Be Excellent To Each Other

Downloaded the demo of this last night, it's good! Might get it for some online shenanigans if anyone else is.

Yeah.

Once all the Zeds are dead.

Wait, haven't we all (most of us) got Drive Club on PS4?

I know we did time trials a bit but does it have normal multiplayer?

Probably but it's a bit meh. Just been playing some more of this now. It's ace.

The game itself seemed OK but the menus. Jesus Christ Sony, the menus.

It seemed okay (except for the menus).

I didn't really like the music, though - and I couldn't figure out how to drive the car I was given.

Downloading this now.

If you start hammering X now you might just get past all the prompts and menus and into a race before midnight.

L-lol. It’s tempting me to pre-order an xb1x (I’ve decided is for all future going to be referred to as a Bix) just for Forza 7. I thought the days of spending £500 on impulse on gaming shit were long behind me...

ah the demo is out now? wha are the limitations?

The demo is over now I think. Game's out tomorrow.

Absolutely loved this last night. The sportsmanship rating did seem to produce notably cleaner racing amongst randoms than any other console racer I've tried. Really like how they've done the official daily events too. There's a set of three races to choose from that start at hourly intervals so there's normally something every twenty minutes or so. You sign up at any time though and then spend any time left before race doing some qualifying laps which are then used to place you into a group for the race.

I got placed fifth on the grid of twenty odd cars and I was able to stay behind the cars in front until one by one they all made mistakes at corners and so I was able to pass them on the straights have a completely clean race and win, feeling like an absolute hero (even though my qualifying time was still a full two seconds off the record). Notably though not one of them tried to just side swipe me as I went past, they all seemed to just hold their lines and play fair which was refreshing. Perhaps this was the effect of either the ratings system or the slightly strange video lectures on sportmanship that you have to watch before being allowed to race online.

I've been playing Project Cars 2 for the last few weeks and whilst that game does undoubtedly have more convincing handling it's a just complete fucking mess by comparison. I didn't encounter a single bug in GT Sport last night. Everything just worked perfectly. I'll still play both of them but I think it's going to be mostly GT Sport until PCars 2 gets patched into something that is in a state to actually be released.

That's good to hear. I enjoyed my time spent on the demo.

Good chance I'll pick this up on sale or maybe ask Santa.

Welcome to the world of clean racing!

I'm sure that I'll encounter my share of twats but it should lessen as the ratings thing gets established. But it is a bit unsophisticated in that even if you just get dive bombed into a corner you'll get the same penalty as the one who did it but hopefully over time it should still work out. The ghosting helps too, it seems to default to quite a high setting so whenever someone does lose it and go spinning back across the track you can usually just drive right through them.

It's a no-fault system, same as iRacing. Think of it as having to pay for damage fixed no matter who was at fault. You'll soon learn to see dive-bombers coming.

You can't really expect a computer to accurately decide who was at fault when if you show 10 people a replay of a crash, they'll all disagree amongst themselves.

This "examples of bad driving" video should be called "Pundy's Greatest Hits"

More fun racing last night. In this one someone misses their braking near the start and I get punted off the track and come back on pretty much at the back. I've found that if you just go fairly fast and don't make any mistakes then usually the cars in front will tend to:



Best console racer I've played, bar none.

I'm really enjoying it. Especially after I figured out how to turn off auto-braking. Which is really unintuitive (both how it works, and how to switch the damn thing off).

I've been playing the daily races, and they're good fun. And most people seem to try to race cleanly.

I like the car customization too.

It's a bit of a shame that the classic GT gameplay (buy a shitbox turn it into a racing car, use the proceeds to buy another, less shitty shitbox) is gone (it GIVES you your first car, I don't know if everyone gets the same but I got an Audi TT. Which is very much a mid-game car in previous GTs).At least all the cars seem to come pretty well set up.

The tracks are all pretty good, only a few real tracks though. But aside from Laguna Seca (which isn't in this game ), I tended to prefer the made up tracks in GT games.

Not many cars, most manufacturers have 5 or 6 at the most. But there is just enough variety to keep things interesting. The classes are standardised, as well as the prices. So a group 4 car will cost the same from Nissan and Ferrari, and perform roughly the same.

Apparently more cars are coming as free DLC.

But yeah, good stuff.

It is annoying when you get printed off the track and have a ten second penalty on top. Luckily it doesn't happen very often.

Yeah, it's pretty great, I've had some epic battles.

I actually got a PSVR yesterday, the VR mode although very limited currently is absolutely fucking absurd, one of the craziest experiences I've had since LSD.

What's weird about it? Thought it would have just added to the realism.

Once you've raced in VR a screen just won't cut it anymore.

It's just very discombobulating, having the physical wheel there and then seeing your hands on the virtual wheel the illusion just becomes so complete. Then when you start driving, the sensation that you should feel movement is so strong that it just feels very odd when you don't, so then you do. It made me feel like the sofa was definitely moving. Just a weird sort of there but not there feeling. Fucking awesome once you get used to it, though.

When I move I'm planning on setting up a wind and vibration simulator (ooer). The only thing that will be missing then is the g-forces but there's not much I can do about that.

Mount the whole thing inside a car and get someone to drive it around a race track.

Mount the whole thing on a rubber gimbal and get Sally to tip you side to side while you drive.

You can get full motion sims but they start from about £4k and have a bit of lag anyway so aren't entirely accurate.

Why wind?

He wants to simulate turning the air vents on.

Yeah but you won't feel that either with a helmet on. Having fans is probably a good thing for general comfort though I'd have thought.

Ah so a decent fucked up then.

I enjoyed earning money to muck around with cars far more than actually racing. I'm therefore rather sad that it's gone the route it has.

Yeah, loads of people saying the same. I was never really into that side of things as much so it suits me perfectly. The livery editor is pretty cool, though.

No Mazda Demio, no sale

Ugh, the Demio.

It feels wrong having a GT game without the Toyota Trueno AE86, Nissan Silvia/SilEighty/180sx, Subaru Legacy Wagon GT-B, Nissan R-32/33 Skyline, classic Mazda RX7s, those classic Gran Turismo cars

He has said that there will be hundreds more cars eventually, though.

I'll wait until the Honda Concerto 1.5i is released.

Rover 25.

Rover 75 V8.

Man, I suck at this game.

If you're talking about the daily races or the FIA stuff then I think it depends massively on where you are within your driver rating. I'd managed to just get up to a C rating but when I did that race at Interlagos last night it quickly became obvious that I was right at the bottom of that rating. I did a qualifying lap that wasn't that far shy of my fastest practice lap but it put me dead last. Managed to make up a few places in the race but yeah when you jump up a rank it certainly gets rid of any illusions you had about being any good. Then I had a worse race after that, went back down to a D rating and so the next race I was qualifying right at the front again.

However I have managed to get the top sportsmanship rating and it makes such a difference. I only ever seem to get matched with other S ranked drivers and it's all really well mannered. The online stuff is just so well implemented in this game, though. The fact that you can just jump on whenever and have a decent race against a bunch of strangers who are going to be about the same level as you and not total fucking morons is brilliant.

I did the 2nd round of the championships yesterday, qualified 10th and finished 15 in both of them. Meh, it's still fun pootling around at the back, you still have epic battles and that, it's just a but discouraging when you're massively off on the pace of the leaders, and you can't see anyway to bridge the gap.

Oh yeah, slightly disappointed that the championships assume you have no life. Missed Saturdays because I was out, going to miss todays because it's darts night. I now it's the best three from seven, so you can miss some, but I need all the help I can get.

I don't think it's too bad really given that it does just count your best three. If they gave too many options for race times then it could get spread too thin and you'd end up with players with too many different skill levels in each race. They're probably still finding their feet with it so I expect it'll change a bit.

There will always be people faster than you. Those that have more time to practice, those who are just naturally fast. I have been playing iRacing properly for two years now and I am still sometimes 4s off the aliens depending on the track. I'm much closer on the oval side of things but that comes more naturally to me.

Just get to the level your dedication and skill can manage and have fun there. Don't see it as a game that you've got to conquer, because realistically you'll never get to the top.

Seems unfair to let them play in the human groups.

Heh, it's what us mere mortals refer to those who are ridiculously fast.

I think the people way faster than me might be using wheels. Dirty cheating twats.

Anyway, I have a new goal. Get to S rank Sportsmanship by grinding SR points, then Pund Smash!

(oh yeah, one of the flaws in the system, you can totally grind sportsmanship rating. You have to be racing to get into racing incidents, after all. Just let everyone pass you at the start of an online race and rack up those clean sectors.)