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I'm not, but you know, every other **** will be playing it so I should at least get up to speed. I like fps games as long as I can play in teams. I like the whole team bonding side of things, looking out for each other, being heroic etc. The current deathmatch on the demo isn't much fun. I always end up just hiding in a corner.
[ 04.06.2007, 08:03: Message edited by: Jimmy Big Nuts ]
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I only realised like yesterday, that Halo was by Bungie, who made the Marathon games for Macs, way back in the 90s. Nobody ever really talks about marathon, but I'd say those games are right there with Doom etc.
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There's team slayer too and Big Team Battle, and on the non ranked games there's Skirmish games like territories and VIP etc. I find it does get better when you learn the maps so you at least know where the weapons are and know which weapons are best for each situation. It stills sucks to be sniped all the time by one guy, I hope the matchmaking will be improved so that more even match ups will happen.
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Saying that, even in team games, I still suck and blow very hard. on GRAW, I'm the chimp getting cut down within 2 seconds of enemy contact while my pals are all ducking and double-tapping.
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This is the frustration, even if you devoted your life to the game you would never get as good as the 12-17 year old age bracket. The new gamer generation, with thumbs that move like lightning, advanced peripheral gamer vision and super sensitivity to dolby 5.1 subtleties.
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Maybe. I didn't used to be a huge fan of racing games. I really did enjoy Burnout: Revenge, though, so it's kind of whetted my appettite for them. However, I hear that the crashes are a bit muted on Forza (something to do with car manufacturers not wanting their products to be seen as fiery instruments of horrific death), which removes half the appeal. I like crashes, you see.
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quote:Originally posted by Nathan Bleak: However, I hear that the crashes are a bit muted on Forza (something to do with car manufacturers not wanting their products to be seen as fiery instruments of horrific death), which removes half the appeal. I like crashes, you see.
I think you'd enjoy the FlatOut series. I've played the first two games on PC and they're a lot of fun, thanks to the physics based crashes and destructible scenery.
Seems like there's an xbox 360 version due to be launched in a few weeks:
quote:Originally posted by Nathan Bleak: Maybe. I didn't used to be a huge fan of racing games. I really did enjoy Burnout: Revenge, though, so it's kind of whetted my appettite for them. However, I hear that the crashes are a bit muted on Forza (something to do with car manufacturers not wanting their products to be seen as fiery instruments of horrific death), which removes half the appeal. I like crashes, you see.
Thing is, Forza and Burnout are like opposite ends of a very long spectrum. Burnout is a pure arcade racer, completely removed from the experience of actual racing. In fact, am I right in saying that out of its many many modes, only one of them actually concerns itself with the order in which you cross the finish line?
Forza on the other hand is as close as the developers feel they can get to accurately recreating the act of driving a car. It's meant to be a complete simulation of racing, with all its subtelties, including such things as tyre pressures and flex, differences in wind speed, strength of braking, and all of the minute adjustments you can make to your vehicle to make it competative. It's exactly the kind of game that appeals to a complete petrolhead car geek like me, whereas I wouldn't have thought you would get the full enjoyment out of the game, because you're not going to want to spend whole evenings playing with your ride height, damper rates and gear ratios.
I might be wrong, of course, and maybe you'd really enjoy it. But I think it's a bit of a leap to think that your tastes have suddenly switched to enjoying hardcore racing sims, because you enjoyed crashing cars on a light hearted arcade game.
It's like, say you're having sex one day and maybe your partner pinches your or something and you're all like "hmm, that wasn't bad actually. I've never liked anything kinky like that before. But hey, it seems I should now go and buy some full S&M garb, and build myself a dungeon of pain"
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Yeah, you're absolutely right Ringo. Forza doesn't sound like my kind of thing at all. Customisation, breathtaking accuracy and considered driving don't appeal in the slightest. I liked Burnout just becuase it was 'plough through the traffic' high speed nonsense. Forza 2 now sounds a bit too much like the last thing I would ever want to bother doing with my free time.
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If you crash hard enough in FlatOut, your driver will fly out of the windscreen in all his ragdoll glory. Alongside the racing, there are a number of mini games, based on the idea of launching your driver to his death. Posts: 14015
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Well yeah, that's pretty much the impression you've given.
'I dont' like car games but I like burnout becasue I can crash cars together and make them explode'
Even your post above alluded to it.
Like I said, maybe I'm wrong, it's just that Burnout and Forza are like chalk and cheese. Totally different style of game. Enjoying one doesn't suggest you're going to enjoy the other. I'm not trying to tell you not to give it a go so no need to get all upset about it.
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Gear ratios are the best thing about Gran Turismo. I must have spent hours adjusting them on my beloved Unisia Jecs R32 GT-R and Mitusbishi GTO.
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Although, uh, one of the things they always raved about from the first game was that the experience was so scalable with various difficulty levels, driver aids and suggested racing lines etc, that it had some appeal for people who didn't want to completely immerse themselves in the advanced aspects of the game. Which is why I'm not categorically saying that you wouldn't enjoy it, but it does seem a bit of a waste to get a game like that when you're not going to enjoy all of it's potential.
It's a shame that Ridge Racer 7 isn't out for 360 as I think that would probably be more up your street (although I stopped playing it when I got so frustrated with it I threw my sixaxis across the room)
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: If you crash hard enough in FlatOut, your driver will fly out of the windscreen in all his ragdoll glory. Alongside the racing, there are a number of mini games, based on the idea of launching your driver to his death.
That looks more like it. I think I played a demo of this on the PC, but couldn't get my car round the first bend.
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Ringo - In your opinion, can Forza really hold a candle to the PC driving sims, such as rFactor and Live for Speed?
I've not played rFactor so it's hard to comment, and I've not actually played Forza 2, just the first one. However in my personal opinion a game like Forza/Gran Turismo etc will always be hampered by the controller it's designed to be played with. Realistically you can only play LFS properly with a steering wheel and pedals, and preferably one like the Logitec G25 with a clutch pedal and H-pattern shifter along with 900 degrees of rotation. You can have the best physics in the world but there are elements of the control system which determine how you interract with them.
For instance steering angle. In a real car, your steering wheel is connected to the wheels via the steering rack. If you steer hard, you'll get understeer, even if it's a shallow bend. If you steer harder the steering wheel will eventually wind round to the lock stops as your car slithers forward into a hedge. you steer and steer, but nothing happens, the car continues to go forwards. On LFS, this happens as well. On a console game, you don't have finite control of the steering angle, and the rate at which you turn the virtual wheel. That is to say, the angle of the front wheels is not 'directly linked' to the angle of the analogue stick. There's a control system in place which determines how quickly your electronic driver turns his virtual steering wheel and the angle at which he will stop turning. As you start to experience understeer, the virtual driver will stop winding on steering angle. So while you are pushing the analogue stick all the way to one side, the effect on the car may be as little as half steering angle. If the angle of the wheels were directly linked to the angle of the stick, then it would be almost impossible to drive.
There are many other examples of this. For the most part, a good ajority of people will play a game like Forza in automatic gearing mode. That, in itself, is unrealistic in a car which has a manual gearbox. You have no clutch, no control over the severity of the throttle input, etc etc. In LFS, you have the option of using auto gears but the experience is so deviod of control you generally don't want to. Just like in real life, driving an automatic at pace is a frustrating and annoying experience. But there's more to it than just that. In LFS, the throttle input is managed just by you, so if you 'flatshift' (i.e. change gears while holding your foot on the throttle) you'll eventually damage your gearbox, and it'll affect your performance. You're encouraged to drive it exactly how you would a real car.
That's not to say that LFS is without its faults. The steering wheel, no matter the force feedback, isn't connected to actual wheels, and so the movement is not accurate. The motors in a force feedback wheel lack the torque required to make the wheel turn at the rate it would in a real car, and if they did then you'd never be able to turn the wheel. For instance, in my Mazda one thing I used to enjoy doing: steer into a corner half throttle, then feather the throttle to loe traction before hitting the gas to slide the tail round. When the car starts to slide, you just let go of the wheel and it will automatically countersteer at a rate greater than your hands would ever physically be able to turn the wheel, and then you grab the wheel at the desired angle to stop it, and power out of the corner.
So there's no such thing as a perfect driving simulator because you're limited by the input device you use, and by the fact you need to keep the experience accessible to people without being ridiculously difficult. What developers aim to do is give an aprroximation of the feel of driving. Something which, while not perfect in terms of absolute realism, gives the sensation of driving a car while still being a fun game. The nature of a PC and the various input methods available, means that a greater level of technical realism can be achieved, although it's hard to quantify a 'satisfying driving experience' which is why sometimes a game like Forza et al, can be more rewarding and almost feel more like actually driving a car than a full on simulator.
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Thanks for the reply Ringo. I'm using my wheel for everything at the moment. Even X³ Reunion. There's something way cool about driving a space ship with a steering wheel and pedals, using the gear paddles to fire frickin' lasers.
I tried playing a Forza on xbox a few weeks back, but I found the control pad really frustrating, like it disconnected me from the driving. Rumble isn't a patch on force feedback.
I still find arcade racing games enjoyable, but as you say, they're in a totally different category to simulators. I find Forza falls into an uncomfortable middle ground. Although it may be very accurate, it's just not realistic enough for me, at least with one of these:
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To be honest I never found Forza that realistic compared to Gran Turismo which is why I never liked the game as much. I haven't played Forza 2 so can't say if it's better or not, although you'd assume they would have improved the feel and response. One thing about Forza that did always impress me was how the game conveyed the sense of weight in the cars. Without ABS engaged, braking from high speeds is something you need to plan carefully, pick your marker and make constant adjustments to the braking pressure as the car decelerates, making sure not to lock the wheels. There's a sense of bery strong forces at work, rather than on GT where you can basically just mash the brake button and the car slows down.
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Wow, that's a helluva set. 40in? Jesus Christ. How big's your new house?
Here's Fawn's top tip for LCD: usually the default settings are set to eye-bleedingly bright and unnatural colours to make the picture really leap out, so it's worth tinkering with them. Also, turning the sharpness down on non-HD inputs (like regular DVD, for example), actually improves the picture quality and eliminates that thing where people's skin appears to smear and crawl around their skull.
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it should still be possible to squeeze two people in the lounge with this tv if they do a half sit/kneel thing against the back wall.
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