http://www.gamefaction.com/art ... p?story=20051205113144846

brawl (or not )

Quote from gamefaction :

Live For Speed just hasn’t met the promise or expectation that was first seen first in S1, with the long wait between s1 and s2 its not hard to be disappointed with the seaming lack of upgrade in certain areas as it still suffers from the same dullness and lack of a racing atmosphere that it always has done. But its not all bad news because the potential is still there. But that’s it, potential although a lot of the work gone into s2 has been behind the scenes and something that only the hardcore would appreciate. Live for Speed could achieve so much more, its just like the punk band of the sim community, not quiet made it, still rough around the edges but has the strong local support because it is underground, not made the big time yet so it is still ok to like without been labelled as un cool, but that is exactly where live for speed needs to be aiming, the big time and achieving it sooner rather than later."

I agree.

yeah like i said in the review page, i fully agree with the text.
no wonder looney, its a hull review.

It's amazing. LFS only has 5/10 points, and yet it provided me with more fun than any other game ever has.

[size]But I guess that's simply a matter of what you find important. Some prefer hardcore simulation, some bling bling. That's mainly directed at the comment that GTR's sound makes up for the lacking physics.[/size]

Interesting review.

To summarize, the bad points they mentioned are:

• Race car interiors are horrible (same as road car sibling)
  
• Doesn't have proper damage model (no detachable parts)
  
• Rear wheel drive cars slide to much illepall therefore the physics are wrong
  
• Low-speed traction is horrible
  
• New S2 tracks are a bore with highspeed corners, and that is it. (Reviewer prefers South City and Fern Bay)
  
• Modding is not supported. The reviewer at least knows that many mods can be utter crap for other simulations. Give him a cookie for that. So he states that they should at least support track additions, but only quality stuff. Basically, keep the crap stuff out of the way.
  
• Sounds are dreadful
  
• Not a very good replay system (no rewind I assume)

They pretty much covered all the points of the game, and everything that is not mentioned is perfectly fine (ie netcode, car choice, etc). And this list here I took notes with... well I agree with all of those points. This is where LFS needs to improve, and I am sure it can be done. Should be.

5 is a really low score, I was guessing something like 6.5 to 7 judging from what I read.

Agreed on most parts except the dullness of the faster tracks.

The new tracks are great!?? What gives?

lemme try and put the review more in perspective,
since most people here dont know, and obviously the reviewer wouldnt come here and brag about it, richard towler (the reviewer) is in the top3 of fast people ive raced with.

greger huttu, richardtowler and lefty are the ones that impressed me most over the years.

he recently took escors championship title, but he has way more league titles under his belt for teamredline.
ive also raced him in lfs (besides n2003 and gtp) and he was instantly fast. he also had some WRs in southcity.
i know he tested the game before writing that text.

this is not your avg stupid arcade gaming tester.

still, the text and final rate are obviously subjectable to personal opinion. being fast and experienced doesnt mean you are god, only means that you probably know what you are talking about a bit better than the next fellow.

For the race cars they are... but the point they made in the review is that they are quite boring in the road cars. At least, this is what I took in from reading that portion.

With the race cars, the S2 tracks are perfect, beautiful, but with road cars, you need something more technical to suit it well... much like South City and Fern Bay... which has a very good variety of slow sections. And honestly SO and FE are my favorite tracks too, just because they feel so technical (same reason why I love Autocrossing). Slow sections are fun, BUT the downside of having the slow sections with tricky low-speed grip can be a bad combination.

It all comes together right there

@KiD: Oh I didn't know this was that Richard. Well then this review is coming from a fair opinion I think, good deal!

Quote from AndroidXP :

It's amazing. LFS only has 5/10 points, and yet it provided me with more fun than any other game ever has.

But I guess that's simply a matter of what you find important. Some prefer hardcore simulation, some bling bling. That's mainly directed at the comment that GTR's sound makes up for the lacking physics.

but that probally says more about where sim racing currently is, what do we have now, lfs, rfactor, gtr, gtl, nr2003 to name a few, if you can say any of those games deserve a score (if reviewing now) above 7/8 than you need to up your hopes alittle I think, the highest is probally nr2003 and I'd give that around 7.

5/10 may seem a low score, but as stated it is the alpha version reviewed and when the final version is released, I will take a look at upping the score and adding to the review what has changed, I'd say the potential in this release is 7, but all depends what is included in s2 final.

I'am not one for adding scores for reviews, people should read the review and make up there own mind, but they do add a point to start a debate so it works both ways.

Although I'am a sim racer and have been for a few years now, and the I feel the sim community is often too full of praise for anything that is released, its a very odd community, it would have to give rfactor the amount of praise it has got it needs more thinking 'what can we improve here' rather than 'lets kiss some ass no matter how bad it tastes'

but that said, everything I write is just my opinion, and mine only, it is still up to everyone else to decide what they think.

i still remember some posts by him here being very provocating. instead of critisizing in a helpful way he wrote some (imho) not very smart posts.
so that 5/10 by him are actually surprising me

edit: doh, i shouldnt do other stuff after hitting the reply button.

I think LFS is very good indeed for an Alpha, but agree with the article. A follow up after final release would be interesting.

I agree with most of the stuff, but I really doubt that 5/10 is a good enough score. Sure, points are always relative, and LFS is the best scoring game on that site (there's one with 4/10), but still I feel that the score isn't enough. Even with those issues, LFS doesn't sounds like a 5/10 game.

Quote from KiDCoDEa :

lemme try and put the review more in perspective,
since most people here dont know, and obviously the reviewer wouldnt come here and brag about it, richard towler (the reviewer) is in the top3 of fast people ive raced with.

greger huttu, richardtowler and lefty are the ones that impressed me most over the years.

he recently took escors championship title, but he has way more league titles under his belt for teamredline.
ive also raced him in lfs (besides n2003 and gtp) and he was instantly fast. he also had some WRs in southcity.
i know he tested the game before writing that text.

this is not your avg stupid arcade gaming tester.

still, the text and final rate are obviously subjectable to personal opinion. being fast and experienced doesnt mean you are god, only means that you probably know what you are talking about a bit better than the next fellow.

Yeah, but it's still Rich, and he sucks anyway

But still... a 5/10 score is WAY too low it's not even funny. In my books 5 = pure garbage and that LFS certainly is not.

Some very true points in the review, HOWEVER, I cannot agree with the RWD's being too loose. Sure it takes some getting used to but I have spent a lot of time with LFS and now I can enjoy any car I drive. Also the feedback in LFS is more informative for me than anything else I have tried. You know the F9 view, right? Look at the pressure bars. That's all you really need to know while you are driving, right? You wouldn't be able to watch that and drive at the same time though, atleast you wouldn't react quickly enough to what you see. So its up to the feedback to provide that through the wheel and after spending as much time with S2 as I have, I honestly feel all that information through the wheel. After you feel that, it is a simple matter of adjusting your driving style based on how you think the car would react and if it reacts like you think it should then you get a good time around the track. I think that I have gotten this pretty much right over time (you can't expect to just jump from nowhere into a 300bhp/tonne road car and be god, or into a RWD racer for that matter - or anything and if you can, you are driving an arcade, not a simulation) so now I can set good times without putting much effort into it. Spend some more time with LFS and you will see that it isn't that difficult to drive. If you find the controller's feel numb, try sorting the settings out. DFP @ 550deg rotation here. Overall effect strenght @ 100%, Spring and Damper effects @ 0%, Center Spring disabled. 30% - 70% FF in LFS depending on the car.

sure slamdunk, but thats your book. the rate comes from the reviewer book. its his text, his criteria, his numbers.

Quote from ikkah :

I agree with most of the stuff, but I really doubt that 5/10 is a good enough score. Sure, points are always relative, and LFS is the best scoring game on that site (there's one with 4/10), but still I feel that the score isn't enough. Even with those issues, LFS doesn't sounds like a 5/10 game.

Well, I rarely agree with the scores given to games. I see some new xbox 360 titles scoring 96% etc, which makes no sense as it implies games can only ever be 4% better. illepall

I agree with most of the points, it would be ridiculous to say there isn't massive room for improvement in LFS, or for that matter in every single sim out there currently.

Bottomline, who cares what a review says, if you like the game/sim, drive it, recommend it to your friends, the best way for others to experiance it is to use it thereselves rather than rely on soneone elses opinions.
I do agree the rear wheel drive physics are a little wild, I have driven ALOT of rear wheel drive cars in my time and the only time they come remotely close to those in LFS is on ice.
Still 5/10 is an average score, the core of LFS is VERY good, but it has a long way to go before its as polished as other "full" releases.

Dan.

The only thing I cannot agree with at all in that article is the comment about the tracks. Everything else I can agree to up to a point. As for scores, everything is relative so it's pointless trying to score one's score - not to mention you might end up in an endless loop and we all hate those...

Best of luck with the new GameFaction site and hope to see more reviews in the future.

Quote from sinbad :

Well, I rarely agree with the scores given to games. I see some new xbox 360 titles scoring 96% etc, which makes no sense as it implies games can only ever be 4% better. illepall

I agree with most of the points, it would be ridiculous to say there isn't massive room for improvement in LFS, or for that matter in every single sim out there currently.

IMHO this is simply a different rating system, rating the simulation on what it simulates and how well it does it over what it could simulate. Other reviews normally rate what it simulates and how well it simulates it over how well the best of the competition does it. In this respect LFS scores pretty well considering that we are at version 0.5Q and by the time we get to 1.0 it could be 10/10.

And Scawen has become quiet, so maybe he's playing with physics (he said he'd go quiet when he did that )

Or he got stuck in the kitchen

I think people are a bit too hung up on this 5/10 thing, marks out of ten are never particularly meaningful anyway.

I'd agree with the bigger problems; something about the physics on the RWDs in LFS doesn't feel right to me, but I don't race cars in real life so I'm not a good judge. One particular thing that feels wrong is the way the road cars are totally at the mercy of bumps and dips.

thats the reason for the score, the CORE is very good, its just most of what is around the core isn't finished yet, or just isn't good enough yet, as I said I'd give nr2003 a 7 if i reviewed it now, because that is more rounded and finished to a higher quality in areas that I feel are more important, one of them is the feel of the sim, it has something special in this area where you know what is going on when you are driving and I feel LFS could learn from this, for sure it is not perfect, but its done through many small touches here and there that add up to a great driving experence, even if the physics are flawed in certain areas.

Live for Speed does frustrate me, because I can see perhaps how great it could be only if it was more complete, and some things where maybe done alittle different. I'am not saying Live for Speed is bad, far from it, the score just reflects the current development status.