Race Driver: Grid Preview

[Metman24]

Re: IGN: Race Driver: Grid Preview

Because Race Driver, the offspring of the great TOCA series by Codemasters, always was a sim. It was about real race cars on real racetracks, with an emphasis on a good driving and racing models.

The screens and pre-release information for this game show that Codemasters has caved in and is turning this game into a hybrid of Project Gotham Racing and Need For Speed Carbon. As if the console world needs another one of those games -- what a joke.

Race Driver has been about real racing since the late 1990s on the PSX. Now one of the few console sim racing series appears to be biting the proverbial dust.

Sad.

Take care,
PK

Basically, what he said.

[Metman24]

Re: IGN: Race Driver: Grid Preview

That doesn't explain anything, its one man complaint about V8 cars, those aren't the major cars of racing! I mean come on! That isn't a valid complaint, thats just 1 person being anal about V8 racing cars and DTM's, it doesn't make the game bad!

How could a complaint about something that is true, not be a valid complaint? If you're not a fan of V8 racing, then that's your opinion, but to say the removal of it from a game is not something to complain about is silly.


There's no way oc knowing whether or not the game is going to be good or bad. The thing they are claiming is that it is going to be different. And that to me is disappointing. A change of focus, to a more arcade, user friendly, less sim direction is not something I'm looking forward to.

[forensicd]

Re: IGN: Race Driver: Grid Preview

Honestly, the moment I saw the videos of this, I was dissapointed, becuase it seems to no longer hold the SIM aspects that the games I have loved for so many years looks to be gone. I love codemasters, and have supported them for along time, but with SIMBIN making games that are blowing the doors off the codemasters in the SIM department, maybe codemasters feels they need to go in a different direction. I have never looked at the numbers for TOCA on how much they have sold, but they have to have a reason for going from SIM racing to more arcadey.

[mercalnd]

Re: IGN: Race Driver: Grid Preview

What irks me is that the genre of racing games based on the sport of racing, in other words a championship where you are with a race team with a championship schedule, practice, qualifying and races for points, seems to be vanishing completely and replaced with games where you buy cars and parts to tune them and then enter them in small races or series of races for money to buy more cars and parts. This is not the sport of racing in the real world.

I don't even need it to be licensed but I want games that make me the driver in a racing series. Drivers in racing series don't buy cars and parts. They race for teams on real race tracks in a structured championship. I realize the racing depicted in today's racing games does exist in the real world but it's just not the way the actual sport works, if that makes any sense. For example, in the link complaining about the loss of V8's and DTM's, they are not complaining that these types of cars are now missing but rather that these 2 fine, and very popular I might add, racing series are no longer being depicted in the game. They don't want to just buy these cars and enter races they want to race the actual series.

The only "sports-racing" (if I can call it that) titles that are left on 360-PS3 are the MotoGP series, Sony's F1 Championship Edition, EA's terrible NASCAR game and the upcoming Superbike title. There is also a rumored EA F1 game but nothing's been announced as of yet. It used to be that all kinds of different racing series either had their own game or were depicted in games like TOCA featuring different series.

[pk500]

Re: IGN: Race Driver: Grid Preview

VERY well said, forensic and mercal. Agree wholeheartedly.

Take care,
PK

[fishstick]

Re: IGN: Race Driver: Grid Preview

I don't think they are ruining it, I think they are making another type of racing game. Its in the name Race Driver: Grid! Mainly targeting that style of racing.

And exactly the point. If GRID is a PGR/NFS clone then WHY tag the Race Driver name onto it? The Race Driver name sets a certain expectation. By marketing a differnt type of game under the RD banner you are only setting yourself up to disappoint the fanbase that has developed for the series. And since the RD name is utterly unrecognizable as a brand outside of that fanbase the name recognition isn't going to do anything to boost sales.

What if in 09 EA decided to make only one NFL game - Madden GRIDiron. It carried the brand name that everyone knows as a sim but played like the NFL Street games. Sure, that doesn't mean it is a bad game or that some people won't like it but all in all it would only be disconnecting a fanbase that took years to develop.

You may not care for the V8s or DTM cars but to Race Driver fans these were cornerstones of the gameplay. True to life race series and true to life circuits. If RD fans had wanted drifting or 90 degree walled in city courses they would have been buying NFS and PGR instead. So while this game may sound more to your 'style' don't try to justify the whoring of the RD brand name to any fans of the series.