Things You Don't Care to Know About Racing Games

I was looking at some preview videos for Dirt 3 and Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed (follow the links for the pages with the videos) that included developer commentary. It's exciting to see they're both moving toward realism, especially after how disappointing Dirt 2 was, and how sideways-baseball-cap-wearing-smirking-retard the NFS series usually is.




Dirt 3 is definitely moving in the right direction by adding a whole lot more genuine rally to the game, and hopefully a whole lot less hooning. Gymkhana (who is Jim Khana anyway?) is in but it actually looks pretty interesting, and is a legitimate tool for sharpening skills. Some concerning comments were the implication that they've only just now got the cars' centers of gravity in the right place, and that after making the physics realistic they tweak it to make the game more accessible. Hopefully realistic physics will be an option, and even if not I have to admit that the Dirt games are just plain fun.




NFS:S2U:BBQ:STFU is a lot like Grid now. Weirdly it has hipsters coding it, and they're all of a sudden concerned about realism. Fucked if I know why, this must be the Negaverse team or something. Some bloke with an accent asserts boldly "We have the most advanced physics system ever released in a racing game," shortly followed by some very cool shots of the on-screen telemetry features, which, I cannot stress enough, should be an option in every racing game. Another neat feature is the 'helmet cam' in car view mode that changes the camera angle slightly to look toward apexes, or when you're drifting out the wide window; it looks surprisingly realistic. I do have to say though in the last shot I saw the physics tweak a little on one of the dozen cars coming over the hill, maybe everyone was at a Reel Big Fish concert that day or something.




Does GT5, our current game of choice have a lot to gain from the better parts of other games?

No. The isolated manner in which GT is developed has thankfully allowed the game to keep its unique charm, but it will never be 'all things to all men.' That they put any damage in the game at all at Sony's plea is miraculous, and you can barely see the damage anyway (though I wish you could enable mechanical damage in single player). Having put things into perspective the game could certainly gain from the excitement of non-static camera angles and more user control over data, but it's just not in the cards (I can only hope a usable interface might be, if people keep up the bitching). Meticulous Japs are gonna do what they feel they have to and fuck everyone else.

It's important to bring this all up, because understanding where the developers are coming from gives us a better idea what to expect from a game and in what way it's meant to be enjoyed. Paige wants to punch me when I wash my cars in GT5 after I use them, but the developers certainly wouldn't think I'm nuts, I'm sure you can imagine. Dirt (previously the Collin McRae series) used to be more realistic but decided to err on the side of fun, and that's okay so long as they're not pitching as something it's not. GT5 can claim 'simulator', but despite the detail Dirt can't. It's hard to say that, with competition being tough they've put a ton of work into the physics, which are still realistic, but realistic and very realistic still completely different things.

Even so, GT5 isn't without its flaws in that department too. The physics in GT5 feel highly technical and sterile (I'm sure you can imagine this being the approach), it really feels like 'flex' isn't something that's considered. Just hoping the number will work out doesn't seem to be enough, the level of detail just isn't there yet and it can been seen by the unrealistic effects of altering alignment angles and some suspension components. This is why I think the new NFS game has a chance, because in addition to being very serious about the math they also tuned the game for 'realistic feel.' To totally capture an experience they're trying to come to terms with the subjective side while still being serious about the technical side, something I couldn't ever imagine Polyphony Digital doing.

One last note, as a sobering reminder, that the realism of the physics in all these games still pale to the true PC racing sims like rRactor and iRacing which aren't pretty but are used by real race drivers to train. Also, if you have any interest in what car physics so massively complex, definitely check out this Brian Beckman interview here (it's a bit long but very informative, stick with it). Brian Beckman is a physicist first and race driver and instructor second, and is responsible for the definitive Physics of Racing papers.