Re: NASCAR The Game 2011 Q&A and Impressions
I tried not posting anything else last night, as it seemed that each race I ran ended with me wanting to scream at the TV due to something going wrong during a yellow flag. Whether it was me entering too fast onto pit road, where the AI took over driving my car, and promptly slid it right into the barrier wall and bent it up pretty good, or going in for Green Flag cautions and the AI pinballing off of each other and causing a yellow as they head for pit road, etc...I was pretty bent. I took a good 2 hour break from it.
When I came back, I tried something I don't usually do--I turned on "Pro" assists and grabbed a controller. After that, I ran a few races in a career and discovered I was having fun. The yellow flag stuff still seems to be a huge gamble every time you go to pit, which made me realize what they intended this game to be: a quick fix NASCAR session.
The online races being so short, the default quick races having the inability to set 4x tire wear, etc., leaves me thinking that they really poured all of their efforts into making this a "sit down, race a 10% race with no pit stops and call it a day". It's the only explanation I had, because the actual RACING is quite good. For kicks I took a spin around Bristol with no 4x wear and started from the rear of the field and it was a hell of a good time. They really let you beat and bang on each other (especially when hitting another car in the rear) without wrecking, and it just made me realize that they really spent a lot of time trying to get the experience to be all about racing...but much like EA and Madden's 4 min online quarters, they are targeting the ADD crowd that just wants to sit down and run a race in 5 minutes, then move on to the next.
That's not me.
I wanted to have multiple stops and 50 laps or more--and for the most part, it fails that. But once I got past what I expected it to be, and looked at it for what it is, I was at least able to have some fun with it. It's still a bit frustrating to have a race ruined by some bizarre yellow flag behavior, but once I put my big boy glasses on and calmed down a bit, it was easier to deal with.
One thing that DID impress me last night was my career race at Fontana. I just ran with the default setup, and man that thing was a dog. It turned like a yacht. I still qualified in the top 5, but as soon as the race started and I had other cars around me, it completely fell apart. I overdrove it and destroyed the tires trying to avoid getting ***-pounded by the AI, and on the first stop, added a ton of wedge to it (I want to say something like 2%...it was pretty drastic). That stop cycled through without any incidents, so that was good. The car actually DID get a bit better there, and on the second round of stops, I added another huge chunk of wedge. I was turning some of my fastest laps of the day on that last run, and actually passing cars.
The feeling of actually being able to tweak a car during a stop and having it respond was good. So there's that, I guess
I also agree with something Blue posted earlier--NR2003 had some hilariously bad yellow flag AI as well, and the AI itself wasn't nearly as fun to race against. But NTG2011 has some work to do to even get the pit stops anywhere near NR2003's level. Taking control away from us as soon as we hit pit road is one thing--but if you do that, you better make damn sure you don't have an AI driver that's going to spin in circles or drive into other cars (or walls). That's the kind of stuff that really gets me. Give me control all the way down pit road and out...don't take it away as soon as I hit the cones and not give it back until I'm exiting turn 2 on a half-speed exit that a blind neanderthal with half a foot could drive faster.
I tried not posting anything else last night, as it seemed that each race I ran ended with me wanting to scream at the TV due to something going wrong during a yellow flag. Whether it was me entering too fast onto pit road, where the AI took over driving my car, and promptly slid it right into the barrier wall and bent it up pretty good, or going in for Green Flag cautions and the AI pinballing off of each other and causing a yellow as they head for pit road, etc...I was pretty bent. I took a good 2 hour break from it.
When I came back, I tried something I don't usually do--I turned on "Pro" assists and grabbed a controller. After that, I ran a few races in a career and discovered I was having fun. The yellow flag stuff still seems to be a huge gamble every time you go to pit, which made me realize what they intended this game to be: a quick fix NASCAR session.
The online races being so short, the default quick races having the inability to set 4x tire wear, etc., leaves me thinking that they really poured all of their efforts into making this a "sit down, race a 10% race with no pit stops and call it a day". It's the only explanation I had, because the actual RACING is quite good. For kicks I took a spin around Bristol with no 4x wear and started from the rear of the field and it was a hell of a good time. They really let you beat and bang on each other (especially when hitting another car in the rear) without wrecking, and it just made me realize that they really spent a lot of time trying to get the experience to be all about racing...but much like EA and Madden's 4 min online quarters, they are targeting the ADD crowd that just wants to sit down and run a race in 5 minutes, then move on to the next.
That's not me.
I wanted to have multiple stops and 50 laps or more--and for the most part, it fails that. But once I got past what I expected it to be, and looked at it for what it is, I was at least able to have some fun with it. It's still a bit frustrating to have a race ruined by some bizarre yellow flag behavior, but once I put my big boy glasses on and calmed down a bit, it was easier to deal with.
One thing that DID impress me last night was my career race at Fontana. I just ran with the default setup, and man that thing was a dog. It turned like a yacht. I still qualified in the top 5, but as soon as the race started and I had other cars around me, it completely fell apart. I overdrove it and destroyed the tires trying to avoid getting ***-pounded by the AI, and on the first stop, added a ton of wedge to it (I want to say something like 2%...it was pretty drastic). That stop cycled through without any incidents, so that was good. The car actually DID get a bit better there, and on the second round of stops, I added another huge chunk of wedge. I was turning some of my fastest laps of the day on that last run, and actually passing cars.
The feeling of actually being able to tweak a car during a stop and having it respond was good. So there's that, I guess
I also agree with something Blue posted earlier--NR2003 had some hilariously bad yellow flag AI as well, and the AI itself wasn't nearly as fun to race against. But NTG2011 has some work to do to even get the pit stops anywhere near NR2003's level. Taking control away from us as soon as we hit pit road is one thing--but if you do that, you better make damn sure you don't have an AI driver that's going to spin in circles or drive into other cars (or walls). That's the kind of stuff that really gets me. Give me control all the way down pit road and out...don't take it away as soon as I hit the cones and not give it back until I'm exiting turn 2 on a half-speed exit that a blind neanderthal with half a foot could drive faster.
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