[stutz]

Attention all speed demons,

I'm working on an article on Mac racing games; but I want some consensus on your favorite Mac racing title features and failings. Give me your top three must haves for a good racing game (with no limit on age of the game) and your top three pet peeves in racing games. It will help me get started on this feature.

Forum members....

On your marks.....

Set......


POST!!!


Stutz

[JaguarGod]

In my opinion....

Must Haves:
1. A lot of car views, including either a hood view or cockpit view where you can see the hood (I am not talking about the blank bumper view). It adds to the realism and immersion for me.
2. Great sound! I want to be able to turn the sound up almost to max on my Mac Racing Setup. This, of course, adds to the realism and immersion.
3. Wheel compatibility and FFB integration.

Must Have Runner-ups:
1. Lots of cars and tracks
2. Many modes of play including online multiplayer
3. The ability to mod (track designers and model importers)
a. Redline Racing is a great example along with VGP2 with it's track designer

---------

Pet Peeves:
1. Ridiculously stupid AI. When cars just crash into you at will it makes the game seem cheap, unrealistic and sometimes almost unplayable.
2. Horrible control. Racing games can be hit or miss, and if the control is bad, it's definitely miss, no matter how good the graphics are.
3. No real variation in track layouts. Feel like you are acing the same track over and over.

[maccer]

Unfortunately there has not existed a really good racing game on the Mac in my opinion, so I can only give references to PC or console games. I am a Colin Mc Rae rally fan, so here comes:

1. Fairly realistic but still enjoyable car handling - including steering wheel and Force Feedback support, since this gives you a more realistic experience. I agree with JaguarGod on this one: without good handling, you can trash the game immediately. I am thinking of Racing Days R - probably one of the worst racing games made for Mac.

2. Lots of good, mostly non-circuit tracks - I don't give a crap about Nascar with its oval tracks. By good, I mean different types of road (tarmac, gravel, snow, mud...), large variations in height (bye bye, Nascar, Mario Kart, Redline Racing Demo...), tight and wide curves, nice landscape and scenery, no invisible walls around the track that bumps you back or slows down your speed (Ridge Racer...).

3. Lots of game modes: quick race, single race, championship, career, some kind of "destruction derby", a mission-based mode as in GTA, NFS: Most Wanted, Crazy Taxi.
The multiplayer should preferrably be cross-platform. It should be possible to interact with other player's cars; I am not too fond of the ghost-cars-only apporach of Colin Mc Rae.


Pet peeves (I can just think of a single one right now):

1. Games that tout about having tens to hundreds of cars but just a few tracks - and even that little number of tracks is often divided by two since the game maker counts a mirrored/reversed tracks as a new track...

I don't care too much about the number of cars available.
If it's a rally game I usually selet one car and complete the game with it.
If it's a game like NFS Porsche 2000 or NFS Most Wanted where you earn money, it is of cource nice to be able to buy a better car. But I don't care about the possibility to choose from dozens of cars that almost are clones of each other performance-wise.

Of course there should be at least 5-10 cars, but if there is fifty, hundred or more cars I don't really care since I will never have the chance or time to drive them all. In Gran Turismo I would rather see many more tracks.

[iRolley]

I agree with both posts above.

I'll add that :

- a useful AI : I hate playing against computer controlled car that drive as if you didn't exist and crash into you carelessly.
- realistic collision and car damage. I'll add that in a network game, the player responsible for the accident should take the damage.

I'll emphasize :

- Many and good tracks. Mix real work circuits, real world cities... But make a lot of them. I agree that the amount of cars is not that important. Else create categories, it is useless to mix an Audi TT an Austin mini and Diablo.


As for the state of racing games on Mac. Well before moving to intel the choice was : F1 (feral), Ford Racing (feral), Total Immersion Racing (feral), Rally Shift (CodeBlender). Now only Redline (Ambrosia) is Intel compatible. I hope we get more shareware racing games.

[Pegasus]

Actually, there is a UB for Rally Shift.

[iRolley]

Pegasus, on March 12th 2007, 01:41 AM, said:

Actually, there is a UB for Rally Shift.

Not so, I emailed Ken Drycksback the other day :

"Rally Shift was a great game, any hope you'll make a UB patch ? I'd be willing to pay for such a patch."

Some parts of Rally Shift is using older technology that would be difficult to move over to a Universal Binary. We looked into it but decided not to since it would require some significant rewrites. And since Rally Shift was designed to run on much slower systems than what we have today, it runs pretty good under Rosetta on Intel Macs.

Unfortunalty the pretty good is not that good.

[Pegasus]

Oops. I guess I looked at the wrong item on the update list.

[JaguarGod]

Fortunately, I play all of my Mac Racing Games with my G4's and G5's. No intel's here.

[miclar1]

I'm a racing sim fan and I don't understand why there are no more MacUsers interested in Nascar 2003. Even for road racing, this sim with more than 30 mods of all types (Muscle cars, Indy/F1, Ferrari 330, V8 Supercars, GTP, Sprints, PickUp trucks, etc.) and hundreds of tracks has yet to be matched. Google "nr2k3tracks.com" for a listing of all free add-ons available and links.

For me to buy another sim it would have to offer at least what I'm getting out of NR2K3 and preferably more.

[Steephill]

must
• multiplayer support (4x4, 4x4 2, F1, MTX, Nascar 2k3, Redline)
• wheel support
• many different tracks or mods

Pet peeves
• multiplayer for 2 persons on one puter or no mp at all (no named no one forgotten)
• netcode (4x4 2 where the cars bump around like you've been taking drugs)
• hosting in MTX where you start from scratch for every race you host. Really anoying during a lanweekend. (by racing you didn't mean just cars, right?)


Yours Steephill

[JaguarGod]

miclar1, on March 13th 2007, 11:33 AM, said:

I'm a racing sim fan and I don't understand why there are no more MacUsers interested in Nascar 2003. Even for road racing, this sim with more than 30 mods of all types (Muscle cars, Indy/F1, Ferrari 330, V8 Supercars, GTP, Sprints, PickUp trucks, etc.) and hundreds of tracks has yet to be matched. Google "nr2k3tracks.com" for a listing of all free add-ons available and links.

For me to buy another sim it would have to offer at least what I'm getting out of NR2K3 and preferably more.

You know, I have just about every mac racing game to date, except Nascar 2003. I should try to find it and pick it up.

[miclar1]

JaguarGod, on March 13th 2007, 04:52 PM, said:

You know, I have just about every mac racing game to date, except Nascar 2003. I should try to find it and pick it up.

The PC version of Nascar 2003 has become so rare and in demand that it has been selling for over $100 on eBay. The Mac version should be easier to find and cheaper to get as it seems to be a well garded secret that all (at least 99%) of all add-ons (mods, tracks, cars, sounds, etc.) made initially for PCs work on the Mac.... and they are free! Judging from the quality of work you have posted in other threads of this forum, you would have a ball in this huge modding community. I'm not too good at creating stuff, so I have a lot of fun beta testing for the modders. In one of your post, you mentioned the Race Sim Central forum... there's a NR2003 section there. A quick way to find some of the N2K3 sites where I'm active (mostly the best) is to google my screen name...LOL.

[plracing]

Come on over to www.racingmacs.com and check out our online racing league for the Mac! We use Nascar 2003, and we currently have a Cup series that races every week, a Truck series that races every week, and a road racing series that races every other week and alternates between the Trans-Am mod and Aussie V8 supercars Mod. We have used the GTP mod and OWR mod as well, we also run special events, such as road racing enduros and Open Wheel full length events. Check it out, it's a great group of guys.


Tom King
plracing@comcast.net

[JaguarGod]

plracing, on March 14th 2007, 05:35 PM, said:

Come on over to www.racingmacs.com and check out our online racing league for the Mac! We use Nascar 2003, and we currently have a Cup series that races every week, a Truck series that races every week, and a road racing series that races every other week and alternates between the Trans-Am mod and Aussie V8 supercars Mod. We have used the GTP mod and OWR mod as well, we also run special events, such as road racing enduros and Open Wheel full length events. Check it out, it's a great group of guys.
Tom King
plracing@comcast.net

Man, with all of the updating I do to certain Mac games, I am shocked that I have not picked this one up. I'll be back.... I have to check ebay. I must have Nascar 03.