Haven't seen any buzz about this game. I'm thinking it could be a pretty cool game if they can nail the physics like the games on the PS2:
- Start your career as a World of Outlaws rookie and make your way to the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte. Race against the fiercest competitors in the World of Outlaws series.
- The first Sprint Car title brought to the XBOX 360 and Playstation3.
- Features the top 20 drivers in Sprint Cars. Take on the world’s best drivers including Donny Schatz, Steve Kinser, Jason Meyers and Joey Saldana.
- Race up to 8 of your friends in 5 multiplayer modes over Xbox LIVE® or 2 player split screen.
- Experience real time track deformation as you find your race line for the night.
- Race on 12 different World of Outlaws tracks including The Dirt Track at Charlotte, Lernerville, Eldora, Knoxville, Williams Grove and some of the other toughest tracks in the World of Outlaws series.
Screens and a trailer:
http://www.bigant.com/bigant_games/view/sprint-cars-25/
It comes out in the first half of Feb. at $19.99. I'll be getting it upon release.
World of Outlaws Sprint Cars (360)
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pk500
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What company is developing it? Too bad Ratbag couldn't be resurrected to re-create the glory of WoO on the PS2.
WoO on the PS2 was one of the top five console racing games ever, on any platform. Hell, I'd put it in my top three.
WoO on the PS2 was one of the top five console racing games ever, on any platform. Hell, I'd put it in my top three.
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
XBL Gamertag: pk4425
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
XBL Gamertag: pk4425
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dbdynsty25
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A little internet search would lead me to believe that there are people from Ratbag are involved. Ratbag, which doesn't exist anymore is based out of Australia...care to guess where Big Ant Studios is (the company that is producing it)? Correct...Australia. Of course it could just be a big coincidence.pk500 wrote:What company is developing it? Too bad Ratbag couldn't be resurrected to re-create the glory of WoO on the PS2.
WoO on the PS2 was one of the top five console racing games ever, on any platform. Hell, I'd put it in my top three.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ant_Studios
Big Ant apparently specializes in simulation racing games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratbag_Games
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Naples39
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Is it me or do the cars appear to be running at ridiculous speeds in several of the clips in the trailer? Looked like it was running in fast forward at times.
I recalled that PK has been pimping WoO on PS2 for years. Guess I'll wait for some impressions on this new version.
EDIT: It also appears there is little or no relationship between Big Ant Studios and Ratbag Games. According to wikipedia, Big Ant was founded in 2001 in Melbourne by Ross Symons, and released, among other games, Short Track Racing: Trading Paint, (PS2, 2009), Sprint Cars: Showdown at Eldora, (PS2, 2008), and Sprint Cars: Road to Knoxville, (PS2, PC, 2006).
Ratbag on the other hand:
I recalled that PK has been pimping WoO on PS2 for years. Guess I'll wait for some impressions on this new version.
EDIT: It also appears there is little or no relationship between Big Ant Studios and Ratbag Games. According to wikipedia, Big Ant was founded in 2001 in Melbourne by Ross Symons, and released, among other games, Short Track Racing: Trading Paint, (PS2, 2009), Sprint Cars: Showdown at Eldora, (PS2, 2008), and Sprint Cars: Road to Knoxville, (PS2, PC, 2006).
Ratbag on the other hand:
Sounds like the Big Ant's previous games will be much more indicative of the quality of this game than WoW by Ratbag from way back in 2002.Ratbag was founded in 1993 in Adelaide, South Australia by Richard Harrison and Greg Siegele. Known initially as Emergent Games, the company took 3 years to prototype their first title Powerslide. Following its acquisition by Midway Games on 4 August 2005, the company was known as Midway Studios - Australia. On 13 December 2005, employees at the studio were told that Ratbag was going to be closed by its parent company. Two days later on the 15th, the studio was closed, leaving the staff employed there without a job. Subsequently, Krome Studios rehired many of the ratbag staff and established Krome Studios Adelaide.
I was thinking the same thing, Naples, and the latter Sprint games weren't even close to WoO, IMO. IIRC, some of those others were budget releases as well. I wouldn't get your hopes up.Naples39 wrote:Is it me or do the cars appear to be running at ridiculous speeds in several of the clips in the trailer? Looked like it was running in fast forward at times.
I recalled that PK has been pimping WoO on PS2 for years. Guess I'll wait for some impressions on this new version.
...
Sounds like the Big Ant's previous games will be much more indicative of the quality of this game than WoW by Ratbag from way back in 2002.
I still play my PS2 WoO from time to time. One of my all-time favorite racers.
I've played Sprint Cars: Road to Knoxville on PS2 (still own it) and it uses Ratbag's older engine. It's the same style of game, but it's not the same engine that powered the sublime WoO game on PS2. You won't have the front wheels lifting off the ground, etc.
It's a fun little dirt game, but it's much more similar to the old Dirt Track Racing: Sprint Cars than it is to the first WoO.
It's a fun little dirt game, but it's much more similar to the old Dirt Track Racing: Sprint Cars than it is to the first WoO.
The game is a lot of fun so far. The graphics are a bit better than I thought they would be, albeit I had low expectations. The frame rate of the game is not extremely high, but smooth enough. There is a cool highlights montage that serves as the intro. There is a highly customizable arcade mode. The Career mode consists of several nights at each track plus all sorts of challenges at each track (head to head, accuracy, time, clash challenges, etc.). You get money for each event that can be spent on upgrading the car. There is no difficulty setting in Career, but it seems like it is about the middle difficulty from what I can tell in terms of challenge. During loading it shows your personal stats on each track which is cool. One thing I do not like is that there is no way to save in the middle of a race day. For example, you can do time trials heats, and dash and lose all progress if you back out before B Main or A feature. Everything has to be done in one sitting.
The racing itself is what I expected. The AI cars race fair and are pretty intelligent. The handling is taking me some getting used to. The controls are very responsive. There are a lot of various car settings you can make before the race. I have not tinkered at all with those, but I would think if someone knows what they are doing they can shave a lot of time off each lap by tuning the car appropriately for each track. I have been playing with simulation damage. Even at simulation the damage model appears to be fairly forgiving. Something that is noticeable is the changing nature of the handling over the course of the race due to track deformation and tires.
All in all a very good and fun game that is well worth the 19.99 price. I need to do some serious practicing since at least once a race I lose focus and turn into a corner too much and lose several spots. This game is about rhythm and not getting too happy with the throttle.
The racing itself is what I expected. The AI cars race fair and are pretty intelligent. The handling is taking me some getting used to. The controls are very responsive. There are a lot of various car settings you can make before the race. I have not tinkered at all with those, but I would think if someone knows what they are doing they can shave a lot of time off each lap by tuning the car appropriately for each track. I have been playing with simulation damage. Even at simulation the damage model appears to be fairly forgiving. Something that is noticeable is the changing nature of the handling over the course of the race due to track deformation and tires.
All in all a very good and fun game that is well worth the 19.99 price. I need to do some serious practicing since at least once a race I lose focus and turn into a corner too much and lose several spots. This game is about rhythm and not getting too happy with the throttle.
I seriously hope that there's a difficulty switch somewhere. In the very first career race I lapped the entire field, and my times were in the high 14 second range while the CPU was in the high 16 second range. That won't cut it in a single player offline game.
But I'll have to go back and play the original WoO, because this feels eerily similar. Wheel stands coming out of a corner if you're too hot coming off, and the car can get incredibly twitchy if you don't use the throttle to steer it instead of the sticks.
And I gotta say, firing off against a full 24-car A feature was badass. They had the 4 abreast salute and then I was in traffic for almost the entire 30-lap feature.
I can't WAIT to run this online. This can be some serious dirt fun.
But I'll have to go back and play the original WoO, because this feels eerily similar. Wheel stands coming out of a corner if you're too hot coming off, and the car can get incredibly twitchy if you don't use the throttle to steer it instead of the sticks.
And I gotta say, firing off against a full 24-car A feature was badass. They had the 4 abreast salute and then I was in traffic for almost the entire 30-lap feature.
I can't WAIT to run this online. This can be some serious dirt fun.
Alright, I put this thing through the ringer last night. Here are more detailed impressions for the three guys who care:
Career Mode is most definitely on Easy or Medium, and there are assists turned on by default. There's no way to change the difficulty in Career, but Arcade mode is an absolute ass-kicker. In Arcade I set it to Pro and was blown off the track, finishing 13th in a 24 car field at Knoxville. It's almost a certainty that you'll have to have a solid setup to compete with the AI on pro level, as they make very few mistakes and will eat you alive with the slightest bobble. I almost worked my way back up to 7th in a 15-lap sprint, but then bobbled in one corner and lost 3 more places. Then another bobble and a slide job by an AI car had me back to 15th.
Arcade mode is where the realism is, strangely, but in Career Mode you'll be destroying the field. You earn money for upgrades, but really the only reason you'd get them is to try and set your own personal best lap times. Speaking of which, I get a strange framerate stutter when I set a lap record--the game hitches briefly at the S/F line, which can be hell setting up for turn one on a small bull ring.
The career is certainly a bit odd, to say the least. It's not a multi-season setup or actual career, but races on several tracks in a specific order. You almost have to hop around from track to track on the menu to find out which ones are unlocked. After playing for a few hours, you'll have unlocked new color schemes and patterns, and even sponsorships. Once you unlock a sponsor, they'll give you bonus cash for wins, and most of the time your entire color scheme is changed to match the sponsor. That's actually pretty cool. Any color scheme change you make just changes the color of the mudguard on the RR and the bead locks on the rims.
Plus, anything you do offline in Career carries over to single player as far as appearance goes. You configure "your" car in career, and when you hop into an online race, you automatically run that car. Here's the major beef I can see people having with WoO: online has no setup adjustments, no car appearance selection, nothing. You get into a room with up to 8 guys and the host picks a mode and track and distance and off you go.
The plus side (for guys like me) is that with no setups, everybody is on an even playing field and it's driver vs. driver every race. The downside is that the online mode uses the Pro physics and the cars are incredibly loose and slippery. It's not uncommon to see guys spinning out every corner. In one of my first races (I forget the locale), it was a 6 player race. I finished the race with 15 laps, but 2nd place was still on lap 8. This early in a game's life cycle, the average racer hasn't figured out how to race on dirt yet, and it's pretty chaotic out there.
But when you find a solid field (I ended up running with 3 or 4 guys late into the evening, and they were fast...I was typically 3rd quick out of 5 in that field), it was an incredible experience. Guys slide jobbing each other but not intentionally hitting other cars, setting people up for passes, cutting in early and exiting hot, beating a guy down the back chute, etc. It's all here.
And I have to say I was dead wrong. It's NOT using the old Ratbag engine. This thing, especially online, feels just like the old WoO game on PS2. I have to think that they actually purchased the engine or licensed the tech, because the older engine didn't have wheel stands and the setup options in this one. It was much more basic. This one, especially online, forces you to really measure your throttle application. You may be coming off the corner at Silver Dollar and think you've got it wired, then pop a wheel stand off of 4 and end up nose-first into the front guard rail--or lose 3 spots as you brake, adjust the car, and watch guys fly by.
All in all, this is a FANTASTIC online game, with a Career Mode that feels a bit forced since you have to do it to unlock everything to take online. The good side is if you don't care if you're one of like 6 possible car appearances, you don't have to do crap in career. You don't get new cars or upgrades online, so it's all just a practice field--and that practice field is much more difficult if you're used to the career car that you can configure and set up to run however you want. Then you get online and can't change squat.
But the racing is every bit as good as the old WoO, only now it's on XBL. There are even friends-only leaderboard filters of lap times by track. More of you clowns need to get this, seriously. I tried sending a friends request to "ToonArmy", but I cancelled it because I saw he hadn't played WoO at all, so it must not be the same guy.
But it's 20 bucks, guys. Give it a shot, because the races are short, quick affairs--15 to 30 laps and some of them are 10 or 12 second laps. You can screw up and still be in contention, and even if you're not, you're going to get lapped or be in lapped traffic a lot. The tracks aren't big enough to have that "lapping around by myself" feel of some of the road racers.
Career Mode is most definitely on Easy or Medium, and there are assists turned on by default. There's no way to change the difficulty in Career, but Arcade mode is an absolute ass-kicker. In Arcade I set it to Pro and was blown off the track, finishing 13th in a 24 car field at Knoxville. It's almost a certainty that you'll have to have a solid setup to compete with the AI on pro level, as they make very few mistakes and will eat you alive with the slightest bobble. I almost worked my way back up to 7th in a 15-lap sprint, but then bobbled in one corner and lost 3 more places. Then another bobble and a slide job by an AI car had me back to 15th.
Arcade mode is where the realism is, strangely, but in Career Mode you'll be destroying the field. You earn money for upgrades, but really the only reason you'd get them is to try and set your own personal best lap times. Speaking of which, I get a strange framerate stutter when I set a lap record--the game hitches briefly at the S/F line, which can be hell setting up for turn one on a small bull ring.
The career is certainly a bit odd, to say the least. It's not a multi-season setup or actual career, but races on several tracks in a specific order. You almost have to hop around from track to track on the menu to find out which ones are unlocked. After playing for a few hours, you'll have unlocked new color schemes and patterns, and even sponsorships. Once you unlock a sponsor, they'll give you bonus cash for wins, and most of the time your entire color scheme is changed to match the sponsor. That's actually pretty cool. Any color scheme change you make just changes the color of the mudguard on the RR and the bead locks on the rims.
Plus, anything you do offline in Career carries over to single player as far as appearance goes. You configure "your" car in career, and when you hop into an online race, you automatically run that car. Here's the major beef I can see people having with WoO: online has no setup adjustments, no car appearance selection, nothing. You get into a room with up to 8 guys and the host picks a mode and track and distance and off you go.
The plus side (for guys like me) is that with no setups, everybody is on an even playing field and it's driver vs. driver every race. The downside is that the online mode uses the Pro physics and the cars are incredibly loose and slippery. It's not uncommon to see guys spinning out every corner. In one of my first races (I forget the locale), it was a 6 player race. I finished the race with 15 laps, but 2nd place was still on lap 8. This early in a game's life cycle, the average racer hasn't figured out how to race on dirt yet, and it's pretty chaotic out there.
But when you find a solid field (I ended up running with 3 or 4 guys late into the evening, and they were fast...I was typically 3rd quick out of 5 in that field), it was an incredible experience. Guys slide jobbing each other but not intentionally hitting other cars, setting people up for passes, cutting in early and exiting hot, beating a guy down the back chute, etc. It's all here.
And I have to say I was dead wrong. It's NOT using the old Ratbag engine. This thing, especially online, feels just like the old WoO game on PS2. I have to think that they actually purchased the engine or licensed the tech, because the older engine didn't have wheel stands and the setup options in this one. It was much more basic. This one, especially online, forces you to really measure your throttle application. You may be coming off the corner at Silver Dollar and think you've got it wired, then pop a wheel stand off of 4 and end up nose-first into the front guard rail--or lose 3 spots as you brake, adjust the car, and watch guys fly by.
All in all, this is a FANTASTIC online game, with a Career Mode that feels a bit forced since you have to do it to unlock everything to take online. The good side is if you don't care if you're one of like 6 possible car appearances, you don't have to do crap in career. You don't get new cars or upgrades online, so it's all just a practice field--and that practice field is much more difficult if you're used to the career car that you can configure and set up to run however you want. Then you get online and can't change squat.
But the racing is every bit as good as the old WoO, only now it's on XBL. There are even friends-only leaderboard filters of lap times by track. More of you clowns need to get this, seriously. I tried sending a friends request to "ToonArmy", but I cancelled it because I saw he hadn't played WoO at all, so it must not be the same guy.
But it's 20 bucks, guys. Give it a shot, because the races are short, quick affairs--15 to 30 laps and some of them are 10 or 12 second laps. You can screw up and still be in contention, and even if you're not, you're going to get lapped or be in lapped traffic a lot. The tracks aren't big enough to have that "lapping around by myself" feel of some of the road racers.
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dbdynsty25
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Looked like one-off races but I didn't dig too deeply into it. I just wanted to see if it was like the original WoO, where Arcade was where the real beef was. Even in the original WoO, Career Mode had mandatory assists and was always easier. This is the same.
I'll check at lunch what actual modes there are offline. It's also one of the few racers lately that also remembers what local split screen is.
I'll check at lunch what actual modes there are offline. It's also one of the few racers lately that also remembers what local split screen is.
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GB_Simo
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Boys, looks like this is coming to PAL territories sometime later this spring but given that I'm still a week away from seeing Indy 500 Evolution and WoO is apparently region-free, I'm quite interested in importing this one. Anyone know of a mail-order firm they've had good experiences with that'll ship to the United Kingdom?
XBox Live and PSN Gamertag: theycallhimsim
Sorry, Adam. Not I.
And went home at lunch and they had a Race option, Custom Race, and Race Day.
When I set up Race Day, I did it on Pro with Simulation and went to Huset's on a default setup.
Was able to run an entire day, with Hot Laps, Time Trial, Heat, Dash, and A Feature. Was a REALLY fun session, too. Why didn't they enable this difficulty for career?
Took the pole, won my heat after some dicing with Terry McCarl and Randy Hannagan, and then in the Dash ended up bumping wheels with Steve Kinser and dropped to 4th. Started the Main in 4th (obviously) and immediately got shuffled back to 6th. Man, those cars get a hell of a jump on Pro.
I worked back up into the top 4, and then pushed it too hard and tagged the rear of Kinser. I looped it, dropped all the way back to 19th after the spin, and spent the remaining 25 laps just trying to make up ground, finishing 9th.
It'd be interesting to see if they had time trials online or something, because races seem to be randomly seeded, but it really doesn't matter. It uses the same physics online as it does in Arcade.
And went home at lunch and they had a Race option, Custom Race, and Race Day.
When I set up Race Day, I did it on Pro with Simulation and went to Huset's on a default setup.
Was able to run an entire day, with Hot Laps, Time Trial, Heat, Dash, and A Feature. Was a REALLY fun session, too. Why didn't they enable this difficulty for career?
Took the pole, won my heat after some dicing with Terry McCarl and Randy Hannagan, and then in the Dash ended up bumping wheels with Steve Kinser and dropped to 4th. Started the Main in 4th (obviously) and immediately got shuffled back to 6th. Man, those cars get a hell of a jump on Pro.
I worked back up into the top 4, and then pushed it too hard and tagged the rear of Kinser. I looped it, dropped all the way back to 19th after the spin, and spent the remaining 25 laps just trying to make up ground, finishing 9th.
It'd be interesting to see if they had time trials online or something, because races seem to be randomly seeded, but it really doesn't matter. It uses the same physics online as it does in Arcade.
