the changes under race conditions like I would want, and I don't mind the tractor beam effect once on pit lane. I don't race the AI. It is terrible. On street tracks it hits you way too often (even with the patch) and the oval tracks, even playing with the times in the races subdir still doesn't get you cars that evenly race. Worst of all, the game certainly cheats in relation to the physics model. The AI does wild *** moves that would certainly send any human driver careening out of control. In addition, since it doesn't really follow the physics model you do, it accelerates impossibly on street tracks since it has no downforce since it doesn't need it. At least that's how it seems. Combined with the fact it slows up too much in the chicanes and navigates like a drunk stuttering blind man, it's unplayable as a single player sim. In test lap mode, as a straight sim of a closed track test, it's not bad. The 4 best road courses (Portland, Mid-Ohio, Road America and Laguna) are all great fun to drive just for time. The best part of the game as well is the DirectPlay API. Just getting one or two people to drive the road courses isn't too bad. It's actually quite fun. I haven't used the track editor, but others have and have greatly improved the tracks. Arne Martin has done quite a good job here. In any case, it's in the bargain bin at Best Buy for $9.99. If you have a D3D card, and don't have 3DFX it's only $10 and I think it's not bad. Can others elaborate on why, specifically, it's so disliked? The head panning? I like that actually. Also, I can't find the best times listed on the Apex outside of the setup file names. Is there a list of people's lap times on pro mode with no cheats on? I'm in the low 1:20s on Laguna, and the setup claims a 1:11, which I have no idea how they got that fast. -dgd

Well I don' t care much for CPR. The only reason worth playing it is just to see awesome graphics, starved of memory. The best sessions are the test sessions, and even those I can' t figure out. For instance, I tested at the new Homestead track by Arne Martin, my fastest lap in my first 3 sessions was a 25.51. Then for no reason with the same settings and setup, I couldn' t go past 27 seconds. Most laps were actually in the 29s and 30s. NO matter how many runs i did, I couldn' t even get close. CPR has a lot of good features, like the head panning, the pit crew actuually move, etc. But, overall it needs a lot of work! My brother likes it over all other racing sims, I know it' s only because of the graphics. He' s big on graphics! Personally, I favor ICR2 anyday over CPR. Hopefully ICR3 will be 3dfx compatible, and have some of CPR, GP2 & n2' s features! Krisstian http://team-x.com/ <--------still under construction

Your're fastest in the qualifying sessions. There's a big difference between testing & qualifying, I don't know why. On ovals, there's as much as a 5 m.p.h difference for me between testing&qualifying using the same setup. Racer X Veteran Sim Racer Victory Lane- http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/1423/

Quoted text (16 lines)

> I've had MS:CPR for a couple months now, and have downloaded Arne's track > fixes (which are great) and Jose's new car sets (the F1 cars are superb). > I don't race the AI. It is terrible. On street tracks it hits you way too > often (even with the patch) and the oval tracks, even playing with the > times in the races subdir still doesn't get you cars that evenly race. > Worst of all, the game certainly cheats in relation to the physics model. > The AI does wild *** moves that would certainly send any human driver > careening out of control. In addition, since it doesn't really follow the > physics model you do, it accelerates impossibly on street tracks since it > has no downforce since it doesn't need it. At least that's how it seems. > Combined with the fact it slows up too much in the chicanes and navigates > like a drunk stuttering blind man, it's unplayable as a single player sim. > Can others elaborate on why, specifically, it's so disliked? The head > panning? I like that actually. > -dgd

I spent many hours trying to get the steering to work correctly. This included 3 calls to MS tech support, on my dime, w/o any success. Finaly a "supervisor"informed me this it was "designed that way" and that was the way it was supposed to be. Funny, the steering on my other driving sims was fine. They had no explanation for that, however. Fortunately, I was able to return CPR and it will be a long time before I purchase another MS game. Also, as much as I respect Computer *** World magazine for it's reviews, they gave CPR a 5 star rating ???? Since then I have heard very little positive about the game. JRB

I've never heard of this before from anyone. My times are the same whether in test or qualifying. Within tenths or even hundreds of a second of eachother. Wish I had an explanation for you. Are you sure you haven't changed the fuel load or switched on the pits and enabled/disabled tire wear and fuel consumption? A re-install sounds too simple but sometimes is all that's needed to fix a game. Dave ( DmndDave)

If Microsoft was spending millions every year to advertise in your magazine, you would not write a negative reveiw on any of their software games, would you? I have yet to see a bad reveiw on CPR in any Magazine.

>>Can others elaborate on why, specifically, it's so disliked? The head >>panning? I like that actually. >Microsoft poor after-shipping service. The lied to us so many times I can't >count them. LIED, thats very bad for a company name. Especially Microsoft. And this is different from typical Microsoft service in what way?? I wonder if they're going to say that Win98 multitasks.....