VirtualR – Sim Racing News
100% Sim Racing News

So that’s that game ruined. Expect ridiculously strong brakes and cars that feel like they weigh about 100 pounds.

Companies that are making arcade racers should really take a look at the Ferrari game that was released a few weeks ago. That nailed the perfect balance between arcade and simulation, as I could easily drive it with a keyboard AND it was still realistic enough to feel like I was driving a car when I swapped to my wheel.

I’m shocked

I’m sorry, but there’s been literally countless hands-on previews cropping up over the last couple of months stating the complete opposite, which seemingly weren’t posted. I know it’s the sim racers way to be soul-crushingly cynical about this sort of thing but I’m not going to read into this too much. I guess the proof will be in the pudding.

The thing is, most mainstream gaming sites can’t simply be trusted with this stuff. Look at how many of these magazines called GRID a simulation. If they say it’s realistic, that’s worth nothing.

Gamestar on the other hand has done solid reviews on titles like GTR Evolution. Plus their comparison to GRID is a little indication on where this is heading.

I´m not trying to be cynical, I just forwarded their statement for information purposes and maybe to get a little discussion going

Yeah, by all means that’s fair enough. I’ve just seen some pretty convincing articles and impressions which state otherwise. As you said, I don’t doubt a lot of websites don’t know a thing about realism in racing games, but there’s still an overwhelming ratio stating something very different. I guess the best option would be take everything with a large bucket of salt and wait until we can play it ourselves. I just can’t help but feel that some of the sim community will be almost rejoicing if Shift turns out to be another GRID.

Meeeh =/

Did they really play it in “full sim mode” or whatever? I hope not.

But I don’t trust a magazine that thinks that Grid has “simulation like” physics, that game doesn’t have enough “feel” or whatever to make it fun even as an arcade game.

And Suzy Wallace needs a slap in the face. The risk of smashing your car into a wall or something and destroy it is one aspect that makes racing in this kind of game more thrilling. I hope they come to their senses and allow an option to damage the cars more.

“…arcade racing with simulation-like physics comparable to Race Driver GRID.”

Can’t ignore that killer line no matter how much debate. Worth noting that swapping the words ‘arcade’ with ‘simulation’ around would do more justice to both the writer and GRID.

Disappointed but not surprised.

With the words ‘Need for Speed’ in the title I’m not at all surprised.

“damage apparently has little effect on the car’s performance and handling. Or as producer Suzy Wallace puts it: “Nobody should be forced to restart a race after a crash – That’s just frustrating.”

wtf??

dbl post..sorry

and again NFS looks like a shitty arcade game for nine year old boys playing it @consoles

but anyway nfs is dead since UG2

and the secong quote ist just silly

lol very surprised at this

I wonder why sim racers are so interested in these games. Every time Montoya post something about a upcoming arcade/console racer the comments flood in.

“Die-hard Need for Speed fans don’t need to be worried.

BUT WE SHOULD

who are those fans ? are they still wearing the pampers DIAPERS ?! FACK

i got one thing to say to game copmanies – DONT TREAT US LIKE MORONS even children shouldnt be treatet like this ….

“Nobody should be forced to restart a race after a crash – That’s just frustrating.”

if its frustrating than LERN TO DRIVE and stop crying baby

or go and play GTA4 or wheelman or do something else and dont play at all , maybe you will find yourself better in chess

Nay, Chess are frustrating for miss Wallace too…

Since she found out that when she lost, she had to start a new game.

@stabiz:

stabiz:
I wonder why sim racers are so interested in these games. Every time Montoya post something about a upcoming arcade/console racer the comments flood in.

Because this was told to be some kind of realistic. Now, a trusted website made a preview and ok, it’s not. The comments flood in but I guess we’ll just move on and wait for something else now that we know that it’s just Grid-crap again.

Ian Bell has officially committed commercial suicide in the simulation community. When are people going to understand that we don’t want your watered down shite. Not a drop, sir.

If I had it my way, we’d have a simulation that made iRacing look like Mario Kart. I’m talkin’ balls out hardcore. It’s too bad that most of the world is full of mouth-breathing retards to ever market something like that.

The more brain-numbing a product is, the more money it makes. And that is just sad. EA showed Ian Bell the money, and Ian has officially SOLD OUT!! Hey Ian! I got your realistic sim right here in my hand!

lol@ “Nobody should be forced to restart a race after a crash – That’s just frustrating.”

I guess they could just make the tracks 50 meters wide and put soft cushions on the sides that would just bounce you back on track if you happen to miss a corner.

xilix:
Ian Bell has officially committed commercial suicide in the simulation community. When are people going to understand that we don’t want your watered down shite. Not a drop, sir.
If I had it my way, we’d have a simulation that made iRacing look like Mario Kart. I’m talkin’ balls out hardcore. It’s too bad that most of the world is full of mouth-breathing retards to ever market something like that.
The more brain-numbing a product is, the more money it makes. And that is just sad. EA showed Ian Bell the money, and Ian has officially SOLD OUT!! Hey Ian! I got your realistic sim right here in my hand!

I could not agree more. I am really starting to hate this world full of retards

Like one of my favorite games was the software 2000 F1 Manager Professional. I’ve spent entire weeks with that game. And the reviews said it was to complicated? What is wrong with something you have to learn to master?

This instant satisfaction demand thing is ruining the world. If kids grow up with this attitude they will end up as loosers or criminals.

I also have a problem with the way these games relate to the consequences (spelling) of crashing a car. And how easy it is to control a car driving at 220km/h. Doing that on public roads is borderline insanity and these games do NOT stress that enough or give a realistic picture of how dangerous that really is. “Allways put on your seatbelt” is what they say. Well at 220 in a family sedan you might as well not, cause if you crash your dead, sealbelt or not.
The real world is not easy and won’t just let you go on after a crash.

I still hope it will have some simulation mode. Probably they hid it so deep in the program settings so their producer is just unaware of it. Or maybe they think it’s better to do not tell to general public about simulation to keep sales high. I also have some doubts concerning their graphics. (from a few posted screens I saw) Hope they will allow to get rid off bloom, blur and HDR at least. I don’t like Grid graphics for being too gamey, flashy and unrealistic in regards of overall colors and atmosphere. SHIFT looks like taking that direction. I would prefer something like rF2 is promising to be visually.

“Nobody should be forced to restart a race after a crash – That’s just frustrating.”

Are we now officialy allowed to spell the title name with out “f” ?

OK Im going to get chauvinistic here but I don’t care…
““Nobody should be forced to restart a race after a crash – That’s just frustrating.” ”
Remember this is a quote from a woman ! Women think that the rear view mirror is for applying make-up, the right arm is for holding the cell-phone and under the false illusion that a 4×4 SUV is safer for their children on a school run. I think they use SUV’s to make up for their incompetence so they buy a tank.

Ok, female driver rant over :) Obviously to a sim racer, that quote could not be more ridiculous. But us she referring to a minor crash or crash that would write-off a car ?
In one sense I can understand what she says because isn’t NFS:Shift all about having crashes and collisions ? Why bother with all the particle physics and lovely looking crash sequences if not ?
In an arcade game where crashing is part of the ‘fun’, then sure, a restart every time would have us putting hammers through the screens.

But again, and to follow on from what stabiz has said, WHY are sim racers expecting this game to be written with them in mind ? It won’t be. Don’t disillusion yourself. Ignore the hype, ignore the marketing spiel.
NFS:Shift will be arcade. Period. If they are comparing it to GRID, then Darwin help us !
GRID for me was fine in the looks and sounds dept. but the physics, were, well not from this planet. The only realistic bit of real world physics built into GRID was gravity.
I think because some have mentioned it will have sim-stuff in Shift that we latch on to that because we really want it to be so.
Its not going to happen. They can easily argue and win in court that NFS:Shift does indeed ‘simulate’ race driving.
Its just that our definition of simulation is probably a quote different to most peoples outside this community.
Expect less guys. NFS:Shift is not going to quench your sim-racing thirst.

I’ve never believed that the presentation, game modes and so on would be anything but arcade style.

What I have been hoping (and still am) is that the physics and handling of the cars would be quite decent as long as you choose the simulation mode.

“Nobody should be forced to restart a race after a crash – That’s just frustrating.”

Thanks Montoya for quoting this, it made my day :)

Well as stabiz and F1Racer said, no point in saying you’re shocked or similar. This never was intended to be for “sim” market.

Btw, Montoya, have you had any contact with SMS/EA about maybe getting to do a preview on NFS Shift here on VirtualR?

Oh well. Guess it will simply be NFS Prostreet 2. But that’s OK as I liked Prostreet for it’s career mode and some other ideas. Like the ability to TOTAL your car which I did very often in the speed races (for those who didn’t play it: blasting down the narrow and winding highway at speeds of about 350kph, having to deal with bumps among other things, leaving the road at this speed resulted almost always in totalling your car). One of the most frustrating things I ever did on PC, but I still came back for more (!), mainly because it was so engaging, you could feel it was insane to go that fast and the consequences of a mistake were painful. Also, it was one of the first arcade games in which you didn’t HAVE TO finish 1st.
And now they want to take this away? Booo.

Lol and when this project saw the daylight EA was talking about making a simracer with shift. Ssuuure EA, lmfao

I remember reading somewhere when EA+SMS had the hands on previews (to the reviewers), they used the PC build of NFS:Shift and for the controller, the Xbox 360 controller were the only one used. I doubt that anything higher than the most arcade setting were being used because of that.

JimmyB:
I just can’t help but feel that some of the sim community will be almost rejoicing if Shift turns out to be another GRID.

Reading most of the comments above, I think you are completely right, JimmyB.

Mr. A:
I’ve never believed that the presentation, game modes and so on would be anything but arcade style.
What I have been hoping (and still am) is that the physics and handling of the cars would be quite decent as long as you choose the simulation mode.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m hoping for. I have no delusions of this being some sort of hardcore racing sim.

Anyhoo, I searched for some recent previews and here’s a couple of quotes from just the first couple of articles which cropped up. They definitely paint a different picture.

“When it comes to the racing, SHIFT seems to handle the simulation element wisely; leaning towards the Race Pro level of realistic handling and driver demands, but without being as ruthless and punishing of your mistakes. We were still having to pick out the racing line and brake intelligently into corners (slow in, fast out, remember!), as pushing the car too hard will see you sliding uncontrollably off the track. However, it took us a lot less time to get to grips with SHIFT (it only took three or fours efforts to bag a top-three finish) as the cars certainly seem to stick to the track a whole lot better. This may not be quite as realistic as Race Pro but it makes it a lot more approachable for casual gamers, so as not to completely alienate the Need for Speed fans who have grown unfamiliar with the concept of braking for anything.”

“The game features 3 levels of difficulty; Novice, Normal and Pro, each iteration moving toward a more realistic simulation than the previous one, thereby catering for the casual, fun gamer to the hardcore racing fan who wants every twitch of that steering wheel to count.”

Impressions of a Eurogamer forumite who was invited to play the game:

“Because, to go back to really wanting to drive around Brands Hatch in a game – it was brilliant at creating sublime levels of authenticity in the driving model – Belting around Paddock gave that same sensation of realism as the first time you played it In TOCA, for example – requiring a balance of braking, direction and acceleration that differed by the car. I could see myself sinking Geoff Crammonds Formula One levels of practice into it, trying to get the angle of the highly bumpy, loose feeling Surtees corner just right.”

And so on…

I’m remaining optimistic largely because of the dev team that’s been put together, I think they deserve a little more credit. A team responsible for GT Legends and the GTR series, with the guy behind the Richard Burns Rally physics leading the physics/tire modelling, I just can’t see the end result being another GRID (aka Mario Kart).

Great news! I’d feared that Blimey would forget that there is no market for sims on consoles and wouldn’t make any money, like Race Pro. They seem to have struck a good balance and made a game with graphics that don’t make people with computers made in the past two years want to puke, like Race 07′s antiquated gmotor2 abomination. Another thing is that mainstream gamers like HDR, motion blur etc, so black Box are hardly likely to pander to the minority audience on this site. And I’m disappointed that you seem to be forgetting Ea’s recent committment to innovation, with Skate, Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space and Army of Two. Unfortunately, simmers don’t play any other games, so they are stuck with the last generation view of EA.

Mr. A:

Btw, Montoya, have you had any contact with SMS/EA about maybe getting to do a preview on NFS Shift here on VirtualR?

Highly unlikely, those preview versions are usually only given to big mainstream gaming sites/print magazines.

I doubt that they even care what a blog full of sim racers thinks of their product. I´m trying to get a review version though, that should be fun

I don’t read too much into it. I’d take Ian Bell’s word in a sim-racing oriented interview over this. It could be that these statements only mean that it isn’t only a simulation–something that I can easily see the NFS fans worried about. Another thing is to keep in mind that GTR2 was unrealistically difficult to drive–certainly more difficult, especially at low speeds, than newer sims like NKP 1.0.3 and iRacing.

Still, I would have much rather heard the opposite in the preview.

Anyways, we’ll see. I’m still very hopeful. I do see a lot of this attitude people have mentioned, much like there is with iRacing, where the people who don’t like it for whatever reason seem to be hoping that it will fail. This doesn’t make any kind of sense except from a fanboy perspective (not to pick on any one sim, they all have their fanboys).

I don’t see how a lack of damage is a problem. If you drive right, you don’t crash, and if you don’t crash, damage doesn’t matter?

Yeah, but with no damage you get the possibility to do ridiculous manoeuvres without the risk of any serious consequence.

simracerworld:
I don’t see how a lack of damage is a problem. If you drive right, you don’t crash, and if you don’t crash, damage doesn’t matter?

Are you serious?

SHIFT isn’t a sim? An EA game that is watered down to appeal to the masses?

Knock me over with a feather: I’m shocked.

And what happens when the clown who is driving recklessly beside you hits you, and you continue without any ill effects?

In other words, have you ever seen a motor race in which a collision with another car or a solid object hasn’t caused at least minor damage?

I didn’t think so, either.

simracerworld:
I don’t see how a lack of damage is a problem. If you drive right, you don’t crash, and if you don’t crash, damage doesn’t matter?

xilix:
Ian Bell has officially committed commercial suicide in the simulation community. When are people going to understand that we don’t want your watered down shite. Not a drop, sir.

Ian Bell’s new theme song: “Take the Money and Run,” by the Steve Miller Band.

:)

Are sim racers really this ignorant and judgemental?

Xillix can’t see that it is what people want. Sim racing is getting smaller as a community because it has been ages since the last major release, so I doubt that pandering to simmers would bring in much money. Consoles are where the money is, and if you can’t understand that then that is unfortunate. This news has secured my pre-order.

JAGUAR1977:
Are sim racers really this ignorant and judgemental?

It looks like it. A shame, really, it was a very mature and sensible community once.