[there is a thread (Fading Brakelight Obscurity III - Green-Orange-Checkered Edizione) but it is very often about real cars and real racing and only occasionally about racing videogames. i like IRL racing, but i deeply desire a place to talk about racing videogames without constant digressions. that’s why this thread is here!]
Forza Motorsport [8] is looking pretty good:
some interesting design, might be controversial: every race has a mandatory practice (or qualifying) session beforehand. you can gain “car XP” or CXP by getting good times on certain segments, allowing you to “level up” specific cars. you can pick where you want to start in the grid at the beginning of non-qualifying races - worse start position means higher potential earnings.
mostly i just really have no affection for horizon whatsoever and am excited to see another OG Forza on the scene - this one seems a little less meta-idiotic than the last one on xbone, too.
The Crew Motorfest comes out this week and looks… possibly good. Ubisoft gonna ubisoft, tho
Test Drive: Unlimited Solar Crown looks really good, keeping an eye on that one
Barro GT - got this as a Steam gift from @VastleCania, it’s a tiny indie (single-dev) passion project. there are a bunch of “Barro” games and other projects from this developer, and they are all extremely similar. Barro GT, at the time it was gifted to me, was the newest and most polished release.
the most notable thing about the game is it has centi-milliseconds (5 decimal places after the zero, 1/100,000 of a second precision), which is the most precise timing i think i’ve seen in a racing game. it’s very straightforward, but also clearly a labor of love and pretty enjoyable to toy around with and challenge the leaderboards. worth the pittance it goes for on Steam if you dig time trials
Redout II - it isn’t bad, necessarily. it just feels so similar to WipEout Omega Collection, while not being nearly as good, imo… the “strafe” mechanic feels really awkward, too. i do like the boost/hyperboost and having heat as a limiter, all good stuff. the track design is range-y (more extreme-g than wipeout at times) and suitably anti-gravity, lots of big loops and corkscrews. nonetheless, it just don’t quite work. WOC isn’t perfect either, but it feels so much more polished than this. still, it’s worth a try
Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA - still locked to the N64. there are no ports to any other platforms, and this was never an arcade release. would really love to see a modern version of this along the lines of that Star Wars Episode I: Racer port from a few years back - this game is quite excellent and deserves a new life. probably have to get rid of all the weird mtn dew product placement, tho
playing a bunch of forza horizon 4 recently i’ve decided what i want is a carpg with an unremarkable but promising stock vehicle that i am able to turn into the Masterwhip and run over god
sometimes i think about this video, and wonder whether nowadays the VO artist sometimes involuntarily says sth like
wellll idk, i mean i am not so ENTHUSIA—stic about — oh my god, i’m sorry, you see i had this job-offer in 2004, easy money, and they made me say ENTHUSIA a hundred times until it sounded right, and since then i cannot pronounce it any other way than ENTHUSIA, it haunts me to this daaayyyyy
a few indie racers i’m keeping an eye on for 1.0 releases
Milestone S.r.l. just released Ride 5 last month, and Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged releases October 19. big fan of their Monster Supercross series as well as the first HWU, these will probably be solid but somewhat niche
Toybox Turbos spiritual successor Make Way (TT itself being a spiritual successor to Codemasters’ Micro Machines series):
Studio 397 (rFactor 2 devs) have something in the pipe called Le Mans Ultimate. off-screen footage of a single car on a single track so far, but given the pedigree this could be worth a go:
I have covid rn but my plan when i can go outside again is to get a neGcon and some ridge racer, gran turismo, maybe wipeout and ace combat, and perhaps some more games if i see em around at the stores.
Here’s a list of games that work with it. Lmk if there are some secretly awesome games on there. http://brittens.org/NegCon.html
Has anyone here played with one much? I’m very drawn to the idea of a more steering-accurate control method that doesn’t require a desk at least and an entire room at most to set up.
it is pretty cool, the twist mechanism is very nice and allows for fine adjustments, pretty revelatory on e.g. Ridge Racer where you’re otherwise restricted to digital
there are major drawbacks, though.
one, there is no teardown anywhere on the internet that i know of. maybe in japanese? like, mine needs a lubrication pass – however, i am afraid to open it because i have no idea how it’s held together. could be some tiny springs in there that fling themselves out, who knows. i couldn’t find any record of people repairing these the last time i looked
the I and II buttons are analog, but this is… not a good thing? both the incredibly long throw and the incredibly deep hole are just… not good. any game which requires you to hit max values of anything analog on this pad is just not going to feel very good. my finger can essentially not fully depress either of those buttons without contorting a bit and kind of stuffing the pad of my finger down into the hole
the L button is also inexplicably analog. i cannot determine why this was done or what benefit it brings. it is also bad
the controller doesn’t have L2 or R2 so that plus the weird I/II/L buttons mean you can’t really use it for anything else
it’s kind of neat overall. i need to have mine lubricated eventually to give it a more fair and personal shake. however… like. i wouldn’t really recommend it too highly? i’d rather use the neGcon protocol with something else than actually use the pad as it stands
I was always attracted to the idea of having a mini twisty steering wheel kind of device due to lack of space so ended up with both the original and black models at some point. Haven’t used them much since I got them and I think I never really tuned it enough for say, wipeout 2097 to get comfortable with it. I didn’t get the outcome i wanted which was to feel like twisting the controller is measurably better or any more precise (with my clumsy hands at least) for turning the ship than a bog standard gamepad. I am always tempted to go back because of the idea but feel like i’ll end up disappointed and getting similar results to meauxdal.
I have to agree, especially about the weird buttons. My problem when I used it with Ridge Racer though… was that it actually made the game too easy. Cornering just seemed to become trivial. I didn’t get too deep into it though. I had a far superior time playing RR2 on the dualshock 4.
I have opened my neGcon. The springs are not an issue and I LOVE the deep buttons. The dpad is truly horrible! When reassembling, it was a challenge to fit together the central pivot and gear mechanism, but I think it would have been okay if I took a picture after opening it before taking everything apart.
Still one of my favourite ways to play racing games. Ridge Racer V showed that we could have had another generation of wrist twisting, and then R Racing Evolution dropped support.
New Forza is in some kind of “early access”. Not that kind. Different.
Been playing some N64 stuff
World Driver Championship (N64) is great, but very punishing. Races are long, the AI is reasonably fast, and spins are inevitable. I love how the handling is pure ice. Your steering wheel is more like a suggestion wheel. Turns are an act of negotiation. Skill ceiling is incredibly high and the game asks a lot of you. Good racer, but needs some buy-in from the player. Probably better to up-res this in an emulator than bother with Hi Res mode.
Human Grand Prix: The New Generation (N64) is an early-N64 legally-distinct-from-F1 simcade racer (definitely more 'cade than sim, but tuning and pit stops and the like are here if you want to delve). Something very strange about the analog steering in this game. It feels jerky and smooth inputs are very challenging. Nonetheless, the game is pretty enjoyable. Successfully grants that ever-chased feeling of being in a real racing battle, struggling against the track and the field. Localized as F1 Pole Position 64 outside of Japan, I wanna say they made some mechanical changes in addition to changing the legally-distinct names to real F1 - seems like the handling has been adjusted. I’ll spend some more time with the localization once I finish a Constructor’s Cup in this one
just released Ride 5 last month, and Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged releases October 19. big fan of their Monster Supercross series as well as the first HWU, these will probably be solid but somewhat niche
