Just finished some laps of the "Official F1 sim" demo and I must say
I'm a little bit dissappointed at this stage.
Seems like this is another missed opportunity to produce a good sim.
A bit of a shame really as the graphics actually are very impressive.
Lots of various***pit and outside views. Some of the***pit views
are similar to the driver head view of CPR but, IMO, seem to be much
more usable. The***pit views themselves are very good.
Speed in the game is also good. Sound is the best I've heard yet in a
GP sim however it does need to be adjustable in order to be able to
hear your own engine (same prob as SCGT) .
I don't want to go into too much detail but the main problem I've
noticed is that when you mount a kerb your either on it or off.
There's no smooth transition. It's like 2 frames have been used. One
for on - one for off. Reminds me of the replay in Nascar when your
on the inside of the banking, except this happens when your driving
the car in the***pit !!
Wheel spin is not at all convincing, can't put my finger on this one
but it just does not feel right.
There's a big deadzone in the steering department, however I expect
that you will be able to adjust this in an options menu.
NO support for seperate axis (couldn't get the brake to work on my
Thrustmaster F1 Pro)
The demo does seem a bit flakey and hopefully Eidos are just giving us
an early look, but somehow I don't think so. Anyhow if they can fix
these "features" I might take another look and maybe we'll have
something to keep us going until GP3 arrives some year.
I'd be interested to hear feedback on what the rest of you think of
this sim demo, or is it just another arcade racer masquerading as a
sim.
Regards, Tony
I also noticed that graphically, they switch tire textures instantly to reflect
whether you are on grass, dirt, etc., as opposed to a build up of texture that
wears away once you get going on the track. I don't know if that's how they're
modeling the effects of having "grassy" or "dirty" tires, but it's fairly
disconcerting visually.
Some of their textures, particularly on the trees and hills, seem very poor,
8-bit quality at best. The car models seem a bit sub-par, and the wheels have
that bizarre highlighting thing going on that makes them seem like they're
covered in Saran Wrap or something. The "effects" of wet spray from the tires
and grass being kicked up by the tires look very bad. Their car tires feel nice
and solid and heavy in***pit view - almost like off-road tires - which is a
good feel, just not for F1 cars. The game also lacks a feeling of "classiness"
that F1 carries with it - it feels more like some kind of really bad Formula 1
carnival ride - both in terms of atmosphere and driving physics.
The one thing I was impressed by was the lack of slowdown with all of the cars
on the track - though it seems severe graphical and physics modeling
concessions were made to achieve this. I'd have more hope if it weren't
supposed to be out in June, but I'm not sure how much will change by then.
>Just finished some laps of the "Official F1 sim" demo and I must say
>I'm a little bit dissappointed at this stage.
It seems ot me to be another game of the Johnny Herbert GP level. I guess
that is what I expected, so not "dissapointed" though one always hopes that
it'll be the next great thing.
Yes, perhaps the views are good, but the***pit graphics could be a lot
better. Pretty low res. Are the rpm lights really on the wheel, rotating
with the driver? The side mirrors are non-functional. Instead, they offer a
rearview mirror*** out in space. Usable, but unrealistic.
Yes! I love the sound! Why can't Ubisoft copy this! Maybe it is unrealistic
for what the driver hears, but it matches my recollection of the sound from
the GP I attended (which gave me goosebumps).
That's a killer for me. I have CH Pro Pedals which have only the seperate
axis operation. I can't brake the car in a controllable manner in the demo.
: Yes, perhaps the views are good, but the***pit graphics could be a lot
: better. Pretty low res. Are the rpm lights really on the wheel, rotating
: with the driver?
I believe that real F1 cars nowadays tend to have the "shift now"
lights on the wheel yes.
--
Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving
Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York.
www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html
