After delving deep into what I assume, My current assumption is that GT Sport is going to be more of a PURE PVP RACING GAME.
None of the elementary school competition against AI. It is doing exactly what Forza set the bar to do, with Drivatars… but instead it is simply cross-threading a PVP strategy with a career based racing game.
From what I can tell, Drivatars are thought of as a mistake, in the eyes of the development team at Polyphony Digital.
One of the things that I admire about PD, is that they ignore the fact that they have competition. They set out to just make the best game that they think they can make. They tackle ideas that they have. They build a game, that is not catered to their customers, but to the people that make the game.
Hire people that are truly fans of the company, fans of the series, and put their ideas to work. Things like having holidays off, no longer applies for a job like this. You either want to see your dream make it through, or you want to be at home barbecuing… the people that the game is made for, is the people that are making it.
If it takes hundreds of fanatics, to make the ideas sprawl across my TV screen, I have to be receptive to a game where my expectations simply end at, “THERE WILL BE CARS, and, THERE WILL BE CAMERAS.”
The above statement is all I need to know.
PD has never let me down in the Car department, and has always been able to make a usable photography mode.
I don’t care if GT Sport ends up being the “Destiny of Car games” if I can enjoy the parts I have come to enjoy about the series.
I played GT1 for the graphics and the Physics… I played GT2 for the same reason. At some point during GT2, I learned about game editing, and in turn learned a LOT more about Car games.
I call them car games, simply because they never seem to match the feeling of the physics of driving an actual car.
Every single Car Game to date, that I have played, and I try to play them all, still fails to hit that ZEN mark, where I feel like I am driving a car, and not sitting inside a fancy looking camera.
So Far GT Sport still looks to miss that feeling… so I don’t expect to be raving about it in November. Forza has not hit my mark since Forza 3… Though I still buy the games for the Photomode, That too has taken a hit after Forza 4.
There is a lot of improvement that is needed in the genre, and sadly, I don’t think I will ever get that chance to play a racing game that HAS that feeling, before I am dead.
These games that claim to have the most accurate physics… are based on REAL LIFE LAPS in the EXACT same car. So you simulated 4 laps around Nurburgring in an M3, and had a Race driver, do the same, and simulated traction loss, brake fade, and throttle response… Great!
There is more to it.
I recently Test Drove a Beetle GSR 2.0T… The first thing I noted about the car that I enjoyed, was the throttle noise. I loved the interior, and the stereo. What I noticed almost immediately, was that my inputs were being telegraphed to the car… but the car said nothing back. The beetle has a SMALL turbo. It should not lag like a stage 2 kit… but I put my foot into it, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZIP the throttle finally caught up to where my foot was on the throttle.
Steering the car, felt like I was playing Forza 4 and decided to unplug the wheel from the wall. There was simply no feedback from the road. It smoothly put the steering back to where it wants to be in order to go straight, and fights against you slightly.
If Car companies keep going in this direction… Video games will be that much closer to being accurate. Since the only thing that will be different, is what happens in the glass… which could one day, simply be a 32k monitor, with a 24 megapixel 3D camera installed in the nose.
By that point, I am sure that there will be more autonomous vehicles on the road, manufactured and marketed by companies that we currently associate with Saddle manufacturing.
If so, we can safely assume, that you could play Forza or Gran Turismo, via the Vehicle controls, while the car drives you to work… or you could simply just drive yourself to work.
At that point, Racing games, and Real World driving, will be on par with each other… The problem I have, is I will still want to drive that 71’ Challenger…
My question is, Do the Developers really know what is missing? Because I can tell you that there is a lot missing. It is all because the approach to building the game, is simply the wrong starting point.
I can catch rabbits when I chase them, partially due to my speed, but the part that makes me adept at catching them, is I know where to look, to judge their directional change.
If you are just trying to out run the rabbit, you need to assume, that it has no place to go but straight… If you force the rabbit to think that Straight is the only safe direction… Then you can catch the rabbit every time.
