[pk500]

Patrick hit upon a sad fact of the console racing sim climate these days. Even when EA and other major console developers veered toward non-licensed arcadish racing games, you always could count on Codemasters to create excellent, licensed console racing sims, such as the TOCA and Colin McRae series.

Now even the Codies have turned to the dark side, turning CMR into essentially Rallisport Challenge 3 with DIRT and apparently heading toward a Project Gotham-Need For Speed hybrid with the TOCA series. Very sad.

There are four factors that I think seriously hurt console sim racing this decade. In no particular order:

1. EA getting the NASCAR license. NASCAR is the most popular form of motorsport in the U.S., by far, so NASCAR video games also will be the most popular licensed racing games in the States, too. At the dawn of this decade, gamers could choose between Hasbro's NASCAR Heat and EA's NASCAR Thunder series for consoles. NASCAR Heat was a very, very good console sim, while Thunder was horrible. Then EA bought exclusive NASCAR rights, shutting out NASCAR Heat.

EA had a promising start with NASCAR 2005, as the driving model was decent, and the addition of the career ladder with Modifieds, Trucks and the Busch Series was a very welcome addition. But EA has done nothing with the driving and racing models for its NASCAR franchise since NASCAR 2005, instead adding stupid features like Total Team Control. The series is atrophying severely.

2. The popularity and financial success of the Burnout series. Make no mistake: Burnout is a really fun series, even if EA is running out of ideas on how to sustain it with each subsequent sequel. But Burnout is pure arcade racing, and the gaming industry is full of imitators. So when Burnout almost single-handedly revived arcade racing when the Ridge Racer and Need For Speed series were in the doldrums at the turn of this decade, other developers jumped back on the arcade racing bandwagon.

3. The "Fast and the Furious" factor. "The Fast and the Furious" exposed the world to the growing tuner/drifting culture and its popularity in the coveted 18-34 male demographic. Gaming companies weren't blind to that phenomenon, either. Nearly every gaming company developed and released some sort of arcadish racing game that put more of an emphasis on car customization and street racing with tuner cars instead of licensed race cars on real tracks, whether it was Midnight Club, Need For Speed Underground or other games.

4. The continued, inexplicable success of the Gran Turismo series. The original Gran Turismo is one of the greatest racing games ever, as it revolutionized what gamers could expect from a console racing game. Excellent physics, great graphics, a ton of mechanical customization and a huge stable of cars. But the game hasn't progressed one iota since its release in 1998. It still has brain-dead AI, horrible racing and an overemphasis on car tuning and setup instead of racing. Yet the game still sells like condoms to sailors on shore leave, and gamers still drool over every upcoming GT release.

Again, gaming developers and publishers are lemmings. So other major players started to march in lockstep and developed GT-clone racing games, such as Sega GT and Forza. These games at least had licensed cars and licensed tracks, but they put more of an emphasis on car collecting and tuning instead of balls-out racing, just like the patriarch they all strove to emulate, the Gran Turismo series.

Take care,
PK