The following quotes are from fellow sim racers and reflect their thoughts (both pro and con) regarding SCGT. After you've downloaded the SCGT demo and played with it awhile send us your comments. We'll be happy to post them here as well. The only rule we have is that it has to be clean and informative. Anything we view to be in bad taste or using poor language won't be posted. Negative comments (as well as positive ones) are welcome.
- SCGT Review by Dave Thayer
- Need some links?
HINT for T2 users or those using other dual axis controllers. Keep the pedals combined. They work grand in SCGT !!!
HINT #2 - Press "F4" twice and you'll get the dash.
In my humble opinion EA is knocking on the door to producing the best sim racing game yet to date. The graphics are great without being too much for lower end systems. The AI drivers are the best I have seen to date,(in fact I am still trying to figure out how they shrunk real drivers down and added them in to the game! :-) )
My only real complaint (and its a small one) is the "in car" view. The dash is ok, but would be better if it was model specific instead of the generic one we have now. That and please let us make our own pitstops, we can all handle it!
Oh, and if anyone at EA is reading this, ADD A PAINTSHOP!
Beyond that, it is great. The track detail is awesome, the cars are great, the sounds are wonderful, and the scenery around the track is INCREDIBLE. Hats off to EA, they have finally come into thier own in the sim racing scene. Now lets just wait for the final version and see how much better it gets!
ps. I have driven these types of cars, so I know of what I speak.
John Knapp
Owner, Northeast Motorsports
Great game, if you ask me. Any Sportscar fan who goes to Sebring every year, or has seen the Porsche GT1, or heard the thunder of the Panoz will tell you that we've been waiting for this for a long time. At first I was saying to myself, okay, theres no real 'in-car' view, you are forced with autopit and the gravel traps are a little unrealistic. Now, I'm saying to myself, wow, the Porsche 911 is really that manueverable? Theres AI out on the sim-racing market that is THIS good? There are graphics like these that can actually be handled on a normal 3d video card?
This game has been a long time coming. I'm glad to see someone stepped up and tried something with Sportscars! I think that most people used to the Nascar 1, 2, 3, GPL, Indycar games will have as much fun with this as they did with the others, despite the games downfalls. I think the physics are pretty close to real life, not TOO hard for a beginner, not so easy for an expert to give up playing after a week.
There are still things that I'm experimenting with in the demo!
Downfalls of the game...
1. Lacks a real incar view, with dashboard and surroundings, due to the many different types of cars in the game.
2. No damage model... YET (its just the demo)
3. Gravel traps and grass slow you down a bit too much to be realistic.
4. Autopit is controlled by computer, but I found that it really isn't that much of a downfall. You're not in the pits as much as a Winston Cup car, or in other forms of racing.
5. No way to paint cars within the game, but I'm sure one of you great guys at Sim Cyberworld will come up with a way, or someone will :)
Good parts...
1. Great graphics, and incredible framerate if you have a 3d card that supports 3dfx, or Direct3d.
2. Realistic wheelspin, garage settings, and chassis movements.
3. Great selection of cars, even in the demo!
4. Cars look great at night, theres headlights, wet track settings, and daytime settings.
5. I *heard* that EA will also realease new cars and tracks for download when they get the licenses for them.
6. The AI is better, simply the best that I've seen in a sim to date. Astonishing the moves they make, they look a lot like the real guys do. They won't 'move over for you' but they don't block you either.
7. Replay system is nice too.
Thanks for letting me share my opinion!
"The kid in the car"
George Neill (GoBill on TEN)
SCGT...i think the demo looks and sounds good...wish i had a little better machine to take advantage of the graphics..but what's the deal with EA thinking we can't drive out of the pit's without them holding our hands? hate that....should be an option that can be turned off...well..that's my opinion.
thanks for your time.
Andy
Sierra is in trouble. N99 hoovers compared to this. I hope the full version lets you run against more cars though. It also needs some work done on the dash and the sound. Other than those things this is a complete winner. Highly recommended.
Mike Asher
The one thing I see with SCGT is in night time driving, I cannot tell if I have headlights on in the cockpit view. I see the track lights fine but nothing on the track from my car. If I didnt have the track memorized it would be very tough to see where to drive.
AI seem to be a little slower in the corners than I am. Gives me a chance to gain a little ground when set to the hardest level. I think I have the game set right. I guess there is a catchup option and dont know if I have that set. Need to check.
Other than that, it is an outstanding game and anxiously awaiting for the full version.
Dave Thayer
After downloading the SCGT demo and giving it a fair amount of play, or try to play , these are my impressions so far. I do agree with the other comments that the game feels a little too *arcadish*, and in more ways than the way the cars "drive". It's like it's a game on the borderline between arcade and simulator. I think the game has great potential to be a fantastic simulator, especially with the backing (or former backing?) from Professional Sports Car, but I suppose the 3 way war between PSCR, ALMS, and USRRC has split over to ImageSpace, and it shows.
Here's the way I see it, and I'll not beat around the bush about it. If a software company wants to make a "sim", then why don't they, or as it seems lately, won't they go out and garner information about their sim from the racing teams, drivers, organizations themselves. The SCGT sim , formerly known as PSCR sim had great potential until what I just mentioned above arose.
Being a huge sim racing fan, and having worked for and with racers that are now running in different professional road racing series (PSCR and USCCR), I believe, that especially the teams and whichever sanctioning body you choose, would be very willing to provide detailed input for a sim. The US road racing scene has gone from mediocre, to bad, and now to worse, with a whole other "split" (ALMS from PSCR). Creating an excellent road racing sim would garner great sales and reviews, draw interest in the gaming community (consumers, fans, spectators, users, etc.), which would in turn
raise awareness of the American road racing scene. More awareness, more fans, spectators, more users and consumers would certainly make the American road racing scene look more lucrative to companies and promoters for sponsorships, more sponsorship means more money, more entries, more competition, etccccc.... Ok, now that I've just solved all of road racing's problems indirectly through creating a better sim, let me get back to the game itself. Notice I'm calling it a game, and not a sim.
I don't have a good 3d driver, but I did manage to get the game working on my computer, so I don't get all of the great visual graphics. But great graphics don't make a great sim.
I'm using a TSW, and haven't gotten it to work properly in the game. My brakes are always fully applied. I've re-installed and re-calibrated it in Windows, hoping to solve the problem, to no avail. So if I try to use the wheel, I run laps with full throttle and full brake, and can't get the full experience. There's no way, or at least I haven't found one yet, to either set the controls, or calibrate them from within the game Having driven Improved Touring races in SCCA competition, I've never had grass slow me down as much as the grass in SCGT does. Usually if it's wet, I'd accelerate with no hope at all. And if it was dry, boy the turf was hard, and I went for some wild rides (usually airborne) until either I struck something (like a tire wall, guardrail, or sandbank), or managed to regain control a few hundred yard later to slow down and drive back onto the track. Not once did I ever sink down 6 inches into the turf to bog down to a slow stop like in SCGT.
I also agree that the cars look a little big on the track, the scale seems a bit off in SCGT.
Since I've had to relegate myself back to driving with the keyboard, I haven't been able to be competitive with the AI, but I did notice that after a collision (heavy) with one of the Saleen's, the AI did limp back to the pits with the LF wheel locked up and leaving a black rubber streak all the way to pit lane. Yay on that one, good realism there, but no body damage. No control in pit lane. I tried to blow up a motor by overrevving it.....nothing happened. Working lights, and way cool brake lights That dweeby horn Cool engine rumble at idle That disgraceful note from the Porsche Tire marks In conclusion, it seems that they did a great job on the "superficial" aspects of the game. But it still falls short on the "sim" aspect. Realistic looks, realistic sounds, realistic effects all give it great potential to blow away other sims, but it's still an Arcade game. I know it's only a demo, and there's still a lot that can be done with it.
My hopes are that Image Space wants to make this a simulator, and not an arcade game. If they do want to pursue the "simulator" aspect, I wouldn't mind waiting at all for it, and they should take as long as they need to to make an accurately rendered sim. We've all seen what happens with sims when they are pushed out the door before their time like what Papy did with ICR2/CART Racing and Microprose with GP2. The GP2 release even has the files included in it (multilanguage radio communication, changing weather conditions, etc), that MP wouldn''t allow time for completion. ICR2 also
has rain settings included, but are not used.
N2, N99, ICR2, GP2 are all very good simulators. They could've been ranked as great or excellent simulators if they were allowed completion. Grand Prix Legends borders on greatness. We'll see about N3, but I suppose Sierra will push that one out the door too soon.... SCGT has great potential to be "fantastic", but by the looks of the demo, it's far from it, at least so far......
It will be interesting to see how the final product turns out. SCGT, the excellent sim.....or SCGT Revolution, all graphics, all hype, no sim....
John Hinkle