hebrew-- Instead of merely stating your opinion why don't you give us some more information on why ToCa is so great.

I'll admit that I went and check out the ToCa website but I didn't see nor read anything about the game that I found interesting.

Does this ToCa allow you to speed through a city with regular street traffic like in NFS:U and MCII? Or is it a straight up racing sim where you just drive around a race track?

http://www.skinnypuppy.com/
the greater wrong of the right --
http://www.spv.de/eng/skinnypuppy/default.html

I hope that ToCa Race Driver 2 sells more than this "sellout" series. I mean sellout in the negative context.

Of course, there is no accounting for taste these days.

AND YES, THIS IS MY SECOND POST ABOUT TOCA RACE DRIVER 2. NO I WONT SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

That's because you don't actually steer in the drag races. You tap the controller (or joystick, keyboard, etc) to the left or right and it automatically moves into that lane. So it actually steers for you.. all you have to do is swap lanes. I wish there was a way to disable that though.

I agree that this is without a doubt the prettiest car game out there..

Hmm, I guess you havn't seen Project Gotham Racing 2 then. NFSU has lots of nice colors, but PGR2 looks much more realistic IMO. The detail on all of the cars is great too.

This comment was edited on Apr 25, 00:58.

The drag races were superb. Sounds to me like you had a shitty controller.

the greater wrong of the right --
http://www.skinnypuppy.com/

In my experience, the hands-down worst part of NFSU is the drag races.

Hmm, I enjoyed the drag races, for the most part. You are right about it getting increasingly difficult to pull off Perfect Shifts, but the drag races nevertheless kept me on my toes. Probably my biggest gripe with the game is the lack of track variety. In this area, I think that NFS5 easily beats out all the other NFS games.

<rant>
In my experience, the hands-down worst part of NFSU is the drag races. First off, the lack of ability to steer your goddam car is BS. The levels where you have to steer around those guard rails are ridiculous because you end up hitting them 75% of the time no matter when you start to turn, and don't get me started on the AI civilains that are impossible to steer around. Secondly, its near impossible to get a perfect shift off the line, simply because the throttle is too so insanely touchy (why the hell is the perfect launch RPM 400 RPMs above redline, anyway?). Third, the fun level of the drags is inversely proportional to your car's power. Once your car has some decent ponies under the hood, it takes pure luck to get Perfect Shifts from 1st to 3rd gear, and then once you get to redline in top gear, you still have a half mile left on the strip and the damn AI are passing you and you can't go any faster or else you'll 'splode!

I agree that this is without a doubt the prettiest car game out there, but I don't understand what the point of having a pretty car is if you can't look at it in a replay. You don't want to stare at it while racing, cause then you'll just plow into some idiot in a van crossing the road. I would spend an extra $10 on the game just to be able to take a few pictures of myself while out drifting. I wanna know what ucking fidiot decided that this should be the one car game that doesn't have replays. For crying out loud, even GTA3 and GTAVC have a crummy replay mode, and they aren't even considered car games by the developer. Thats why there is no out-of-the-box racing wheel or joystick support. A 3rd party program was eventually made to fix this, though.

</rant>

Raiz, you misread my post. I was talking about NFS5, otherwise known as Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed. The forum code changes ": P" into a smiley, so you only saw NFS:U. NFS:U doesn't even have an evolution mode and none of the cars go 5 MPH. At the beginning of the evolution mode in NFS5, you are forced to drive the 356 (I think) series of Porsches. These were from the early 20th century. I kid not, they felt like they drove at 5 MPH and were no fun at all. You had to play through a large portion of the Evolution mode with crappy cars like this.

This comment was edited on Apr 24, 03:27.

ToCa Race Driver 2 beats the living shit out of this bullshit series of games.

i[There were two significant problems with NFSU.
1) The lack of speed. The races never really felt intense because it never really felt like you were going very fast. In a racing game, this is a major issue.]

Couldnt disagre more, by the time your driving the Skyline GTR with all level 3 performance mods the sensation of speed was perhaps the most enjoyable thing about the game.

i[2) The Evolution mode forced you to drive a bunch of crappy, 5 MPH cars before advancing onto the decent ones. A racing game should never force you to drive a crappy car for more than one race. In fact, racing games shouldn't even have crappy cars.]

That hardly makes sense given the kind of game, if the game takes me 30 hours to get to the Skyline, im going to play it for 35. If i can load it up and get a skyline in only going to play for 10 till i get bored.

Azrael
Guess What? I don't need a reason. How's that? It's what I think. Doesn't need defending. If you don't like it go eat some butter bread and move along

Ahumado

There were two significant problems with NFS:PU.
1) The lack of speed. The races never really felt intense because it never really felt like you were going very fast. In a racing game, this is a major issue.

2) The Evolution mode forced you to drive a bunch of crappy, 5 MPH cars before advancing onto the decent ones. A racing game should never force you to drive a crappy car for more than one race. In fact, racing games shouldn't even have crappy cars.

Aside from that, NFS:PU had excellent controls and physics. In addition, that game arguably had the best tracks of all the NFS games. If NFS:PU had a better sense of speed and a wider selection of cars (along with the absence of crappy cars), it would be the best NFS game out there.

As for NFS:U2, I can only hope that they eliminate the rubberband AI and add more track variety. Those were the two biggest issues with the original game (oh, and the lack of a replay function was pretty bad too).
This comment was edited on Apr 23, 19:06.

In reply to #38:
You think the Boxter is worse than the 914? The Boxter S is faster than all of the 911's until the mid eighties saw the return of the turbo. That includes the turbo 930's with their exaggerated specs. That's just how it is, the Boxter S is simply an undeniably quick car.

This comment was edited on Apr 23, 18:23.

I'll definately agree that the "catch-up" system (or whatever they called it) has to at the very least be turned into a completely toggleable option, and at best turned off entirely.

Best example: my friend was playing through the entire game, got up to this one race (i think it was like 107ish) that was 5 laps, and he could not beat it for like 3 days. At this point, he was actually good, so each race he would have like a 5-10 second lead through most of the race, but then around lap 4 they'd pass him, get a 3-4 second lead, and he'd never be able to pass them.

I go try it, get 15 seconds behind by the 2nd lap, but then on the 5th lap they all proceed to crash stupidly, and I beat them easily.

It's a cute system for skirmish-type races (load the game, race immediately), but for a story-like thing that's supposed to depend on skill there's really no place for it.

It's another game that needs to be revived, but in order to keep my interest the entire economy needs to be retooled, and it needs more trial-and-error with the upgrading instead of simply buying the parts FAQs tell you work best. More of a random factor.

I think the community along with the devs who were working on it towards the end had tried to convince EA to give them the IP (or something like that) so they could continue the game, albeit retooled, but the "Evil Empire jr." wouldnt budge.

Again, same thing the Battletech community did when MPBT:3025 got canned, bastards wouldn't give them the time of day.

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New sig under construction.

I really enjoyed MCO during beta but Blue nailed most of the issues with the game. Not to mention there were problems from the get-go because track info (and a lot of other critical info from what I hear) was client-side, hence there were lots of hacks going on.

The combination of EA.com mismanagement (the same kncukleheads who dumped MPBT:3025) and too vague of a design doc led to the game never realizing its potential.

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New sig under construction.

Quboid,

Now there's a perfect example of difference of opinion. I think the Boxster is the worst Porsche ever, but die in exstacy every time I see a 911 Turbo. hehe

-Azrael
"Don't Fear the Reaper, fear ME."

Live for Speed is an independantly developed and produced race game. Do a search, they have a free download.

And in response to both your comments about the handling physics, have you ever driven a car from pre-1975? The handling is atrocious! The first cars in the game (the 356) had at most 90 hp.

I understand your points.

-Azrael
"Don't Fear the Reaper, fear ME."

See, I think my hatred comes more from dealing with racing fans praising it, but it just fell so far short of what it could have been.

With the auctions I more meant the generated ones, not the player ones. Great parts would come up and get flocked to, because everyone knew what was best.


Racing, when it worked, was fun. I honestly spent more time playing this game than any other MMORPG. Then again, I've hardly played others, but the first month of MCO I was on many hours a day, skipping class, and thinking about it while in class.

It just wasn't deep enough, though, and the racing... Time trials were all cheaters, and even though some tracks were very, very fun (the dirt farm road), it just didn't happen.


Whatever the reason, it was a shame. Nothing was more fun than going into a race with a loudmouth then forcing him into a guardrail, totalling his car. Sometimes you'd go, too, but you'd die laughing, at least.


It's another game that needs to be revived, but in order to keep my interest the entire economy needs to be retooled, and it needs more trial-and-error with the upgrading instead of simply buying the parts FAQs tell you work best. More of a random factor.

Any by most HP winning I don't mean most by a small amount, I mean that if you hit 402 hp and raced a 500hp limit you'd get killed by cars above 450. Too often you'd detune your car just to sit near the plateau, like 395-399.

I hated Motor City Online.

I liked it, but it definitely had its shortcomings, though I don't agree completely with your list.

1) Detailed upgrading, but too predictable. Everyone sat in chats and discussed what they had. Then everyone else went out and bought the same parts.

That's not entirely true... the very best set-ups were pretty closely guarded secrets, and the drivers with top class-based racers (C & D class) would remove a part from their car after running it so you couldn't even see the most basic specs on weight, horespower, and engine block to prevent you from having starting points to guess their set-ups.

2) Still too dependant on HP. Whoever had the most won.

That is really not true... many of the better racers would regularly trounce lesser drivers while giving up huge horsepower advantages. Your point about set-up sharing is true to the extent that it was no secret how to make top horsepower... so driving skill definitely still won the day in MCO.

3) No one raced. Everyone was terrified of damage, so they just did time trials. Outside of the dirt oval I couldn't find races. Street races were dead.

That was the big problem with the game. I don't think it was fear of damage as much as losing, but the game was designed with too little incentive to race, and too many rewards for doing single-player events like time trials... it was as if they grafted an MMO element onto a non-MMO game... no wait, that's what they did.

4) Auctions were equally predictable. You knew which parts were good, and you went for them.

The auctions just provided a business for those with the patience to buy bargains and sell them at an advantageous time. It would have been an amusing sidelight if it weren't for the fact that far more people vended parts than raced.


This comment was edited on Apr 23, 15:02.

"What, they've got little Tommy who thinks he's 1337 doing their press releases now? Using the word "own" is bad enough, but they just had to put it all in caps."

Most all official press releases have capitalized headlines, this is not unique to EA. The use of "own" is pretty bad though:)