Hi just a few words on the GTR2 demo from me
I dl'd it run it in the AI only mode cause I could'nt be bothered setting up my wheel as I wanted to suss out the graphics, views and such, not the actual gameplay, physics as I'm not qualified to judge that fully, but know what i like in the graphics dept
I only play LFS I have no other racing sim/game software on the system so I can only compare GTR2 to my own LFS experience
Ok I found overall for all the hype, the fact that it is a demo for a "fully completed product from a major game maker with substantial backing and resources" and the big file size, it was a big disapointment, I expected perfection.( Marketing Hype alluded this was the best racing experience money could buy etc etc)
Let me explain, pls no flames from GTR/@fans, I know LFS is not the be all, best there is, to some either.
Ok graphics, I found apart from the fact that the cars are available in RL, they didn't look any better imho than those available in LFS, apart from some showed a dirt layer which I figured was a nice bit of realism, I thought the sky looked crap! LFS looks to have a richer more natural sky in a fuller sense. I found the sun starburst effect overdone and annoying, It looks like a PSP ulead based plugin effect
The tracks? Who cares if it is a RL track or not, it's how it is represented in visual form that counts. The audience/crowd are just flat figures, much the same as in LFS, the scenery is very sparse and not as good as LFS (billboards etc)
Night time racing, forget it, the headlight beams are nothing like RL especially looking at an external view of the car,they have litte or no range or effect, the so called rain effect?, have a look outside the car in 'chase view' pissing down rain yet, car body is not wet and no rain drops on rear windscreen. Yes I know it is only a demo blah blah but if ya gunna have rain everything gets wet not just and only front screen
The rain effect (in car view) is a few splatters that resemble old java applet effects for webs sites that were popular 3 yrs ago and these drops are not affected by the wind of driving at high speed?
While I may have missed the key or option to turn on the wipers, I fully expected the wipers to activate if it rained in the game this being a demo and product showcase and all
The constant pop noise of the engine on overun, change down I thought was not quite right, and after using LFS without that feature, I found it rather annoying and a pain in the butt after a while, maybe it will grow on you once you get accustomed to it, and I agree it is an attempt at realism, which shouldn't be totally discredited
All in all after seeing the content available in LFS Demo, (forgetting the LFS Alpha Tag as misleading) cause overall LFS has been in development for over 3 years and is a polished, almost full release candidate to me, LFS has better sky, scenery and car colouring, shine etc, I think GTR2 has a long way to go.
It will appeal to those who
must have a RL track/car association (for some unknown reason) but if the game play is as poorly represented as the demo AI racing suggests and graphical content etc I'm quite happy to keep LFS as the only racing software that fulfils my needs
ShannonN