While some are no doubt getting tired of my "Thats not a sim!" posts...its the internet so I will pretend I know more then anyone else, and everyone is waiting to hear what I have to say:jsnipy wrote:
I played the demo, its not bad. I just wish they would take the same approach to a driving game like Microsoft takes to Flight Simulator.
Notice MSF is not out for consoles either. To make a good console game, you seem to have to sell a lot...to sell a lot you have to give the people what they want...and people don't want to be reminded they have absolutely no clue how to drive beyond a legal pace.
You wont find anything on MSF level, it has a lot of momentum behind that title and its from a huge company as well.
There are some good ones you should check out though.
The main titles I can think of off hand are LFS, GTR/GTR2, and rFactor.
http://www.lfs.net/
Live for Speed is a small project from a 3 man dev. team that focuses pretty much on offering good multiplayer racing alone. The game is semi old school graphics...runs DX8, but still rivals some PS2 racing games as far as detail goes. The car list is small, but fairly representative of what ever different kind of car you may want. The track list is also some what short, though most tracks have multiple configurations. Only like 3 of the cars are real, and none are ones you are likely to have driven/seen in person...but a fun FR sports car is a fun FR sports car, again this game is about driving...not fancy licensed tracks/cars or shiny graphics. IMO it feel the most like driving a real car out of any game I have ever played.
http://www.rfactor.net/
I think this is the one Mek is into? Decent graphics, though it is a little older. TONS of user made stuff, some good, some meh, some terrible. The driving physics vary with how well the modder did on the particular car/track. I find that it most likely does a better job with open wheel/high downforce cars. Never driven one so I can't give you too much but my understanding is that as you start to increase the angle of the car vs its trajectory (or make it drift) less air goes over the wings so traction falls off quickly... rFactor does a very good job of this, and driving its F1 cars will likely take you LAPS before you are even competent enough to putz around. I however feel this is carried over to standard cars in it way too much. Their sports car don't feel much like racing my car at all, the limit is too fine where in a real car you can just be scrubbing off speed and the car has a light almost floaty feel rFactor spins you off the track.
http://www.gtr-game.com/
GTR2
Never played it...just hear it talked about often enough (and by reputable enough people) that it sounds like it is pretty good.
I'm obviously bias towards LFS, I love their Lotus Seven car and don't really drive their cars with aero. I think it offers the most similarity to me as some who who just auto crosses their car, but has never really driven a hard core race car. The way the represent the gray area between traction and sliding is pretty much what I have always felt in my car. They also have the proper attitude to make a true sim racer, and have done things like add clutch damage and he need for matching revs on downshifts... even against customer complaints.