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There was always something I found dodgy about the Gran Tourismo series.
I could never quite put my finger on it though...
I knew that it was something to do with how I found was realistic but pretty boring to play...
It was something to do with the lack of car damage...
It just didn't feel like the exciting sport that it should be...
And I've now realised why.
There's no sense of danger.
You might wonder exactly what I mean by that but bear with me for a minute.
The sport racing is about fast cars, yes?
And what's the thrill in driving a fast car?
It's all down to testosterone and male bravado.
Risking dangerous speeds in order to show off extreme driving skills.
There's a sense of danger knowing that if you mess up in that vehicle, it might well be the last mistake you make.
Naturally the game shouldn't recreate this danger, but it should atleast try and emulate it - otherwise the true emotion of the sport is lost.
How well does it emulate this danger?
Putting it simply, it doesn't.
You hit a wall at break neck speed and bounce harmlessly off it.
The worst punishment you get for crashing?
You lose a bit of speed.
No sense of danger whatsoever!
If they had put realistic car damage in then it would've been a whole different game.
You'd have to be even more careful with your breaks and speed. You could risk going faster but if you're not careful it'll be into the wall and a written off car.
Race lost.
It would make the game far more intense.
You've just bought a lovely new car with a nice painted smooth body.
Will you want to risk ruining it's perfect shape and scratching the paint work?
Or will you give up first place to a more risky driver.
Naturally, the difficulty will have to be tweaked accordingly - can't have computer players doing perfect corners at breakneck speeds while you have to crawl round them - but the games would've been far more exciting.
The way I see it now, they've taken all the excitement out of an exciting sport.
It's the "happy world" of racing where no one gets hurt no matter what speeds they go at and they all race happily together!
Sheesh! That's even an cuter setting than your average Mario game!
I think that a sense of danger brings excitement and challenge to the game.
F-Zero X and Perfect Dark are two of the most intense and challenging games on the N64.
F-Zero X, a racer where you can easily lose a race by falling off or destoying your machine.
You have a choice. Do you go at a safe speed (and lose the race), or do you use your B-Button boost.
Ofcourse, using this boost requires your ships shield energy making you that more vunerable to damage.
What's more, at the increased speed, you're much more likely hit something or go flying off the track.
And although if you "die", you simply restart the race with one of your spare ships, but be warned, you only have so many spare ships.
So when it comes to the MASTER difficulty setting, you have 2 "spare ships", 30 rough opponents (who you'll need to use plenty of "boost" to stand a chance against and they'll be using every dirty tactic they know to write your ship off!), you can understand why there's a real sense of danger as you race across the deadly tracks of the JOKER cup.
It took me a hundred goes to win that cup...
Perfect Dark had a real sense of danger.
On the Perfect Agent setting, a single enemy could reduce your energy to almost nothing with a single round of ammo.
If one bad guy sneaked up on your, it could be the end.
This game was also incredibly intense and horribly difficult to finish (it makes Goldeneye on 00 Agent seem like a piece of cake!).
So many games lack a sense of danger these days.
Remember back with Sonic, Mario and Donkey Kong in their 16bit days?
it was basically a "one hit kills" system with small exceptions.
Sonic for instance survived if he had rings (but lost all rings as a result leaving vunerability), Mario survived if he had the mushroom power up (but lost the power up as a result), and Donkey Kong would run away leaving Diddy Kong on his own.
3D platformers (bar the original Crash) have lost this sense of danger.
Another way many games have lost their sense of danger is through punishment.
Some games let your quicksave (as mentioned by Gronti a while back) so when you die, you return where you left off.
No punishment there.
Others like Mario64 and Conker return you to the beginning of the scenario which is a little punishing, but there seems to be no extra punishment for losing all your lives.
You see the "You lose" sequence and then return back to where you would be had you only lost a life, rather than them all.
I think that devellopers should bring back punishment to games.
Punishment gives a true sense of danger, a sense of danger gives an intense gaming experience, an intense gaming experience leaves a huge sense of achievement when you finish the game.
Ofcourse, Mr "Anti-Fustration" Dringo is sure to disagree...
;-D
I could never quite put my finger on it though...
I knew that it was something to do with how I found was realistic but pretty boring to play...
It was something to do with the lack of car damage...
It just didn't feel like the exciting sport that it should be...
And I've now realised why.
There's no sense of danger.
You might wonder exactly what I mean by that but bear with me for a minute.
The sport racing is about fast cars, yes?
And what's the thrill in driving a fast car?
It's all down to testosterone and male bravado.
Risking dangerous speeds in order to show off extreme driving skills.
There's a sense of danger knowing that if you mess up in that vehicle, it might well be the last mistake you make.
Naturally the game shouldn't recreate this danger, but it should atleast try and emulate it - otherwise the true emotion of the sport is lost.
How well does it emulate this danger?
Putting it simply, it doesn't.
You hit a wall at break neck speed and bounce harmlessly off it.
The worst punishment you get for crashing?
You lose a bit of speed.
No sense of danger whatsoever!
If they had put realistic car damage in then it would've been a whole different game.
You'd have to be even more careful with your breaks and speed. You could risk going faster but if you're not careful it'll be into the wall and a written off car.
Race lost.
It would make the game far more intense.
You've just bought a lovely new car with a nice painted smooth body.
Will you want to risk ruining it's perfect shape and scratching the paint work?
Or will you give up first place to a more risky driver.
Naturally, the difficulty will have to be tweaked accordingly - can't have computer players doing perfect corners at breakneck speeds while you have to crawl round them - but the games would've been far more exciting.
The way I see it now, they've taken all the excitement out of an exciting sport.
It's the "happy world" of racing where no one gets hurt no matter what speeds they go at and they all race happily together!
Sheesh! That's even an cuter setting than your average Mario game!
I think that a sense of danger brings excitement and challenge to the game.
F-Zero X and Perfect Dark are two of the most intense and challenging games on the N64.
F-Zero X, a racer where you can easily lose a race by falling off or destoying your machine.
You have a choice. Do you go at a safe speed (and lose the race), or do you use your B-Button boost.
Ofcourse, using this boost requires your ships shield energy making you that more vunerable to damage.
What's more, at the increased speed, you're much more likely hit something or go flying off the track.
And although if you "die", you simply restart the race with one of your spare ships, but be warned, you only have so many spare ships.
So when it comes to the MASTER difficulty setting, you have 2 "spare ships", 30 rough opponents (who you'll need to use plenty of "boost" to stand a chance against and they'll be using every dirty tactic they know to write your ship off!), you can understand why there's a real sense of danger as you race across the deadly tracks of the JOKER cup.
It took me a hundred goes to win that cup...
Perfect Dark had a real sense of danger.
On the Perfect Agent setting, a single enemy could reduce your energy to almost nothing with a single round of ammo.
If one bad guy sneaked up on your, it could be the end.
This game was also incredibly intense and horribly difficult to finish (it makes Goldeneye on 00 Agent seem like a piece of cake!).
So many games lack a sense of danger these days.
Remember back with Sonic, Mario and Donkey Kong in their 16bit days?
it was basically a "one hit kills" system with small exceptions.
Sonic for instance survived if he had rings (but lost all rings as a result leaving vunerability), Mario survived if he had the mushroom power up (but lost the power up as a result), and Donkey Kong would run away leaving Diddy Kong on his own.
3D platformers (bar the original Crash) have lost this sense of danger.
Another way many games have lost their sense of danger is through punishment.
Some games let your quicksave (as mentioned by Gronti a while back) so when you die, you return where you left off.
No punishment there.
Others like Mario64 and Conker return you to the beginning of the scenario which is a little punishing, but there seems to be no extra punishment for losing all your lives.
You see the "You lose" sequence and then return back to where you would be had you only lost a life, rather than them all.
I think that devellopers should bring back punishment to games.
Punishment gives a true sense of danger, a sense of danger gives an intense gaming experience, an intense gaming experience leaves a huge sense of achievement when you finish the game.
Ofcourse, Mr "Anti-Fustration" Dringo is sure to disagree...
;-D
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There's still a couple of people in FoG who could do with reading this...
Just read this. I agree with you 100% about the "danger" thing. Excellent point.
The "punishment" thing, I agree also, but only as long as the difficulty of the game is "fair". Nothing worse than surviving through a long and dangerous level only for a block (or something) to drop on ya head.
The "punishment" thing, I agree also, but only as long as the difficulty of the game is "fair". Nothing worse than surviving through a long and dangerous level only for a block (or something) to drop on ya head.
I am the Tarrant wrote:
> A fine original post there! It would seem most of th points have been discussed
> and explained, however I would just like to comment on the gaps in the post,
> thats not to say you left anything out - oh no, you covered it very well.
I'm
> talking about the gaps left by starting a new line, it kind of looks lik you
> left on the auto-fire switch on the enter key :-)
No offense but it was
> similar to having no gaps, it just became a bit of a weird struggle to read, it
> was worth reading though, so I'll let you off:-)
LOl, the pragraph lay out was designed to make it easier to read (There's nothing worse than having to read one huge block of text...). I must've overdone it though.
The "one line paragraphs" were there to stand out.
I suppose they don't if there's not a body of text to stand out from.
> A fine original post there! It would seem most of th points have been discussed
> and explained, however I would just like to comment on the gaps in the post,
> thats not to say you left anything out - oh no, you covered it very well.
I'm
> talking about the gaps left by starting a new line, it kind of looks lik you
> left on the auto-fire switch on the enter key :-)
No offense but it was
> similar to having no gaps, it just became a bit of a weird struggle to read, it
> was worth reading though, so I'll let you off:-)
LOl, the pragraph lay out was designed to make it easier to read (There's nothing worse than having to read one huge block of text...). I must've overdone it though.
The "one line paragraphs" were there to stand out.
I suppose they don't if there's not a body of text to stand out from.
That game has some serious speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed :-D
I'm certainly going to get Burnout just for the smashing action.
I am the Tarrant wrote:
> Yeah, Burnout looks sweeeeet!
However, I'm sure it would have been a definate
> buy if it had retained its "Shiney Red Car" title :-(
Now its just
> a probability.
Oh you fickle thing, you! ;-)
> Yeah, Burnout looks sweeeeet!
However, I'm sure it would have been a definate
> buy if it had retained its "Shiney Red Car" title :-(
Now its just
> a probability.
Oh you fickle thing, you! ;-)
Burnout sure looks good. Real-world physics, tweaked towards arcadey just enough to allow for some realistic yet spectacular crashes.
Luuuuvly.
Luuuuvly.
Yep, buy BurNout, you'll love that!
Well, I never used to like GT and GT2 that much, although I'd played them and knew they were top class games. GT3 was something that caught me by surprise and I'm glad I had the sense to get the PS2 GT3 pack. The lack of damage doesn't bother me, but I know what you mean.
I'm probably going to get BurNout to satisfy my crash happy nature too, but then it's horses for courses, isn't it.
Good post though.
Well, I never used to like GT and GT2 that much, although I'd played them and knew they were top class games. GT3 was something that caught me by surprise and I'm glad I had the sense to get the PS2 GT3 pack. The lack of damage doesn't bother me, but I know what you mean.
I'm probably going to get BurNout to satisfy my crash happy nature too, but then it's horses for courses, isn't it.
Good post though.
Again, it's personal opinion though.
I can see the validity of your points; I have a mate who refuses to buy GT3 because of the lack of damage - he prefers what he calls the 'complete' sims like the F1 games which feature full damage.
Although I will be buying some of the other racers due for PS2, like WRC2001 and Wipeout Fusion, for me, GT3 provides the most exciting races around.
Personally, I hate being part way through a race and getting broad-sided by an AI car and having the engine fall out through no fault of my own! So, unless the balance of damage/mobility is very good, I usually turn damage off anyway!
Although there's no damage in GT3, hitting a barrier can really slow you down and cost you a race, so there's plenty of reason to learn the tracks, and plenty of inspiration to stay on the road! The sheer feeling of speed - especially with the 'in-car' view - is astounding, particularly on the narrow sections of some of the tracks.
The main attraction of the game, though, is the handling - it's just sublime. I played a mate's copy of EA's F1 2001 last night, and while it's a very good game, the handling just doesn't compare; in GT3, you get a real feeling of pushing the cars to the limits; you can almost feel the car twitching in the corners as the tyres struggle for grip - the use of sound and the vibration of the DualShock controller is spot-on.
I know it's down to the individual, but I fail to see how anyone who likes a decent racing game can fail to get a buzz from GT3 - especially when you get access to the more powerful race-tuned cars!
Anyway, hopefully there will be damage in the next version. I know that Polyphony are pushing very hard for it. GT is a massive advert for the car manufacturers, especially now that the graphics look more realistic than ever. We may be at, or approaching, the stage where Polyphony have the upper hand, and can get whatever they want from the car manufacturers, because they'll be desperate to have their cars featured in the game.
Here's hoping!
I can see the validity of your points; I have a mate who refuses to buy GT3 because of the lack of damage - he prefers what he calls the 'complete' sims like the F1 games which feature full damage.
Although I will be buying some of the other racers due for PS2, like WRC2001 and Wipeout Fusion, for me, GT3 provides the most exciting races around.
Personally, I hate being part way through a race and getting broad-sided by an AI car and having the engine fall out through no fault of my own! So, unless the balance of damage/mobility is very good, I usually turn damage off anyway!
Although there's no damage in GT3, hitting a barrier can really slow you down and cost you a race, so there's plenty of reason to learn the tracks, and plenty of inspiration to stay on the road! The sheer feeling of speed - especially with the 'in-car' view - is astounding, particularly on the narrow sections of some of the tracks.
The main attraction of the game, though, is the handling - it's just sublime. I played a mate's copy of EA's F1 2001 last night, and while it's a very good game, the handling just doesn't compare; in GT3, you get a real feeling of pushing the cars to the limits; you can almost feel the car twitching in the corners as the tyres struggle for grip - the use of sound and the vibration of the DualShock controller is spot-on.
I know it's down to the individual, but I fail to see how anyone who likes a decent racing game can fail to get a buzz from GT3 - especially when you get access to the more powerful race-tuned cars!
Anyway, hopefully there will be damage in the next version. I know that Polyphony are pushing very hard for it. GT is a massive advert for the car manufacturers, especially now that the graphics look more realistic than ever. We may be at, or approaching, the stage where Polyphony have the upper hand, and can get whatever they want from the car manufacturers, because they'll be desperate to have their cars featured in the game.
Here's hoping!
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