GamespotUK has published a rather interesting article on Simbin’s upcoming RACE Pro simulation for the Xbox360.
As Simbin is the first studio to bring a true simulation to a gaming console, many players will have to adjust to the level of realism. The article takes us through the learning process of the Gamespot writer as he’s starting to appreciate the simulation aspect, guided by Simbin’s Diego Sartori.
Hopefully, many console gamers will be open-minded and take the time it takes to make the most of RACE Pro, bringing sim racing some fresh blood. Together with the article, Gamespot has released a bunch of new high-resolution screenshots, showing various tracks and cars.
Via GamespotUK
Raikku
January 16th, 2009 at 20:09
Give us that frakkin’ support for real wheels!
Bill, do you hear me?
GeraArg
January 16th, 2009 at 20:42
Good review
The comments from users of Gamespot are hilarious
comparing excellent ARCADES like Forza or Gran Turismo with RacePro… 
tarnakman
January 17th, 2009 at 00:14
ok.. i want to make a point:
this is not a sim. a “real sim” with “realistic physic” can’t be played on a joypad (try driving your car with a thumstick you will get my point). any simbin games are consired as sim but they obiously aren’t sim at all.. the last game from simbin i enjoyed was gtr2 and not surprisingly Blimey! was involved in it. Simbin goal is to sell games, it’s a business and this is why they are heading on the console market. Racepro is obiously a serious racing game compared with 90% racing games on console but please.. dont dare calling this a sim.. it’s very insulting for those real sims out there aka netkar pro, lfs, some rare mods on rfactor, iracing.
tarnakman
January 17th, 2009 at 00:15
ok.. i want to make a point:
this is not a sim. a “real sim” with “realistic physic” can’t be played on a joypad (try driving your car with a thumbstick you will get my point). any simbin games are considered as sim but they obviously aren’t sim at all.. the last game from simbin i enjoyed was gtr2 and not surprisingly Blimey! was involved in it. Simbin goal is to sell games, it’s a business and this is why they are heading on the console market. Racepro is obviously a serious racing game compared with 90% racing games on console but please.. dont dare calling this a sim.. it’s very insulting for those real sims out there aka netkar pro, lfs, some rare mods on rfactor, iracing.
fpol
January 17th, 2009 at 03:49
I had to join just to reply to tarnakmans reply. While i haven’t tried it, I’m sure I’d agree that this is not a full on sim, probably very much a “sim lite”. However your assertion that a real sim – and thus car – cannot be driven with a joypad is well, being diplomatic wrong! Read Jacque Villeneuve’s discussion as to driving controls. He clearly states that he would PREFER to see joysticks as the controller of race cars, and in fact uses them for his simming. There’s no reason why you couldn’t drive a car with a joystick if the drive shaft were adjusted for it (i.e. a fly by wire control) – there in fact have been prototypes made with sidestick control.
Again – I doubt this is a full-on sim, but your arguments as to why are off base.
…and no, I’ve NEVER, going back to 1993, driven any sim with a joystick…just a fyi.
tarnakman
January 17th, 2009 at 07:00
hi fpol, ive read the statements of villeneuve as well about 2 week ago. my point was that the car in the sim we are racing today are not driven by a thumstick by any driver. maybe in fifteen years this will change, personnally i hope not because i like to drive with a wheel even if, like jacques said, it takes longer to respond due to the shoulders and arms movement.
my point was also a critic to the popular movement of sims in general.. years ago in the “grand prix years”.. let’s call it that way, sim enthousiams were talking about the physics of a game. Now the sim community seems more to me a enormous “graphic whore” rather than physic. Just take a look at the mods of the year.. to me the best mod on rfactor is the corvette3.1 mod. the handling is remarkable and it seem very professionally well done.. it’s not in the top 5.
i played the old famous GTP recently with a friend of mine who had nascar2003.. the ffb was great, physic was amazing.. and by playing that i felt that rfactor might have been a little overated afterall. Then i tried the new patch for netkar… yeah this game is very limited but, what’s in there is simply amazing.
So here we are.. when a beautiful mod comes out everyone claps their hand if the graphics are gorgeous. and when a news on lfs or netkar comes out.. half of peoples are “booing” because “the graphic sucks”.
The real question is now: do we want something beautiful or something credible? well i would love both but it’s not there yet.. although nhancer clearly helps.
zudthespud
January 17th, 2009 at 09:17
tarnakman, you can’t disagree that this will probarbly be the most realistic racing game ever on a console, just listening to this racing “veteran” struggle so badly shows this.
Also, back in the day i used to play rfactor with a 360 pad because i didn’t have a wheel, granted it was bloody difficult and my lap times are about 5 seconds faster with a wheel but it can be done, i’m sure if i used it. enough i could get up to speed.
And about graphics whoring, well i guess I agree with you, you have to love the graphics on MMG 2007 mod and the sounds also but everything else is not so good IMO, mods like NAGT and the corvette mod you mentioned hardly get any publicity, i think NAGT was 7th in MOTY.
GeraArg
January 17th, 2009 at 09:50
In LFS you can do drifting with BF1 like a car from the D1GP…
This far from 100% realistic, this game is the kind of exaggeration by “fanatics religious” who play.
There is no perfect simulator, all have their pros and cons.
And best of all, are not incompatible, you may have installed on all on the same hard disk!!!!!
Sorry for my poor english.
stabiz
January 17th, 2009 at 12:07
Regarding Villeneuves joystick comment, didnt he also say that he didnt like racing sims, that he preferred racing games?
fpol
January 19th, 2009 at 02:01
Tarnakman i agree with many of your points. The (sim) world has definitely become ‘graphic centric’. There’s not problem with eye candy, but the driving model must be key.
TBH – if graphical development stopped right now we’re still in very good shape. What we need is a focus on getting the driving models accurate. And as iRacing has shown – provide accurate tracks (even if not quite that level – there’s obviously a cost issue for something that’s a one time sale).
On the other hand, I’m very much in favor of adding an *easy* arcade mode to any sim. Hey – I’ll never use it I’ve never so much as driven with damage off. But – we have a niche area, and if it helps to sell some copies to the NFS/GT3/Grid crowd, then by all means, add in a roof cam view, arcade mode, ‘drift king challenge’ and joystick support.
I saw how the serious combat flight sim market collapsed after Falcon 4.0 – too complex for the casual guy, and very expensive to develop – yet one of the great computer ‘games’ of any genre- bugs and all – of all time. Sim racing is a niche market as well, and it could easily go away leaving only iRacing. I dunno, i like the diversity other sims offer, so i don’t wanna see that happen.
fpol
January 19th, 2009 at 02:09
stabiz – JV said he didn’t need the level of accuracy some over intense simmers require because heck, he does it in real life. His basic point appeared to be that absolute realism in a medium that cannot provide it (no g-force, no ‘risk’, a different – though almost equally exciting “stimulus”) was not necessary to him.
I’m a casual driver – having over 150 trackdays and autocrosses under my belt, but no where near a pro race quality driver, but I think I understand what he means. I want accuracy, but if there’s a slight flaw in the tire model in the CTDP mod, I’m still going to enjoy it. Now a front wheel drive 996 (as we once had in rFactor) that presents an issue :).
I could be wrong, but that seemed to be where he was going – it’s his job, so he has many other gaming outlets. Dale Jr on the other hand seems to be a dedicated sim racer – probably would be even if he never races in real life. Different strokes for different folks.
madash184
January 21st, 2009 at 23:28
i just wanna say… tarnakman do you know how hard it is to make a simulator? grandturismo is on its 5th game and still cant make a good one… they just add graphics, while forza is on its second and the physics are close to realism. this game will be good as well and the physics in this game will be as realistic as the others. YOU CAN PLAY SIMULATORS WITH CONTROLLERS!!! it just wont be as challenging as with a stering wheel. do you see how pro race drivers use forza 2 with the racing wheel for practice????