I see a lot of "crap, arcade" handling arguments and then I see a video like this:

http://vimeo.com/6606607

Cause that looks fantastic!

Quote from somasleep :

It has the cockpit view, it has weight shifting, oversteer, understeer, lift-off oversteer and game lap times are near real life laptimes. If game lap times are close to real lap times that suggest the level of grip is close to real life.

To me an arcade game is Outrun or Pole Position or some of those other NFS games.

*nod* that's the way I look at it. Maybe a bit "scientific". "Feel" and "car behavior" is heavily based in semantics and subjective opinion most of the time.

what are the grid sizes?

When racing out on the track, speed is not an issue. Actually it is, no mater how fast the car is going it is still not going fast enough! At 50 mph or 200 mph it is still not fast enough.

Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

what are the grid sizes?

16 cars single player, 8 cars multi I believe.

LOL @ How the Scirocco handles.

Also, after I press a turn-left key, the car starts to turn, but ingame wheel is still at centre for half of second

Must be the vsync effect that sticks at refreshing at monitors refreshrate. Read it is about 1-3 fps. Turn it off.

Or maybe just get a wheel

Some really great comments in the thread from everyone, cheers for your input!

I wonder about the physics though... at low speeds I agree, it doesn't feel quite right... but have any of us taken corners at 200kmh in any of these vehicles? Do we really know that the same sensation you get at 100km evenly extrapolates to higher speeds... or are we, as I feel, comparing sims against other sims... rather than sims against real life against other sims?

I do recommend you play with no HUD, no assists and hard AI... it's really goddamned difficult and even staying on the track is a chore... but ultimately, at the end of the day, it's an absolute blast. I just wish it had the track choice of ToCa 3!

Thought I'd find an answer to how good or bad this game really is on LFS forum

Looks like the only reason I might buy it is to settle on the paint job and body kit for the E36 M3. But yeah, it sounds like a massive disappointment for the sim community. But on the other hand, they couldn't have made a proper sim because 99% of the gamers would get fed up after 2 minutes of playing it.

This seems like a complete joke to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIDJrpr8sjM

How can you even judge the accuracy of a model by playing it on a game pad? Their cooperation must have ended with a big argument.

Quote from MadCat360 :

I see a lot of "crap, arcade" handling arguments and then I see a video like this:

http://vimeo.com/6606607

Cause that looks fantastic!




*nod* that's the way I look at it. Maybe a bit "scientific". "Feel" and "car behavior" is heavily based in semantics and subjective opinion most of the time.

according to this video sounds are amazing and also the feeling of speed is perfect...i wish that feeling would be present in lfs

Quote from Matrixi :

I've been playing this on PC for some 5 hours now, and it's utter crap if you're looking for any realistic features. It certainly isn't easy like arcade car games, but it isn't difficult because it would be a simulator of any sort. It's "difficult" for the wrong reasons, which are odd physics that relate in no way to how a real car reacts.

The force feedback feels like a mix of Gran Turismo 4 and GTR, in other words, nothing to write home about. The FFB is quite useless no matter what degrees you're using, it simply feels unnatural. Not to mention, the car feels nervous but yet unresponsive if you have to start turning after driving straight. You can wiggle your steering wheel a good 45 degrees from side to side, and the car will just keep going straight, even with high steering sensitivity setting. Feels a bit like driving an old american pickup truck with loose steering components. I tried to fiddle with the wheel settings for a long while, without finding any way to make them much better. You can't change the wheel settings while in a race either, you have to exit from the race to the game menu until you can change it, and starting another race takes ages until you can try out the adjusted settings. Awkward.

The physics.. are weird. The tires don't feel like tires at all. They sometimes grip and sometimes loose traction without any logical explanation. The cars react very arcadely in replays when you focus on looking at the physics. Drift mode is a massive joke. It's exactly the same kind of arcade-drift-mode that previous rice-NFS games and Grid have. All the real world techniques work for initating the drift, but only because it feels like that's what the developers wanted, not because it would happen through natural physics. Feels somehow "canned".

It's not a complete disaster though. It has nice graphics and it's definately more towards simulation than arcadeness compared to some of the previous rice-fanatic NFS games which were just ridiculous crap. I didn't expect anything from this title, and I didn't really get anything from it either. I wasn't delighted, but neither was I disappointed. At the end of the day, it's an arcade game like we all knew.

qft

My short review after 3h or so.

OK, first of all, this game is far far away from being called simulation. It's rather "real arcade" if you could call it that. That being said; its shit. Just like I thought it was going to be.

The steering input lag/delay is over the roof, which makes this game utterly annoying. I do not know what "Blimey!" were thinking when doing this.....
Even with the sensitivity nearly all the way up to max, it still has like 0.5sec delay which makes it rather hard and annoying.

I do not remember real cars having steering delays.....

The good parts are ofcourse the sounds and graphics; which are just stunning. Everything on max, the game looks and sounds beautiful, the cockpit is just absolutely breath taking.

But to be honest I would rather have great physics and meh graphics/sounds than vice versa.

Another high jump for EA and another disappointment.

Turn off V-sync, it might cause lag sometimes. I'm going to ... test it in like 1,5 hour .

I did.

Its not lag. Just bad development....

Haven't noticed that lag myself, will check it out.

Game is ridiculously hard past tier 3 by the way. One on one challenges are just insane and some of the special rounds (like the lovely vehicle below) are just too much.

That said, this game is EXCELLENT online against friends. If you join random servers you'll get random people.. main problem is people with all arcade elements on can race with all sim element drivers. And what kind of behaviour do you expect from an auto-driver with the racing line and traction control...? Exactly.

But, start a ranked server, limit the slots and quickly invite your friends... it's a blast. Been up all night racing against mates and before too long everyone has their eye in leading to some pretty hairy laps. Do recommend from that perspective.

But yes, I find myself heading back to rFactor-Historix and a bit of LFS when I want to get the feel for a real car.

I guess i must be one of the lucky people that hasnt had any problems with it(yet).
Ive been playing it for the past few days and im really enjoying it,spent most of today on The Ring just cant get enough of it

Few replays ive recorded on The Ring testing out the cars.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamMeStephen

Well it´s alot more a simulation then I thought but can´t test it without my keybord because it keeps crashing after ca. 10 seconds if im driving with my G25 :hbombthese seconds feel niiiiiiice) (HELP) :tit:

Btw, congrats nfs, it´s the first nfs that my pc can´t handle with full graphics

Got a chance to try it, it's definately not even close to realistic when it comes to handling but it's significant improvement over previous games. Enable spring/damper effects and centering spring from profiler, set steering ratio to 300-400 degrees. If you've played Test Drive Unlimited, driving feels is pretty similiar to that.

It's still quite unpolished product, changing some graphics details will cause crash to desktop. Changing resolution and v-sync works fine, but touch any other settings and it will crash few seconds into race. Luckily performance isn't too bad, some framerate drops when there's plenty of cars visible but that's due to having to run with high details.

I like this game. It most definitely isn't a sim, but it's entertaining enough to spend time with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyO3QpWdV9U

Quote from Crommi :

Luckily performance isn't too bad, some framerate drops when there's plenty of cars visible but that's due to having to run with high details.

yup...running low fps (20ish) at the start, but once ive took over 4-5 cars im up to 26-35.
didnt even try to lower settings...as i can live with that short drop.

Okay, my quick thoughts on the game...

The steering and physics are too unresponsive and lacking in feel. This means you have a hard time being precise in your handling of the car, and BOOM you land on the ass of some other car.

The races are WAY too short to be anything but carnage trying to get 1st - this just adds to the BOOM factor from the last point.

Also, handling 'upgrades'/changes can hardly be felt.. Whats up with that? I basically feel no difference in the handling between the S2000 weighing 1000 kg or 1400 kg.. Huh?!
The FFB is lazy too - my steering response is perfect, but the FFB is delayed..

Me likes it!


1680x


1680x

Quote from RasmusL :

Okay, my quick thoughts on the game...

The steering and physics are too unresponsive and lacking in feel. This means you have a hard time being precise in your handling of the car, and BOOM you land on the ass of some other car.

The races are WAY too short to be anything but carnage trying to get 1st - this just adds to the BOOM factor from the last point.

Also, handling 'upgrades'/changes can hardly be felt.. Whats up with that? I basically feel no difference in the handling between the S2000 weighing 1000 kg or 1400 kg.. Huh?!
The FFB is lazy too - my steering response is perfect, but the FFB is delayed..

Got to agree, it's no pleasure for me to play it with G25 :/.

Mmm... I found it ok on G25 after messing around with profiler. Not up to sim standards but good enough to keep me playing.

AI is bit frustrating however, I think they've tried to make it feel bit more lively but at times it feels like you're racing online on a server full of crashers. Occasionally they will not bother to brake into corners at all and use your car instead, they also block a lot which is good but they can't really tell difference between "clean block" and "push off the track".

The US desert circuit is damn annoying, there's at least three spots that make your car go bouncy-bouncy-into-wall.

Quote from Crommi :

The US desert circuit is damn annoying, there's at least three spots that make your car go bouncy-bouncy-into-wall.

Laguna Seca?

Quote from RasmusL :

Laguna Seca?

Nah, the one with a tunnel. Probably some fictional track, doesn't look like a race track at all.

Speaking of Laguna Seca and other familiar tracks, "racing line" is so wrong in some of the corners. Take Road America for example, on multiple places racing line wants you to enter corner in middle of the track and then miss the apex by a carwidht, take proper line through and you won't "master the corner".

Tried drifting too, differences between cars seem to be quite huge. Nissan 200SX felt way too grippy and was actually difficult to get sideways but BMW M3 E36 takes it to the other extreme and doesn't really like to go straight forward. Doing burnouts on 6th gear from standing start, that's drift mode physics for you :P