VirtualR – Sim Racing News
100% Sim Racing News

I wonder if there’s any chance someone will do a physics patch/upgrade… Then I would consider it. But until then I’m not buying it – I’ll just be disappointed…

:(

I’d buy it for the car selection alone, even if the physics were full-on arcade. But with those trees? Forget it..

I am having fun with it myself and that’s important enough for me. Bottom line it really is not too bad. If you strictly like hard core sim it may not be for you but if you just want a fun game to play it’s worth trying IMO. I can’t comment or compare to console versions but I would most likely rate this at a 72-75 and is much better than a full out Arcade Racer with no wheel support or no multi driving views plus the graphics are pretty darn good.

True that! (LOLOL trees)

I’d also buy it for the car selection alone, regardless of its arcade physics, but the advertisement boards look like crap, so… forget it LOL….

LOL, what’s happening with those trees! :D

Only one car (firm) makes it boring. Ferrary vs Porche vs Lamborgini – and you have some serious competition.

Testdrive the Pop up square tree legends?!

I’ve read somewhere that this is a GFWL game , which will be enough to put a few people off buying it.
Me, I’m undecided at the moment.

Poor trees.. hope they won’t get sacked over this

I played the ps3 version a few months back & thought it was one of the worst driving games i’d ever played.

the ai was crap, the physics were crap & i had very little fun playing through the game as progressing through it was boring. after i played through it i traded it & dont plan to ever play it again.

yes the handling/physics were arcade but since im not a sim-snob that didn’t bother me, it was all the other issues which did.

i saw the inside sim racing review of the title & totally agreed with all there views/opinions on how bad the title was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPbarUpKzms

My game looks nothing like the video above, none of that blocky crap. The game looks great on my machine and runs smooth. Funny thing about this page is %90 of the comments made about games are by people that have not tried the software!

On the PC I think its alright. To me the handling feels more sim then arcade and better then Shift 2 felt. Think of it has a modern day NFS Porsche as it has that same chronological campaign. Its £18 on steam so its almost Bargain of the year. I can tell you with a GTX670 on high AA its runs at 60fps perfectly and that tree issue doesn’t occur. Its an ATI issue – but some websites appear to have omited that.

I saw it on Steam so that can’t be entirely true.

And a serious licensing bill

GTA4 is also on steam and requires GFWL

Thats notthe usual game..Look here . Perfect trees

Look after 2.40 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dUm4YxyEc4

Maybe if you spell the makes wrongly the licensing isn’t so expensive ;)

It is a GFWL.

Well, for what it is (a game ported to the PC), it may be fun as an arcade racer. It does have a place in most simmers ‘libraries’ that can be brought out for guests and friends looking for a little casual fun.

Can a single car manufacturer sim program be worthwhile to a sim driver/racer? In this day in age of technological advancement, oh of course YES! But the program would need to be high quality and accurate. Just think what it would be worth to you that if the physics, ffb, and sound, and of course realistic graphics, were a spot on representation of what it is like to drive each individual model and iteration; and this includes the experience of feel. An experience where actual drivers who have actually driven and raced these cars (former racers, owners, Ferrari Corso Cliente members, etc) would drive one of these sim cars and say, “oh wow, this is exactly what it felt like, and the experience and immersion takes me back!”. Kind of like what Alain de Cadenet experienced in the show, “Victory By Design”. This is what I want to feel and experience. So with each car having a distinctly different feel, mild or drastic, would definitely create a ‘butterflies’ in the stomach of a sim driver just before he or she slips into their sim cockpit and into a period in history.
This I dream, one day…

it is ;-)

But if you haven’t tried it, how you to know it needs a physics patch ? :)

Some thoughts:

-It feels and looks a lot like Shift. Did you like Shift? Good, then you will like TD:FRL. Didn’t like Shift? Then chances are you wont like this.

-Physics are pretty nice, again a lot like Shift, it’s not a full-on sim (it is name Test Drive after all) but you can’t just throw yourself at corners, at least it’s very predictable.

-FFB gets the job done, sometimes it pulls to the side on turn out but for the most part it works fine.

-My G27 works fine, no input lag on my end, steering lock seems to be 360 degrees.

-It does have GFWL, which luckily only gets in your way when you first launch the game.

-Career mode is nice, I like that you can play the 3 different eras at the same time. Events are fairly varied too. First era is super easy, then it gets crazy hard, kind of a weird balance if you ask me.

-Fair amount of graphics options, good performance, the menu has the Xbox controls on it but it responds to mouse input perfectly fine so it’s ok.

-I liked Shift, ergo I like this game.

Hope that helps anyone who’s trying to decide wheter to get this game or not!

Thanks Alejandro.

My first and only question is: Is it mod-able?

Thanks for this. AI apart, I enjoyed Shift too – no steering lag on my system, and the patch boosted frame-rate no end. Do you have an ATI card? If so – do you have the issues in the video?

Thanks very much for the brief review Alejandro.. it really helps me to decide

I have an Nvidia card so no issues on my end, apparently the issues on the video are related to the AA method, changing it to a different one seems to fix it. Not exactly sure which AA mode is broken though.

I have ati 3870×2 runs perfectly smooth and no trees issues.

Well you’re sort of right, but I’m basing this on what I’ve heard from the simracing community about the physics being arcadish. I am yet to hear anything about the physics being ‘good’.

I am of course open to the idea of them being decent if this is true though :)

Ah ok I wasn’t aware that a steam game could also require gfwl :)

pCARS won’t have any tree issue ;)

I’m expecting the physics will be about right for the type of racing game this is. One that’s not aimed at the sim-racers but for a broader appeal. So my personal expectations are based on that.
I’m under no illusions with this one and am certainly not expecting pure-sim physics at all. ‘Fairly believable’ will be enough for me.

I’m not buying the arcade thing any more because what is arcade-ish ? Is that something you would find in a games arcade ? Have those existed for the past 3 decades ? Since Out-Run, Galaga and PacMan. Cos those are arcade and that puts TDF on a whole other planet.
You don’t get games like Assassins Creed or Far Cry being termed as arcade and they are certainly not simulations. So why does it happen with racing games ? Personally I think we need new terminology because ‘arcade’ is so 70′s and 80′s. :)

I don´t have problems with the trees, I´ve problems with the game. Both, in singe race and in carreer mode after every race the game freeeze. the replay run in backround but i can`t do anything.
any ideas?

Since i don’t give a crap about trees , good treee is a burn one.

Why everyone (or not) when see a car in a pc game automacally asume that must be a simulation, must have real physics? it can be an arcade, and it can be fun, like dirt3 for example.

yes, it is

Damn this game gets hard. The 6 lap at Misty is gruellng.

I thought they looked like happy trees….

Wow. We may potentialy have something really special here then.

Car sounds break it for me.

It gets even worse with some games, Far Cry 3 requires you to launch uPlay from Steam, then launch the game from uPlay. Steam doesn’t limit the sort of weird and painful DRM that the publisher wants to use… sadly.

Well Likes been said if you are strictly a hard core sim racer you may not like it this is border line realistic racer and like I said better than straight up arcade so if you can deal with that go for it.

I have heard from a little birdy that the cars are being converted to rF,
so there might be some hope to drive them with proper physics some day.

Converted as in being stolen? Great, can’t wait for more people giving a bad name to the modding community!

Well the physics, are better than those found on Race driver grid & Need for speed shift two.

Proper physics, as in tyres get red hot, before you complete a single lap, spinning all over the place, with traction control on, weird steering ratio, the usual stuff, rippers-modders do.

Haa I,m in the same position, it,s getting more difficult as I go. That is good for me , better than just blowing through it. That Misty is a tough one.!

New video here…

http://youtu.be/3Bz4ugOBc5g

Must be something to do with the header of this site saying sim racing news?

Same with pCars -It feels and looks a lot like Shift. Did you like Shift? Good, then you will like pCars. Didn’t like Shift? Then chances are you wont like this.

you did not drive the new tyre model in pCARS. If you did, you wouldn’t say that…so please don’t talk about sth what is already past.

yeah, and you would breath with their smoke if all of ‘em were burnt :D

This really feels nothing like shift. Some later cars maybe but i think most will get the best from it if they follow that chronological career mode religiously Just took the 312 F1-67 out for a spin and its utterly amazing. Still not entirely sure about how easy the rear end slides out of gas (i’ve seen them do it in old films but prehaps not quite to the same degree) but bloody hell it feels great and its very easy to get out of sorts.
I’ve still only done 4 tracks in 4-5 hours of playing. Its really well structured too with some interesting situations – like the numbness in the arm stopping you from changing gear and you having to drive the last 2 1/2 laps of “the loch” in 4th or 5th.

Coach: you feel the horses in the front (like Codemasters’ F1 2012).
Car: you feel the horses in the rear.
Computer: independent traction for each of the 4 wheels.
(only Lamborhini tried to change this “italian” tradition on a tarmac car)

It doesnt matter the physics engine youre using, what makes cars fun is rear wheel driving.
I think that the game reviewed by ISR on consoles was a different game:
There were 2 mainstream titles released for PC this year: F1 2012 and this.
And this is much better than F 12012 for a simple reason: the car oversteers (unfortunately, the F1 87 in the quick race option is the worst formula I’ve ever seen: never oversteer and built-in traction control feel).

Yes. Trees look as good as in other racing games, if you don’t run into that issue.

You should carefully read the question he asked, and why accuse VirtualR :)