Fading Brakelight Obscurity II - Championship Edition

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

I’ve been playing Need For Speed (2015) because Rudie reminded me of it and it’s free on Origin if you have a subscription. Or maybe even if you don’t, I’m not sure. (free for “Basic” and “Premium”, whatever that means)

The FMVs make me legit uncomfortable. Not just cringe but uncomfortable. The game pops up transparent screens to tutorialize you constantly and people call you on the phone. It’s incredibly annoying! And I have to play with keyboard because neither the DS4 nor the X360 pad work at all for whatever reason on my system with this game.

Damn does the frostbite engine look good. I love it. Loved it since I played NFS: The Run, which is the best arcade racer because it’s a mix between a racing game and Dragon’s Lair.

After it I’ll probably give Wreckfest a chance. Does it have a campaign experience?

[HEAVYVIPER]

I’ve been playing through Racedriver GRID again and holy shit this game is so good. I’m still in the early stages and haven’t hit the LMP class races yet, but I’m remembering why this game struck a chord with me when it came out. The presentation and sense of speed leaves (or left) everything else in the dust.

The sound direction is hitting me pretty hard too. The hyper dramatic soundtrack kicking in during the last event of a series, or the last few hours of Le Mans, is just perfect. Game is fuckin’ fire.

[Felix]

it has a career mode where you buy and upgrade cars and compete in increasingly difficult races but all the reviewers keep pointing out how cheap that part of it feels, and they aren’t wrong; it’s basically all a series of menus between races.

I don’t want to oversell it (whereas I definitely want to push FH4 as hard as possible), I was just trying to think through why I was so relatively taken by it when it doesn’t immediately stand out.

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

That’s too bad, I play racing games almost exclusively for their career/campaign modes. I need something to stitch the racing together for me because that alone isn’t doing it for me. I need context.

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

I didn’t realize you could get the xbox game pass 14 day trial on PC as well. Duh! Now it’s a no brainer to try out Horizon 4

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

I’m driving a Honda Civic because I can’t handle the sports cars

I feel like something is wrong with my controller settings. Did any of you change anything there?

How do you learn how to play this game, this ain’t no Outrun 2

[Doolittle]

The lowest difficulty settings will apply brakes for you if you’re going into a corner too fast. I found that hard to work with and went one click up when I was first playing Horizon 2. You can start on the assists and slowly turn them off (also turn on manual transmission if you like) for score bonuses as you get the hang of it. The driving line is quite good in Forza vis a vis Gran Turismo.

Also, if you can, get into something AWD like a WRX for Focus RS if you’re having trouble in corners or with the weather effects.

[meauxdal]

Racedriver GRID

the biggest problem with codemasters racers is they just can’t help themselves and put in loads of unskippable bullshit: cutscenes, animations, voiceovers, blah blah blah. the “attitude” and presentation of these games is just so aggressively obnoxious. it puts me off the games, despite me adoring their threading the needle of simmy/arcadey very well. it’s truly infuriating. i think dirt rally keeps it more in check? but still not perfect. i just want unfussy racing, i don’t want to hear a “immersion-building” voiceover about picking my sponsor or whatever

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

Yeah I got confused by the most assisting setting because I got even slower using it. I didn’t realize it was already braking for me lol

But yeah, that’s a little too much help.

My problem is steering not braking. After a while I figured out that the game wants you to make more sweeping motions instead of small adjustments. That helped. Also setting the inside deadzone to something high like 60. I’m still playing around with that though. The linearity should do something too but I’m not sure what. I feel like I want to play this with the dpad, it’s weird. Handles so differently from other racers. It’s probably simmier than what I normally play

I’m curious to try manual transmission, yeah

[Doolittle]

I like the manual because it feels like hitting a good combo in a fighter. Hit throttle or brake, hit LB/L1 for the clutch, then hit X/Square or B/Circle.

[SUPERSONNICK]

the most important setting is the steering setting imo, since it changes from FM7 like sim steering to arcade steering.

change that to normal before changing anything else…

[Ymer]

Found a video of those racing game tribute missions in Forza Horizon 4 :

(the background music is mostly edited in by the video maker sadly though they seem to at least try to pick somewhat appropriate tracks from their own soundtrack for the real thing)

Spoilers?

#10. Outrun
#9. Smuggler’s Run
#8. Test Drive (1987)
#7. Project Gotham Racing
#6. Daytona
#5. Crazy Taxi
#4. SEGA Rally
#3. Super Off-road
#2. Ridge Racer
#1. The Porsche 911 Turbo (all of them?)

[HEAVYVIPER]

Admittedly yeah, they do lay it on thick in a lot of cases, but in retrospect GRID is one of the more tasteful and thoughtful ones. Playing the PC version right now and load times are never more than 5 seconds, and the race start animations are all skippable, though some you may need to watch once. Results screens can drag on a bit, but I find I usually need a breather after a good race anyway. DiRT 2 is quite similar, and I personally rate them as my top racing games of last gen.

Now, you wanna talk bad Codies UX? DiRT 3. Now that is a slow and obnoxious game. I can’t bring myself to replay it even though I love the Gymkhana.

[BustedAstromech]

I really loved Smuggler’s Run, or especially the sequel about gunrunning in Cold War Afghanistan and Cambodia, though they were unwilling to created enough hard blocking terrain to make most situations not resolve the same. GTA without buildings needs a little more, but back then fast dune biggies over the miracle of open 3D worlds was like a dream of flying.

[Bee]

I’ve told this story a million times, but for the longest time the only non-Nancy Drew video game my mom would touch was Smugglers Run and I still don’t know what it was about that game.

[Bee]

Other than owning every game in the 40 game Nancy Drew adventure game series, my Mom’s video game experience is Pac-Man -> Sonic 2 & Knuckles (because she found it easier than the base game) -> Mario 64 -> Smugglers Run: Warzone -> Pac-Man CE and I don’t think she’s touched anything since that came out.

[BustedAstromech]

pretty good list for the Mom Classic Mini

[SUPERSONNICK]

I think we went for a while w/o mentioning how good this game looks, so…

did i mention before how good this game can look?

[SUPERSONNICK]

… and it also can do this

… which happens rarely, i.e you absolutely need to be creative how you can achieve that. In my case, i wanted to know whether i can drive a GT40 between the wheeltracks of the Unimog:

You can! Kinda. Well, the Unimog has to drive over you, basically… technically though, it worked!

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

It looks good and it runs better than Horizon 3! On my PC at least. It loads faster and I can use higher graphics settings.