Quote from dawesdust_12 :

I'm gonna get a massive spoiler and wing (yes both) for my vw. It'll be dubba dubba awesome!

You already have a wing. And lucky for you, unlike Jakg putting a wing on his and "being a ricer," your car came factory with a wing and 16 inch wheels over the standard GLS turbo. Since its factory, its not rice and therefore must be functional. I know I'm loving the added downforce of my wing on the Wolfsburg over the GLS. Had I not known it was factory, I would have just thought it was cosmetic and never would feel the difference....

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

I am getting my car chipped on Saturday. Should give it an extra 30bhp and about 50lb ft torque..

Should Dustin chip his, he would indeed achieve much greater horsepower than 30, 150-209 hp and 162 to 242 lb-ft. Unfortunately, the overall result would be the same for me, just wouldn't be as much of a % increase from 180-209 and 173 -242 lb-ft (APR chip stage 1). So, no derogatory comments from me.

Last edited by mrodgers, Wed 23 Feb 2011, 20:34.

550D... D3100... only you can tell. Pick them up in your hands and try out the controls. I don't like the way Canon does it's controls compared to Nikon. Someday I'll be getting me a Nikon. More important stuff to spend that kind of cash on for now though.

Quote from MAGGOT :

You have to buy the house anyways; after you finish the second c'ship in a type (the B4 "high" series, for instance) you win the car of the antagonist of that class, and you can't sell or get rid of it in any way. Your starting location only has room for two vehicles, so you'd either have to sell your first vehicle or buy a new house to have garage room for another vehicle for the next series.

From what I am reading, not entirely true. First, I've been ignoring the "cell calls" about the ugly pink Mustang and I'm on the 2nd B4 champ. Second, I've read that if you don't have garage space, it goes to the used dealer and takes up room there. So, you don't necessarily get stuck with it in your garage and can't sell, but it will get stuck taking up a spot in the used dealership.

So, what do you have to do to get to Hawaii? Is it exploring all the Ibiza roads or do you have to do certain amounts of the events? I don't have much time to play other than in the late evenings on the weekends, so I'll never make the massively fast progress everyone else makes in less than a week.

I just bought my 2nd house and I've had it for 2 weeks. Just bought it for the heck of it too since I am still in the 2nd off-road championship. I wanted to buy another car to explore with, but I don't want stuck with no money to buy the next class car for the champs. Thought of that after I spent the money for the house, but luckily before I spent all the rest of the cash for a car I want to explore with.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

It was a long time ago but IIRC the engine was a 1.6 with a turbo, and this was in the USA but it might've been an import.

Ah, you're right. I forgot about the turbo, though it was the 22RET, which is a 2.4L. If it was an import, then that is probably the case. For our time as old folks, starting in the 3rd generation, the trucks came with the 22R, and in 1988 moved to the fuel injected 22RE. The turbo was an option in 86 and 87.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

...people who actually pay road tax for their vehicles to be delayed as they wobble about.

See, that's where we are different over here. We don't pay a specific road tax. Our roads are funded by tax on gasoli...... oh....

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Apparently 1987 was the first year they made it so it featured all the design ****-ups that you don't get in other years. I remember it always cost a fortune in labour to fix it too because they'd hidden the engine under a ton of other stuff that had to be disassembled to get to it. And it was sluggish and useless. And it had a silly digital speedo. And the 4WD was crap in snow. Bleh, crap car.

Wow, you're complete opposite experience than me. The Toyota trucks over here came with 1 engine option, the 22R (later the 22RE fuel injected) and they were a dream to work on. Tons of room. No digital gauges, and 4WD has nothing to do with driving in snow since it's all about the tires, but I didn't even use 4WD in snow with mine. There was no need for it (and I live where we get a lot of snow.) The 80's and early 90's Toyotas were nearly indestructible aside from the rust.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

The last Toyota I drove regularly was a 1987 4Runner and the thing was always breaking down, that's why I was asking about the famous reliability.

Now I have to try to figure out how you could possibly get an 87 4Runner to break down at all. My 88 was the best one of the bunch. 189k miles and I only ever put front brakes every 50k, rear brakes at 150k, and clutch at 150k.

No wait, I rebuilt the starter just before I sold it for $8 and rebuilt the clutch slave cylinder for $10.

I'm guessing he's referring to the fart can.

Quote from Forbin :

Isn't that what side mirrors are for? They're definitely not for looking at what's directly behind you. You have the rear view mirror for that.

Yup, the point of reference is that, the car just left your rear view and entered your side view. Know your car and you know where the car in the mirror is. If it's not in your rear view, you don't lane change.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Are Toyotas as reliable as they say or that a myth?

Over here in the States, the older Toyotas, absolutely. I've beaten and severely abused Toyota trucks for 15 years and have never put a dime other than standard brakes and 1 clutch in mine (184k miles driven combined 3 Toy trucks by me, 419k miles combined overall on the trucks.)

Other people I know have beaten and severely abused Corollas and have never put a dime into them other than brakes.

My Toyota recommendation comes prior to the "OMG, MY CAR WON'T STOP" era of the mid 2000's.

Quote from Forbin :

I have my mirrors set up such that there's a slight overlap between the wing mirrors and side mirrors.

Aren't wing mirrors and side mirrors the same?

Quote from [RCG]Boosted :

its impossible to have NO blindspots.
sadly.
there will always be a blindspot, as small as it might be.
well, let me correct myself.
if u have HUGE sidemirrors u might be able to have no blindspots.
and the sidemirrors should always adjusted that u can see very little of ur car...i mean almost nothing, but still visible.

It depends on the car and it's mirrors. I don't drive a lot of highway (2 lane same direction) so I haven't messed with precisely adjusting my mirrors in quite some time. When I commuted about 40 miles down the interstate to work and back every day, I did set my mirrors up very precisely. I was able to follow a car behind me with the rear view and as he left my rear view, he entered the side mirror and as he left the side mirror, he would then enter my peripheral vision. I set up the same on the other side by pulling into the left lane and passing the car in front of me. There were no blind spots in that particular car and it didn't have large mirrors.

I burned my first CD of MP3s for my new-to-me radio in the car capable of playing MP3s. Only half of them play. Thus, I still play normal CDs.

The only thing I use an MP3 player for is for plugging into the guitar amp with backing tracks. It's not my MP3 player, but my wife's. Thus, I only have a few backing tracks on it and she keeps deleting them because she can't figure out how to not have them play.

I still need an antenna adapter to plug in the aftermarket radio into the VW antenna (been too dang cold out to bother with it since I first installed the radio), or else I would usually just listen to the radio.

I'm probably one of the very few who ever had a "boom box".

Blind spot

Sorry, but shoulder checking is checking a blind spot. You should be facing forward looking ahead when you are driving. Turning around to check an area that is blind to you via the mirrors is no longer looking forward. They are blind spots.

Your mirrors should be adjusted to eliminate as many blind spots as possible. This is why when everyone talks about the side mirrors in LFS and how it is wrong that you can't see the car in the side mirrors, they are talking nonsense. You should not be able to see your car in the side mirrors because what you would see behind you with them adjusted that way, you already see in the rear-view mirror. Side mirrors should be adjusted to see what is between the view in your center mirror and what you see by glancing out the side window.

Again, the blind spots are what you can't see when sitting in a driving position looking forward, not twisting around looking backwards, not leaning forwards and to the side to see around the a-pillar, what you see when sitting in a driving position looking forwards, glancing in your mirrors, and glancing to the side. Don't be playing Twister while in the car trying to drive.

Quote from Silverracer :

Yes, we all have different takes on the game - but LFSF users opinions on this is simply too varied!

This is why it is so hard to get a decent opinion. You have a collection of hardcore sim racers here giving opinion, then you go to the official forum and you have what seems to me to be a bunch of very young casual players.

Opinions on the TDU forum ranges from the license and racing is way to difficult to way to easy. I found nothing difficult. I use an XBox controller and the cars are like slot cars. I hear about how the back end breaks loose, yet can't see it myself using a controller.

I'm trying to look at the driving from a casual semi-sim wanting stance and I say driving the cars is like driving something from a 1995 car game.

I have Forza 2 and that is somewhat what I would expect from a driving/racing game today. It's not so difficult that you can use a game controller very easily, but it is still interesting enough. TDU2 is certainly nothing like what I expected. You accelerate full throttle until you reach a turn. At the point of turning, you hit the brakes and the car immediately slows almost to a stop. I don't know how people are having such a terrible time with it, the driving is so easy. I've seen complaints about how the throttle and braking with a wheel is like an on/off button, and I can't figure out why that is so difficult, because you really do not need to ease on throttle and brakes. In fact, the driving model is so easy, my 6 year old daughter can easily run through the licenses and the races.

If you don't know, you end up winning some really crappy cars and there is no way of selling these cars. I now know so I won't do those races unless I absolutely have to, but that is a problem. It seems that the only way to get rid of any cars is if you either don't have room or don't have enough money for the one you want, thus it asks you to "trade in" one that you have.

Thus far, it seems to be very little different than the original TDU aside from the driving physics to me. There was a lot of speculation about fuel usage and stuff, but I see no indication of that (I'm not online with it.)

I can't say anything about the graphics, I'm using a 27 inch tube television....

Don't get me wrong, it is fun, but it definitely isn't what I expected at all. A lot of hype and very little result. Pure arcade racer with 1995 technology.

Quote from BigPeBe :

Camera movement kills connection to the car. It feels like you are moving unattached from the car or something other weird. It just doesn't feel right and it makes it really hard to concentrate and know where the car is actually going.

I just tried it using the controller and cockpit view before my 10 yr old kicked me off the XBox, LOL. Yeah, the look does move when you turn, but it is delayed and you don't move the controller stick enough to make it effective. I had to actually yank the car off the road around a turn to see the view looking towards the direction of the turn.

Love the feature in LFS using a wheel though. It is better when you are using a low FOV so the view is more like looking out the windshield rather than sitting in the back seat viewing nearly the entire interior.

Oh, another thing I don't like. Seems to me most of the roads on the interior of the island are dirt roads. Seems they went a bit too far with the "off-road" part. I don't want to drive a straight highway from place to place or around the long way around the perimeter if I'm going somewhere from one side to the other.

Last edited by mrodgers, Mon 14 Feb 2011, 01:11.

Hmm, first Jakg posted his video and I went out to quickly fab up a camera mount for in the car. I didn't get it finished with the mounting, but did test it out with temporary mounting (bungie cords, LOL.) I tossed it in the trunk and hadn't thought of it again, but now more videos are popping up, so I may have to pull it back out to finish the mounting.

I'm not going to show my test because it mostly flipped up to show the roof (mounted behind my head to the headrest) and I flipped it back when I stopped only to have it flip up again. I'll fix the mounting and take a video sometime this week.

Quote from rich uk :

...found this ride on a road I take often

So, not your video then? That's a nice road.

Quote from BigPeBe :

The annoying camera movement is what happens when you turn the wheel. Head automatically turns to the direction you are turning. Best would be a 100% locked camera.

Really? Now I'm so jealous. Because of LFS having this feature, I'm ruined from the majority of racing games out there because most are a 100% locked camera. I'd love for the head to turn when turning on the XBox. Not sure if it does with a wheel, but it definitely doesn't with a controller.

Quote from Rtsbasic :

Control is definitely best with a gamepad, I'm using a PS2 controller and it works nicely. There's a good pad config on the TDU forums.

Yeah, the XBox has absolutely 0 configuration for the controller unless you are using a wheel. I just want to be able to remap the shifting to the right stick up/down like the seq. shifter on my MOMO instead of buttons and change the bumper buttons to view left/right.

Not entirely sure, but I think a circular polarizing filter would work for you to get rid of the glare on the windshield.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Don't use the cockpit is my advice, I agree that the view you get from it is awful and the head movements make you think the car is sliding when it aint.

I don't know what you mean by "head movements". You've said it before. Is PC different than XBox, or is it using a wheel is different than a controller? I have no head movements at all. The view is so locked down looking straight, no movement when turning, no cockpit movement from the car hitting bumps and such. Just dead straight as in, again, a driving game from 1995.

Quote from JJ72 :

pretty much defeats the point of immersive cruising then, I thought that was why most people played TDU.

Don't see how the cars can be fun to drive (they are barely drivable!), I am actually playing NFS:HP instead of this, that's how bad it is.

I also wonder what you folks mean when you say barely drivable. Is that barely drivable because it is too easy? That is how it is on the XBox. You drive maximum speed, hit the brakes very quickly at the very last minute because the car stops nearly instantaneous, turn and accelerate back to max speed. Again as I said, very 1995ish gamey.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

You have to play it on Hardcore to be fair, if you are it's quite fun. But then I liked Sega Rally, so maybe that's why I enjoy it. Either way here is a video of the car you unlock for finding 10 wrecks in the Ibiza 2 area...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th4uppsnGyc

Yup, I'm playing on Hardcore, but I also don't have a wheel as I said. Wish my old MOMO worked with the xBox.

It's quite ridiculous the look of my game compared to all you folks, looking at that video. I'm playing xBox on a 1996 27 inch tube television, LOL. Makes it really hard to play games because I have to squint and sit 3 inches away from the TV to read anything on the screen.

I certainly didn't expect the driving model to play like a true racing simulator, but I also didn't expect it to be a driving model similar to what I played back when my 1996 television was new, LOL. With hardcore mode, I would expect it to be unplayable with a game controller and it being necessary to have a wheel, but that's just not the case.

I wish there was controller configuration options for the console folks. I never was a big console and game pad gamer as I had just acquired the xBox recently (free) and using buttons for something like shifting is odd. I'd love to put the shifter on the right stick just like the sequential shifter on my PC wheel.

I also really need to be able to change the FOV or the seat position in the cockpit for it to be useful. In LFS I use 50 degree FOV and can't stand seeing majority car interior when I'm trying to drive in a racing game/sim. Also can't stand seeing the wheel turning as I'm used to LFS and NR2003 as the last 2 racing "games" I've played for the last about 9 years and could remove the wheel from the view in those.

That right above obviously is nitpicking, but those are important for the feel of the game. The driving physics though is really bad when you can compare it to a game from 15 years ago.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

I don't see what the problem is, the physics were never realistic, and now they're less realistic, but we have loads more content, and it's not like the car aint fun to drive. I suspect the problem is we have a bunch of drifters on this forum and you can't really drift on TDU2. Certainly everytime I played Forza 3 with people on here the only thing they did was drift.

Bought it last night because my daughter loved the first one....

I disagree that the cars are fun to drive. I read either here or on one of the TDU forums I was browsing a comparison to Sega Rally from way back. Now that I've tried it, that is exactly what it seems like to me.

Cockpit view is terrible, there's no adjustment and all you have is a tiny little section of the screen to see out of. I've been using the hood (bonnet) view. Braking from any speed is nearly instantaneous.

I'm only using an xBox controller because I only have a MOMO wheel which I've read doesn't work with xBox. Forza isn't the greatest physics compared to something like LFS, but is pretty good. This is nothing even remotely like Forza. I've been wondering if all the talk here was biased from a sim racer/enthusiast view, but now having tried TDU2, I see the talk was not. It is pretty crappy.

What is the loads more content? I'm not online with the xBox, so haven't tried Test Drive online. How different can it be with online? There were clothes shops, car dealers, and tuners in version 1, there are those in version 2. From what I gathered, you met with people online and drove around, you meet with people online with version 2 and drive around. What is different?

Basically, it is like playing an old driving/racing game from around 1995. The driving physics and the sounds are basically, like I read someone say, like Sega Rally.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

I was looking at an XCarLink which is £85. But I don't want to take my dash apart to **** about with what is, to me, an expensive car.

FYI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSe7CnLmD58

Note, from 53 seconds to 54 seconds is the actual removal of the radio. All the rest of the video is a long explanation of the removal keys, available for me here for $4.

1 second to remove the radio, no dash taking apart needed....

Quote from ACCAkut :

thanks to one like this:

I could do that too, but that clears out the memory to the satellite and it takes days to get everything downloaded again.