My Small rant on the Racing Game Community Via Car Throttle

[Vri404]

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/a254dol/

So, NFS has just been released. the supposed “savior” of NFS. Well, NFS is a buggy mess, similar to Project CARS. With Project CARS everyone called it out for its bugs and “Tiny Car List.” Now, NFS doesn’t have the same amount of game-breaking bugs as pCARS, but, NFS has a car list HALF the size, but you don’t criticize it for being “Tiny.” but you’ll use the excuse of “But the customization means that each car will be different.” Poppycock. The Viper has 1 body kit, and any parts that are able to be put on are identical to the body kit. Same with the new MX-5, Aventador, Boss 302, Acura RSX, and more. You all criticized the hell out of pCARS for “Lacking Variety” when it has cars from Go-karts to LMP1 cars, and all manner in between, where NFS has a sh!t tonne of JDM, and p!ss all for anything else. I’m gonna stick to pCARS and Forza until some more parts are added for the non-JDM cars, and the car list is bigger than 50-ish. pCARS has almost 100 without DLC.

This Rant was bought to you by Vri404.
Feel free to rip me to sh*t.
I
DO
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[DoctorNarfy]

Salt overload much?

You're shooting at apples and oranges here pal. Need for Speed is an Arcade racing game focusing on the in depth parts of the customized car culture. What is very popular among Customizers? JDM cars. But I also suppose the Lamborghini Aventador, Dodge Viper, And Mustang Boss 302 are all JDM. Because that's all the game has, according to you. Of course there is going to be more variety in an simulator game, it's a showcase of variety. What is going to have a bigger variety of planes, Call of Duty, Or War Thunder? Same logic applies there. But I am in favor of having a smaller car list, provided the cars are better, which both Games did manage to do. But you're pointing to the extreme best of Project Cars and Extreme worst of Need For Speed to make your point. Most cars in need for speed have multiple customization body kits, fenders, wings, splitters, and even if you aren't satisfied, you can create your own custom wrap to make the car even more your own. While the extreme Ends of Project car's list is good, It mainly just consists of a few tiers, which can mainly be summed up in the categories of "Endurance Cars," "F1 Cars" and "Super Cars."
The main point that you fail to see is the amount of care put into the games, that is what people appricate about Need For Speed and Hate about Project Cars. On launch, all games have bugs, it's inevitable. But Project Cars had an amount of bugs that makes no sense, and made the game borderline unplayable, I mean, simple play testing could have found a huge number of bugs, from cars locking up when steering, to randomly flipping out of pit road when just pulling out, to when you lose control of your car completely and the computer takes it over when you also pull out of put road. Then, ignored the outcry of it's players for many months and then had the audacity to come out and announce a sequel, and, even though they had sales money, and publisher money, asked for more crowd funded money to make this game. You really can't support that, can you? Need for Speed, on the other hand. Continues to listen to it's community, and even plans on adding mirroring Vynls because people asked for it.

[partario]

I would probably have given this game a shot, but after seeing some videos of it I completely lost interest in it.

I love racing and modifying cars, but I have zero interest in the whole 'culture' and 'lifestyle' that goes along with it. I feel that there is too much effort put in story and drama, which in my opinion, is completely irrelevant in a racing game and feels kind of forced. Plus the acting, at least in the few vids I watched, was terrible. Basically a bunch of people trying too hard to be cool and hip with their brofists and urban lingo and Coolio-hairstyles and whatnot.

I'm not sure if that's what the scene is like or is the game parodying it, but it's a huge turnoff for me.

[strop]

Let's go back a step here.

I quite liked NFS Underground. That's right, all the way back from something like 12 years ago, the whole Underground tuning scene was novel, or at least, that iteration was (since this was also when the first couple of Fast and the Furious were coming out). But the trend of forcing a story with horrendous plotlines and making you the protagonist of something started and grew from there. Where I lost interest was when the cars and their performance lost all semblance of connection to their real-life counterparts (I mean, this wasn't ever the NFS franchise's strong suit), but furthermore, the way the NFS franchise developed also lent itself to a different demographic and a different kind of gamer... what I'm going to loosely define as the racing casual. The sort of person who prefers eye candy over substance and knows even less about cars than I do (I put it this way because frankly there are a lot of people on this forum who know a lot more about cars than I do ), and likes every single car ever to hang its tail out ninety degrees at every corner so they can yell DORIIIIFFFFFTOOOOOOOOO (on a slightly related note Driver San Francisco was exactly like this which was fun for about half an hour). I think partario nails it when he said it's not sure whether this is the scene or whether it's become a whole force unto itself.

NFS also realised how badly their series was alienating the entire sector of racing gamers who liked a bit of real in their vroom, hence the Shift series... but the physics was more mystifying than real (much better now I've installed the physics mod). At least that game, you could actually mod certain things and your own liveries, even if the system was hella clunky (but rather more flexible). And that's why, if I could be bothered getting a console, I'd consider investing in the Forza or GT series first. Because there, at least the form follows function, even if their applications seem a bit more clinical.

Actually right now I'll stick to Assetto Corsa. Has even smaller track selection, and an even less relevant and smaller roster of cars, but it has the best physics model of the games I have to date.

[adamd]

I had the beta of the latest NFS, and actually really enjoyed it. Sounds like they haven't fixed the bugs from it though, which I kind half expected.

I'd agree on the acting and the story, it just seems overdone, but the actual gameplay I thought was very enjoyable.


(Also strop, NFS Shift 2 is one of the few games I actually stopped playing out of frustration. Fully upgraded car with fancy clutch and stuff, got mega clutch slip or something and would just redline and accelerate slowly, what the hell?)

[Lordred]

I really enjoyed NFS Shift, but I also really enjoyed NFS Underground, and Blacklist.

But my favriot NFS has got to be Shift.

[strop]

(Also strop, NFS Shift 2 is one of the few games I actually stopped playing out of frustration. Fully upgraded car with fancy clutch and stuff, got mega clutch slip or something and would just redline and accelerate slowly, what the hell?)

In both Shift and Shift 2, the engine mapping and clutch simulation is, among other things, one of the weak points of the simulation. I was fairly giggling with delight when I could upgrade the old 86 to an engine with, well, quite a few more horses than it had kilograms. Alas, anything more than prodding the gas resulted in the clutch slipping.

The solution is the ptmu mod, which basically irons out all the physics irregularities, including clutch, engine torque curve maps, grip, weight transfer during braking (an exaggerated problem with the Lotus Exige), and so on and so forth. The problem is that it makes playing against the AI (and other opponents on their regular arcade like physics) much harder. And if you're trying to race in a race tuned Gumpert, which is, as far as I'm concerned, the highest performing car you can get in the game without modding it, the competition is ridiculously stiff.

[squidhead]

when the cars and their performance lost all semblance of connection to their real-life counterparts

At the point where mid-Veyron heist I was V-maxing it on the highway, hitting just under 400kph, a cop SUV passed me at about 450kph, got into my lane and brake checked me. That is when I unisntalled the game and was actually done with NFS.

[strop]

LOOOOOL that's so terrible I can't even say that's so terrible it's awesome. Long time since the first days of NFS, where the cop cars were actually modelled on Crown Victorias with an actual top speed of maybe 125mph.

That said, I remember Test Drive, The Duel... the cop cars in that game on the highest difficulty setting had a top speed of like 210mph, which they could also do on the corners, so the only car you had a chance to really outrun it in was the RUF Yellowbird.

[Noporian]

Random note: I really enjoyed NFS World, and i'm seriously pissed off that they stopped supporting it.
It was one of the only games where you could do the joy of customization and the amount of different cars was HUGE.
Also you could play with all kinds of people from around the world with new gamemodes and there was no bullcrap story.

[Lordred]

I wish they had a successor to Motor City Online.