Conflicted Rev

For its full title: Grid - the latest Grid, not the first Grid, or the Grid that's Autosport and being released on the Switch.

I can see why they're calling it "Grid" in fact.

Anyway, it's new, and it's out soon.

Other than Jimmy's dodgy sound issues in his voiceover, this is quite a respectable race:

 And so there it is. not bad. Certainly not a sim though, and I think I'm conflicted on this game...

• Looks great
• "200Mph" seriously?!
• Close racing
• Nemesis malarkey means insta crash maybe?
• Good wheel support clearly
• Physics are relaxed

I'm interested to see what an open-wheel car race looks like, drifting in an F1 car or similar would be a bad thing.

And in fact, what about fwd - TCR cars are in this game, which is awesome, but if they handle like a fake thing that'll be a shame, and same for V8s as they're in there too.

I'm concerned this game will become a "if only they did the handling right, the content is exceptional game" - and on that, enter GT Sport. I can't reconcile what I watch with what I experience, and I've certainly tried. The video below, a great race, and well commentated. But cars for me just don't handle like this, what's going wrong in my gaming life?!!?

Better late then neveRfactor

In our quest to find a PC game that is...
a. Able to run on average equipment.
b. Not pricey
c. Pretty solid
and most challenging of all...
d. has some AI component so a full race can be had...

we found Rfactor2...

Courtesy of Steam and Studio-397 (what happened to the other 396!!!)

But it's not PS4 and Pcars2 (can't believe I'm calling that easy!)... SitRep time:

1. Purchased game
2. Installed fast! (tm) 
3. Updated not so fast... much time later*
4. Had a go, fine, but more cars/tracks as this is a mod max game
5. Steam workshop - tick all the boxes!
6. Yah, restarting the game, taking a lot longer now as it downloads 37Gb of updates.
7. And all good... but...
8. Don't like the in-car dash, nowhere near enough geekery to sort, so opt for plug-in upgrade.
9. ... and game death.
10. OnError GoTo 2.

So currently on Lap 2 of installation and we've had an emergency pit-in for rebuild...

And I've not started on servers and AI yet - I suspect that'll be hard too.

Overall - Buy a console, buy a decent wheel, buy a decent game, buy some beer and be racing within a very short time indeed. Or go PC and get the metaphorical bonnet up on your tech.


*Much time: My current unit of measurement is episodes of Red Dwarf - it took two, rounded down.
For reference: there are four PS3 Skyrim loads per Red Dwarf and ten Red Dwarfs per Windows 10 initial install. However, post-install is Microsoft minutes - which vary between nothing at all really to "going to bed to see if it has restarted when I get up" minutes...

GTQLD Rally Club

Dirt4 of course - till I can find another game I already have that I can do this to.

Link to the club: https://www.dirt4game.com/clubs/club/202375/gtqld

Was thinking South East Australia League, but Club Seal wasn't crash hot so we're sticking with GTQLD. If I had a brand that would be it...

Oh hell yes...

Pre-order incoming.

Can't wait.

I've been stalking my next RPG game, is it Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk 2077, or this...

It's this. It's definitely this.

Four All! (see what I did there)

My love affair with Dirt4 continues, despite WRC8 being released soon - and that is better clearly, it's four more than Dirt4!

And I've done a cool thing, a stupid thing and a better thing. In that order.

The cool thing is that I've set up a club, only a few years late, but it's here on Dirt4.
And coolerer, I've set up a championship!

The stupid thing? I didn't set restart up, so I managed a DNF on the first stage and that's it for me. I'm relegated to Clark-of-the-course status and can only sit back and see if anyone joins it. Hint: you'll win.
Worse, as it was the inaugural event I put it over September pretty much in its entirety. Which means that I can't have another one on the go, it seems. And I can't cancel it either. Boo.

All is not lost though, as now we have a new championship! And its great, as it has both front and rear-wheel drive cars, and it also has two events each with 3 stages. So all up six stages with service stations, and crucially as it turns out, the ability to restart the entire event.

I am excited about this for sure - it'll be a good race I hope, and if it works, well we can have infinate championships by simply regenerating the tracks. At least until the servers are turned off anyway!