racing games - no not racist games you fucking ni

[The Last Stand]

I'm nearly done with Forza Horizon 4's Encore? achievement to complete the last Festival Series before its delisting. Luckily, there were tunes and community blueprints to aid with completing some daily/weekly challenges.

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

Bumping this thread to recommend Parking Garage Rally Circuit.

Apparently the dev declared that if the game got 100k sales, he will port it to Sega Saturn.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I will elaborate upon what I said.

I've been playing Wreckfest, and I'm hooked on it. It's also way more fun than the other dedicated racing games (crew, Nascar) I've played.
I got it for soft body deformation, but what actually sticks with me (not that I don't like that) is the way the cars feel. I like muscle cars and I like the feel of shitty muscle cars dragging their way (kind of "heavy" but responsive, if that makes sense) around tracks at low speeds. I liked the Watch_Dogs car handling (and hated the changes in 2) because of that, it was weightier. This game, of course, is built out of that.

Then you add in choices with the racetracks. Visually it's very good, but the combination of jamming tracks with too many cars and often having tracks where you have oncoming traffic or T-bone intersections sets it up for the wrecks, and crashing feels "crashy" and in general it just feels really realistic. I wish it had themes besides fictitious competitions, though, because a lot of the settings feel like it could be set in city streets, small towns and countryside and not just realistic tracks and it would be richer for it.

The gimmicky competitions with things like busting up school buses and limousines and sofa races are delightful.

I listen to 70s rock when I play the game.

It's the first racing game I've played where I. Right now I'm trying to get better at understanding fundamental principles of racing (like the line/cornering), which really do work.

 

[T-21]

Genki, a Japanese video game company known for making obscure racing games mainly relates to drift battles, touge races, and wangan races, has started a countdown for something within less than few days from now.

Update: New Tokyo Xtreme Racer will be released around 2025. Not much to be shown except the trailer and render screenshots.

 

[Miller]

The Beta being only on 30 FPS, is still a "work in progress", and is only available for console pre-orders, screams that this game will be a shitshow on launch.

I remember when this generation of consoles advertised "120 fps" and 4 years later most games can't even reach 60 frames per seconds.

 

[Thiletonomics]

TDUSC's Game Director was interviewed at GamesCom, and talked more about the game. It was also mentioned on GTPlanet that some people have already received their Collector's Edition versions of TDUSC, and the product quality is poor, as to be expected:

But will the game have a higher peak player count than Concord on Steam? Racing games have always been a niche genre, and the advertising for TDUSC has been lacking, in addition to the game's release date being delayed 3 times.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Nacon announced their roadmap for Year 1 of TDUSC, which includes the town of Ibiza being added in Season 2, and the Casino in Season 4:

Bugfixes and Optimization being mentioned as a roadmap highlight is never a good thing to see, and the game is becoming more and more obvious that it's going to flop hard.

CarX Street was also released yesterday on Steam. People have complained about the excessive amount of AI generated content (voiceovers, images, etc), has fuel and tire management (no one wants to deal with this shit in racing games), and the game suffers from FPS drops.

 

[Lerias]

CarX Street was also released yesterday on Steam. People have complained about the excessive amount of AI generated content (voiceovers, images, etc), has fuel and tire management (no one wants to deal with this shit in racing games), and the game suffers from FPS drops.

1. The developers are censoring the game's discussion page
2. This is against Steam policy as they have not disclosed that they're using AI generated content
3. Even the AI generated voices are limited, dialogue apparently only appears in the first 10 minutes of the game according to a friend who's had the displeasure of playing it.

Overall this is not worth the 2 year wait.

 

[quaawaa]

Nacon announced their roadmap for Year 1 of TDUSC, which includes the town of Ibiza being added in Season 2, and the Casino in Season 4:

Why Ibiza and not Macau? I thought the whole point of the game was to be in Asia.

 

[Thiletonomics]

TDUSC's devs have gone on strike, due to worker mismanagement and poor pay. It's yet another strike against the game, with it more and more likely becoming the Concord of Racing Games.

They also revealed the System Requirements for the game, but they still haven't release the official car list:



The 50 GB game size is noticeably smaller than Gran Turismo and Forza games, but it won't matter if the game sucks.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Bumping this thread to recommend Parking Garage Rally Circuit.

Apparently the dev declared that if the game got 100k sales, he will port it to Sega Saturn.

This actually looks entertaining. Why the fuck don't more devs think outside of the box like this? More racers should have creative ideas for tracks instead of the typical standard shit.

Also "lol" at a Saturn port. Good luck with all those complicated quads, but I hope he succeeds just so that the Saturn can actually get some more work and love done to it.

 

[Thiletonomics]

The review embargo for TDUSC has been lifted, and reviews have been average to bad, as the graphics and performance issues in the Demo Version were NOT fixed, as to be expected. They do seem to be that Nacon will fix the issues, given the ongoing strike, and the game's release being delayed 3 times:

• AutoEvolution / Archived (75/100) Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a perfectly good racing game that grew on me the more I played it. Unlocking more parts of the map, buying more vehicles, and participating in various races made me want to engage with the Solar Crown world more and more. In other words, the game has its formula right, and with a few tweaks here and there, in time, I'm sure it will be a great game that will keep its fan base happy and fed for years to come.
• HeyPoorPlayer / Archived (60/100) Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown sits in a bit of an unfortunate spot on the road. It wants so badly to be like its older brothers, Forza Horizon and The Crew. Yet it misses its mark due to a laundry list of immersion-wrecking faults and bugs, a lack of technical details, and an unremarkable collection of cars. To Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown’s credit, Hong Kong can be an absolutely gorgeous sandbox with its impressive mix of urban and natural environments. Despite these shortcomings and its occasionally spotty steering and quirky rearview mirrors, there’s something worthwhile trapped under the hood. Buried somewhere underneath the attempts at realism, you can almost catch a glimpse of the fun arcade racer Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown is better suited to be.
• GameReactorUK / Archived (7/10) Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown is not, in my opinion, the game that pushes Forza Horizon off the open world racing throne. It's not exactly close with either its driving feel or visuals, yet still there is a lot of entertaining content to take part in for those who want to venture out on the virtual roads.
• VGC / Archived (60/100) Solar Crown is a perfectly enjoyable open-world racing game with solid handling and plenty to do, but its world map is too large to maintain a consistent level of detail and it loses some personality as a result. This, combined with occasional frame rate issues even in Performance mode give the game an unpolished feel. If you're looking for a new open-world racer we'd still recommend it, as long as you don't expect anything particularly innovative.
• GamingBolt / Archived (70/100) Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown doesn't scale the heights of other virtual tourism open world racers in recent years, but it's an enjoyable driving game in its own right, even with its rough edges
• TraxionGG / Archived (Consider) There is plenty to appeal here, but you must dig deep and commit to the long haul. If you are interested, try not to quit after the first two hours and wait to be rewarded. Which in many ways is what the Test Drive Unlimited series has always done best. The slow reveal, the hard work, the reward. Solar Crown is set to expand and improve in the years to come. Whether or not a loyal community is formed to bring the streets to life is critical and Traxion will keep tabs on its progress. As it stands today, however, there are rough edges that need filing down.
• RacingGamesGG / Archived (9/10) Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown blends strong driving physics with a vibrant environment that rewards exploration. AI racing is strong, and there is plenty to do and discover in this new open-world racer. While narrative story takes a bit of a back seat, you'll have plenty of fun driving around Hong Kong Island and taking in everything this game has to offer.
• GRYOnline.pl / Archived (60/100) The two most important features of TDU: Solar Crown, namely the driving and the open world, are very well done. And the flaws? They are very serious, without question. However, probably all the shortcomings can be eliminated with updates. Not in a week, not in a month, maybe not even in a year - but it can be done.
• CarThrottle / Archived (3/5) It’s taken 13 years and quite a few delays, and simply seeing a new entry into the Test Drive Unlimited series is a delight. But, should you race out to buy Solar Crown? If you’re expecting a deep experience from day one, probably not. If it were my money, I’d hold off a few months and a few content updates, and pick it up when it’s on sale. Ibiza’s planned return in December could be a good point for that. There’s a solid game waiting to be unlocked here, but I think it’s going to need time for KT Racing’s real ambitions to be realized. The foundations are in place but in its launch state there’s not a great deal of depth and a sense of lifelessness to things which hopefully, time will solve. And let’s hope it won’t be another 13 years of whatever the god-awful closing line the game has to offer ringing in my ears.
• GameOnlyPL / Archived (2.5/5) I don't know who I could recommend Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown to. If you like racing, you'll find games where it's done better. You won't visit picturesque locations or listen to good music here. This is a title that has many elements that could create a fantastic social racing MMO if they were done well. I have the impression that the creators wanted to do too much, which is why we ended up with an ugly game, but at least unfinished. The title is sold at a really low price by today's standards, below 100 PLN, and that's still too much considering the current state of production. The creators have already announced their plans for new content and support for the title for the next few months, but I don't know if it makes sense. Maybe it's worth learning from what didn't work out and trying to do something new and better? Despite all my complaining, I think KT Racing can do better.
• GameGrin / Archived (7/10) A relatively triumphant return for the long-dormant franchise, Solar Crown still has a ways to go before it can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its peers, but for now it’s off to a good start.
• GTPlanet / Archived (2.5/5) Visually and dynamically unimpressive, TDUSC appears to focus more on the style of the interior environments than the substance of gameplay. It’s very hard to argue with the size and diversity of the map, but there’s only ~200 mostly short races on it. Just 100 cars at launch and generic tuning options we’ve seen everywhere else before. The online offering is… the game, with nothing additional as far as we can tell. Always online, requiring console MP subscription, and a Nacon account to take part in any gameplay. Uninspiring vehicle physics both on- and off-road (and dreadful in the air) leads to a very unsatisfying, arcade-lite driving experience. No 4K option on ninth-gen consoles, and doesn’t hold 60fps even at 1080p on PS5. Poor draw distances, plenty of tear and pop-in, inconsistent shadows, and sub-PS3-era lighting. Cars all sound pretty good and adapt to modifications, reasonable soundtrack; default mix could do with bringing up environmental sounds a lot.
• XboxEra / Archived (In Progress) ...Allegedly. You see, every single time the game supposedly created a matchmade session, be it for open world, a dealership or whatever, the game crashed with no other players found. 100% of the time, automatic crash. You can see why this is a massive problem: virtually every single aspect of this game is built around online interactions, so that’s A LOT of times being booted to the dashboard. This began a journey that is… quite hilarious in hindsight but that’s been awfully frustrating. I tried so many things. I rebooted the console, including leaving it unplugged for a while. I emptied my cache. I redownloaded the game and moved it to a different drive. I even hopped from my Series X all the way cross my Series S console. Nothing of the sort worked, but I didn’t want to give up just yet. Once, the game even crashed during the opening videos with the various studio logos – what’s going on here? I initially suspected a hardware failure of some sort on my end, but it turned out that was absolutely not the case.
• JournalDuGeek / Archived (8/10) Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown captures the essence of the original series with realistic driving, detailed vehicle modeling, and an immersive open world on Hong Kong Island. However, as a AA title, it lacks the graphical polish of AAA games and is exclusively multiplayer, offering no solo progression. Despite these limitations, it delivers a nostalgic and enjoyable experience, earning an 8/10.

The game is also locked to 30 FPS on Xbox Series S.

 

[Miller]

They also revealed the System Requirements for the game, but they still haven't release the official car list:

>having to use FSR/DLSS and medium setting to get the game to run at 60fps at 1080p
JFC they have no shame.
I will wait for Worth A Buy's review if they give him a key (I doubt it).

 

[Thiletonomics]

>having to use FSR/DLSS and medium setting to get the game to run at 60fps at 1080p
JFC they have no shame.
I will wait for Worth A Buy's review if they give him a key (I doubt it).

The optimization in TDUSC is so terrible, that even 4090s will experience FPS drops if you try to run the game at Max graphics settings. And some people have said that the game may not be real 1440p or 4k, but is upscaled from a lower resolution instead.

When the servers went live earlier, they were so overwhelmed, that many people couldn't even play the game, and people were forced to wait in a queue:



Nacon claims that they made some changes to rectify the server issues, but if the servers are choking in Early Access, then the actual release will be an even bigger shitshow:



Steam Reviews for the game are Mostly Negative, because of the said server issues and horrible graphics and performance. The player count isn't Concord or Dustborn-levels of shit, but they still don't look re-assuring for the future of the game:



Here's a video showing all of the cars in the game. The Ferrari 250 GTO is the most expensive car in the game, costing 21 MILLION+ CREDITS:

There also isn't any form of cross-play, and some people reported that automatic transmission shifting sometimes bugs out if you max out on car upgrades.

And as mentioned in the Sony Hate Thread, PD will be releasing a Demo version of Gran Turismo, called "My First Gran Turismo", but what about the rest of GT7 Kaz? GT7 didn't have an August update, so maybe they're slowing down updates to begin to stop doing them, for the inevitable GT8 or some other GT spin-off?

 

[AngryAboutInternets]

Just in case anyone missed it, BallisticNG has a new dev build out with some updates to 2280/modern physics and new ship skins.

 

[Thiletonomics]

The mess that is TDUSC continues to amaze, for the wrong reasons, as AI drivers sometimes steer to the right at the start of a race:

There's also this weird texture glitch:

And there's these um, off-road physics:

KT also made it so that repeating the same race over and over reduces the payout on subsequent times for racing that same track.

There also doesn't appear to be an animation for using paddle shifters while in cockpit view, as it only uses the manual shifting animation, even on cars such as the Nissan 370Z, which is apparently the AT version with paddle shifters.

CarThrottle also dropped their rating on TDUSC to 1/5, due to the numerous server issues:

 

[Lerias]

as AI drivers sometimes steer to the right at the start of a race:

This could be them trying to get on the racing line, which indicates on-rails AI opponents instead of ones that are actually aware of where you are at all times. Turning on the auto drive assist in Forza Motorsport will also make your car turn right into the racing line at the start of races.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Nacon announced that the TDUSC server issues were "fixed", and plan to offer "compensation" for the downtime:



And it appears that the issue with reduced payouts after doing a race multiple times is even worse than originally though, as there doesn't appear to be a way to get rid of the said payout reductions. Combine that with things such as the daily limits to cash-outs while driving out in the open world, they definitely weren't lying about how it will take hundreds of hours to get a Hypercar like a Bugatti Chiron, by making the grind worse than in the Gran Turismo games.

The Livery Editor in TDUSC also appears to be barebones, and has very low text and number limits. There also isn't a way to share liveries with other players like in other racing games.



Also, it costs over 278 Million credits to purchase all of the 99 cars in TDUSC. In comparison, it costs ~500 Million credits to obtain all 514 cars in Gran Turismo 7. (As of this writing)

 

[Thiletonomics]

So it appears that the reduced payouts in TDUSC for doing multiple races resets either on a daily or weekly basis, but the limits still being a thing is being done to try to stretch the life of the game. And these payout reductions will probably show themselves with the upcoming Battle Pass that releases next week, which again has no place in a racing game.

And the Lancia Delta HF Integrale in TDUSC can't be used in off-road races, even though that car was known specifically for it's rallying prowess!

And people are still having issues with connecting and getting into races, and it appears to be that EU console players are having the most troubles with the game still, which is going to get worse once the Silver Edition Early Access starts on Tuesday, and the Base Version releases on Thursday:

Sony has sold out all of their tickets for the GT World Series event in Japan, but I still doubt that there are that many GT fans, enough to fill this venue:



Series 38 of Forza Horizon 5 will include the Hide & Seek mode that was teased last week.

 

[Neodanthril]

i really enjoyed forza motorsport 4. it was a really cool idea to have ambigous performance brackets and have total freedom to build cars that performed best within that bracket. i never bought another console after the 360 so i didnt play the next two installments. i finally get around to trying forza seven, and now there are "homologation restrictions." what the fuck? why even give me the option to buy upgrades if what i can actually race with in the campagian is so narrow that customization is functionally impossible? i want to win the races with MY car, not the car you allow me to use. what an absolutely retarded decision.