Simraceway - Anyone Else Play It?

[warps]

Anyone else had a look at this? I'd never heard of it till I read about it in the latest EVO magazine.

http://www.simraceway.com/

It's a free download simulator, based on online racing (although you can also practice and race offline).

There are several tracks and cars available, but the standard download only gives you access to one car - an Evo X. All other cars have to be purchased. pricing ranges between $0.25 and anout $15 per car. Basically you pay 1/100,000th of the real value of the car - so something that costs $100k in real life costs you $1 in the game.

I just downloaded last night and have been driving the Evo around Infineon raceway. I must say that the physics feel pretty good - the Evo on road tyres slides around a bit, but you can chuck it prety well, and it gives lots of feedback, unlike the canned spins / tank slappers / crashes that a lot of games seem to throw at you.

I still need to tweak the steering wheel settings (sensitivity, dead zone etc) as it feels very dead in a straight line, then loads up artificially in corners.

Still, for a free game it's pretty bloody good. I haven't looked into the online stuff yet, but apparently they are trying to build a big community, with prizes for winning events (including real track days etc)

Check it out

[Madaz]

Anyone else had a look at this? I'd never heard of it till I read about it in the latest EVO magazine.

http://www.simraceway.com/

It's a free download simulator, based on online racing (although you can also practice and race offline).

There are several tracks and cars available, but the standard download only gives you access to one car - an Evo X. All other cars have to be purchased. pricing ranges between $0.25 and anout $15 per car. Basically you pay 1/100,000th of the real value of the car - so something that costs $100k in real life costs you $1 in the game.

I just downloaded last night and have been driving the Evo around Infineon raceway. I must say that the physics feel pretty good - the Evo on road tyres slides around a bit, but you can chuck it prety well, and it gives lots of feedback, unlike the canned spins / tank slappers / crashes that a lot of games seem to throw at you.

I still need to tweak the steering wheel settings (sensitivity, dead zone etc) as it feels very dead in a straight line, then loads up artificially in corners.

Still, for a free game it's pretty bloody good. I haven't looked into the online stuff yet, but apparently they are trying to build a big community, with prizes for winning events (including real track days etc)

Check it out

nice ive always wanted a download simulator

JK will download and play after BF3 session

[Madaz]

cant setup a racer plate GRRRR

gfx are pretty pixelated 1920x180 ULTRA

[Cowboy1600]

So far I have to say I'm not impressed.

Live for Speed is much better, although it's not free. It's worth the $20, especially if you have a steering wheel already.

[warps]

LFS hahaha

Good one

[Madaz]

lfs is better than Simraceway

[warps]

Yeh maybe it is - I haven't played it since the early versions - perhaps they've sorted the physic and made it feel realistic.

Interested though - what is it about LFS and Simraceway that makes LFS (or others) better? Just saying "X is better than Y" doesn't help much. I know people who still claim that GT5 is the best driving sim ever greated (or Forza, for those that way inclined). I guess everyone has their own criteria upon which games are judged.

From the hour or so I spent tweaking and playing Simraceway, I found the physics to be quite intuitive, though some aspects of the game did need improvement (see my first post). You can push the car and actually get some feedback on when you're pushing too hard, a bit like you do in real life. This is something that's lacking in a lot of games out there - even some of the so called "hard core" simulators. Has anyone actually tried it with different cars / configurations? I guess an EVO X is hardly the best car to test a game's physics capability, given that driving an EVO is a bit like driving a computer game anyway (with all of the artificial assists turned on).

I get that the graphics aren't the best out there. Still, I'd rather play the original 1998 version of GPl, complete with 1998 graphics than grapple with the awful physics which afflict all of the console based driving games I've tried.

Edited June 11, 2012 by warps

[barraspalding]

So is this any good or not? I downloaded it last night, installed thismorning, made a login during today... havn't played it as yet and might not get a chance tonight with the state of origin to watch.

I have played LFS for a few years now - one of of a handful of games prior to my PS3 that I had actually paid for.

They have been promising this new tyre modelling for far too long... as with everything it fades to me forgetting it exists for 6 months at a time.

Either way - LFS is pretty sweet, better back in the day with lfsTweak... with the custom cylinders, engine configurations, tyre sizes etc. etc. - made some wicked powerful drift mobiles... and smoke mod was fun to reduce my old shitty computers framerate to a standstill

[Madaz]

i rate it about 6/10 in all honesty it looked like 1024x768 when i have it at 1920x1080

[Cowboy1600]

I reckon the graphics of SimRW are slightly better but i reckon LFS has a superior engine.

I also like that you can jump in and start racing straight away and race people and AI.

I don't have a steering wheel but I reckon LFS would be absolutely shit hot with one. I've seen some of the stuff guys with them do and it's awesome. Genuine drifting on PC.

[barraspalding]

Yep LFS with the G27... and even some old crappy microsoft wheels was wicked. And your tyres go off quick

[barraspalding]

Gave it 3 minutes with the keyboard... Yea not impressed. Graphics not being an issue, but still was shite. Evo isn't a great car to get a feel for realistic handling

[warps]

was totally shyte with a keyboard - I couldn't even get out of the pits without writing the car off. When I plugged in the wheel it made a huge difference. At least give that a go before writing the game off.

How anyone can possible play a driving game with a keyboard is beyond me.

Still, for the money it's not a bad game. Maybe after they develop it for a few years it'll evolve into something decent. Most of these community online games started out pretty basic and either evolved or crashed and burned.

[barraspalding]

Price being free - its ok. Yea i'll throw the wheel on sometime soon and see how it goes.

Any other cars free?

[warps]

Not that I can see. However, you can apparently win money in some of the events, so I guess you can use that towards buying new cars (don't know whether you need to buy the cars for the events first, or you can enter an event and drive whatever car is available). Some of the events are a bit of an "every child wins a trophy" event, so might be easy to get cash that way.

I haven't had a chance to get back to it since trying it out the first time, so don't really know the answers.