Yes, but no...

So I've put a bit more time into Assetto Corsa, you know for science and all that and I have good and somewhat bad things to say.

Firstly the good, the very very good. I have raced and I have run many cars on many tracks and I'm happy (indeed relieved) to be with the mainstream in saying that the game is a great driving sim.

I'll even comment that once I got into some of the faster/older cars that the gear box seemed to work better. Not least as I turned off the auto-clutch malarkey. Which incidentally fixed it for the paddle shifters too.
And the video below is me in something Lotus and old, around something that's Monza and old, with full clutch and gearbox, and of course factory abs (none) etc - basically as it should be.

Behold:

Was it as terrifying as it looks. No not really, but sitting on my couch helped. And am I the next Fangio? - no, I'd have been very very much one those grainy black and white fireball videos long before making this lap count.

Of the experience though, the satisfaction of pounding out laps in this car on this track is nearly worth the investment by itself. I can't wait to do the same to some of the other tracks to be honest!

But what of the bad news?

Well, there's no private lobbies. So a league night of racing is kinda out. It's worse - I took the time as I wound up my night (read waited for the ultra on-sale pod racer to download!) to watch some live streaming of the racing. 

Enjoyable as it was to watch what turned out to be a very good racer qualifying 2 seconds up on the competition at Spa, I shared his frustration at being punted so very wide at turn 1, and then subsequently share in just about everyone's drama trying to make it up through the field. Fair to say that without a private lobby and/or the ability to exit a numpty racing online in this game is going to be a lottery at best. 

So not really bad news, but I wouldn't be buying this as a social game any time soon. But I would be buying it as an all round excellent racing game. Watch this space.

Assetto PS4 Early View

Yes, I did stay up until midnight last night to play Assetto on my PS4.

That's not as hard as it sounds though. I normally end the night with a bit of gaming, and it's a mere flick of the controller to end the game and let the weight of my eyelids overwhelm me for an hour or two. Truth be told, the true zombie games are the ones I play long after I need to be in bed and asleep  - there's nothing like waking up and finding you've flown your spacecraft out of the cosmos...

But to Assetto....
This will be a very brief tell, I've got work to do and really you'll see many more reviews from everyone else on the planet. No, is a view from somone you know, so you can add some balance into all the rave/hate reviews that are sure to follow.

Initial Thoughts.
Assetto puts itself out there as a sim first and a game second basically. Having put physics ahead of all else. And how good did that feel (At 1am...)?
I think initially, once I'd turned on the steering wheel support in-game, I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest.

But this is a good thing.

Why? Well, after all I drive a car every day of the week, to have something that feels so very different or behaves in some odd way would mean that physics were one step beyond - I'm thinking Driveclub here.
So, yes, the physics are arguably so very good that you really can get in and drive successfully.

And so it was that I was in a Zonda hammering around Spa within a few minutes. And much fun it was.

The handling is good (as it should be with a Zonda), the track was great, the noise was OK and the graphics weren't terrible.

Is this a go-to sim for me? Yes, it's a next gen racer that'll keep me entertained for some time I think.

But I must confess I do like pretty games and it wasn't really that to start with.

And then I found the colour options, and changed from standard to extended - not sure what that is, I'm not a Mantis Shrimp so I don't know if anything else is going on, but the tracks did seem a little more vibrant and the cars also had a bit more depth, exhibit a. being the F40 above.

And of the F40 - I'm glad I don't own one of these, if this sim is accurate (and it's meant to be) then anyone brave enough to take one out on real world roads would be a nutter to attempt a roundabout on a busy day!

Of the game usability - yeah, all there and pretty much standard fare, you're not going to be blown away by this game in any way. It's as functional as a Countach dashboard to be honest. And again, that's OK.

If I had a major gripe it's the gearbox. Firstly if you want to enable the H pattern box it's a game option from the front screen. Why it's not like Driveclub I don't know - in that if you select a gear then it's stuck in that gear, if you have it in neutral then the paddles work. It's great.
What's more, in Assetto when you shift using paddles and auto clutch in an older car (think Countach again) then there's an element of clutch slip or something, I guess it's 'real' but really I'd like to have the fantasy of actually driving these cars be bit more friendly. Finally, and I do admit that I was tired at the time, but I got into a right mess with gears and clutches, I seemed to be stuck in one gear sometimes and stuck in neutral in others - I think it had a lot to do with me shifting too early (so over revving) but really this isn't an issue in other racing games, why introduce it. Is it a sim thing?

I think once I'm dialled in it'll be OK, and for multi-player racing in old F1 Lotus race cars around the old Monza, I think this is going to be a blast.

Final word, the king (for our league at least) of GT6 is not dead yet - though the vultures are circling with Project Cars 2 being a very strong candidate...

Dirty Rally

I want...

Dirt Rally (probably) +  Red Bull + $$$ = Awesome Sim

Just popping to the shops...

So here's a guy from work giving his car a good thrash up the recent Noosa Hillclimb.

Respect to him as he had no roll cage and gave it his all in what was ostensibly a street car up a hill with some proper drops on the right hand side.

Now if I can convince him to come and race online...

Been a while...

Promise to put some more replays up here, honest!
But it's so much harder on the PS3 than the PS4, I have to change output on the PS3 and errr yeah, some other stuff probably. But in any case, I did find it much easier on the PS4, so I did this, the oft' lamented (for it's lack of simness) Driveclub, which gives me good driving time and again. And of course looks lovely...

Bathurst night tonight

Hi Folks,
I've not created any new tracks for a while, and it's probably time to return to some of the in-game tracks in any case.
So, tonight, we'll start with Bathurst - a tried and tested Aussie legend of a track.

If we get bored of the hill then we'll find some other tracks to go to, as with the non-custom tracks I can at least make an in-game change.

Catch up laters,
Andrew

Dirty driving

You won't be surprised at my driving in this.. Especially the start.
But I did go on to get a third in the rally and a fourth in the championship.
Is that bad? I think not, first is reserved for Hermes or whoever it seems to be that's over a minute ahead of the rest of the field.

But that's not soul destroying, as rally is about as much as getting to the finish as it is to get a result - indeed in one of these stages I limped across the line on three wheels (mercifully although it wasn't a service stage I had a wheel for the next one).

Anyway, Dirt Rally...

What of the game, using your known fellow racer as a benchmark?

Controls:
Great - I had to mess with the steering a bit (G29 user), but you can reduce the lock to lock ratio and bring in 'be like the real thing' too (apologies for not remembering the actual setting names!).
Doing all this has meant that the steering is good with only an occasional spin the wheel moment, and that usually just after a leaving the track backwards moment...

Also, there's a clutch in this game. Which has lead me to realise that I can't race on games using the traditional foot layout for a manual! I'm so locked into left foot breaking I can't stop. Practice needed maybe. In any case I don't have the shifter so it's paddles all the way - and easy shifting is a handy thing in any case.

Cars:
Great selection of cars - you can get into all of them from the get go too on a custom race. As is customary you have to buy something for the career mode - the car above is my second purchase. I think nostalgia gained precedence over practicality.
Overall the cars I've tried are great, look good and sound awesome - except for the Pikes Peak cars, they too look good and go great but I'm dammed if I can get them round three corners in a row. They're just too aggressive and then as soon as you let off they're into snap oversteer. Certainly cars to be tried once I've completed a few rallies with faster cars.
The only top tip I can provide here is tune the gearbox right down, I started to gain stage green sectors once I realised I wasn't getting full use of the gearbox.

Gameplay:
As you can expect with a next(ish) gen console game it's amazing. The immersion is great, the menus are easy to traverse and even the slightly overly done social stuff is there. Less welcome is load times that if we use a standard "skyrim" as a lead time measure is nearly at a value of 1. I.e. long, very long. I suppose it's loading all the stuff it's loading, and that is a lot of stuff - you can go pretty well off track, to the point I've headed off piste, done a few doughnuts and found my way back on track. Certainly enough time to do the "ohhhh shhhhiii...." move that I should think accompanies any no wheels on the ground, car not on the track moments.


Should you buy it?
I think it's probably one of the best rally games I've played, though in fairness I never found a good one on the PS3 (WRC2 on the PS2 being my fave, for nostalgic reasons).
But herein lies the rub. If you don't like pace notes being screamed at you, overly narrow tracks and a sense that brakes on mud just aren't going to haul you up - then you'll hate this game.

I'd also hazard that this is one of the best rally cross sims out there at the moment. This aspect of the game is awesome, hard, but awesome. And the physics seem to be spot on. If that's your flavour (and it's only one aspect of this game for sure), then may you should.

90 Left Three Over Crest Tightens Caution Don't Cut Into 6 Right Opens Into Dip Long Caution Big Jump...

Meconium

G'day all,
Tonight's racing is going to be a longer track I built a few weeks back - I like it, which will mean a solid last place for me of course.

Swinbrook Raceway

As is usual with the longer tracks we'll start with the 500pp cars and escalate from there. This week I think we'll do our 550pp V8s for a race or two also. Fun cars that they are!

In other news, I've set up and tested posting PS4 replays into my channel, so now I can catch and replay a bit easier than I do with the PS3.
Behold (but don't get excited!):

I don't know what's real any more...

I'm sure you all follow GT Planet, but they recently posted up this video:

I really struggled to figure out if it was the car, the track, the other cars or something else that's virtual and/or real.

Amazing.

Oh, and Assetto Corsa (and real life) for those not in the know...

Art

So we know that Evolution Studios has been consumed by Sony yes? And their last title was DriveClub - the oft' lamented launch title for the PS4.

But do you know just how good that game got?

Simply Stunning

Evolution Studios also did some ground breaking work with the early WRC series on PS2 and Motorstorm.

It'll be interesting to see where the devs end up.