NTRA Breeder's Cup World Thoroughbred Championships

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:01 am

I remeber a few of you guys were interested in this game and I got my copy last night. Here are my rambling impressions:

Played the game for about three hours last night. I did about 10 quick races and then dove into the career mode. I am on XBOX. Let me start off by saying that I am a die hard fan of the sport, but I think this game can be enjoyed by even the casual fan. I also throw out some comparisons to the Gallop Racer series (I played '01 and '04 a lot). Please bear with the typos - I am at work and typed this real fast.

Graphics - the tracks are very well done and the horse models are on par with the Gallop Racer series. The Horse and Jockey animations are pretty fluid as well, but all the horses have the same running animation. The colors are vibrant and all diffrent horse colors (black, bay, dark bay, gray) are well represented.

Gameplay - racing is fairly straightforward. You hit the "A" button as soon as the gate opens to get a good start (good starts seem to be important because I got a bad start a few times and finished 4th and 5th respectively). You then use the left analog stick to guide your horse. Push up to accelerate, down to decelerate, left to go left, and right to go right. It seems a little tougher to "steer" your horse than it is on the Gallop Racer series, but I like it - horse aren't cars and are tougher to handle. About 2 1/2 to 3 furlongs from the finish, a whip inidactor begins popping up. As soon as it pops up, you have to hit the "A" button - the quicker you do it, the better burst you get. It can get tricky because it pops up about 5 to 6 times prior to the finish and you can miss it a few times and lose the stretch battle.

There are three running types for the horses: Front runner, Stalker, and Closer. If your horse is a front runner, you have to keep him on the lead or very close to teh lead. Stalkers must be kept mid pack (however I have gone to the front with stalkers when the pace is slow and have been successful), and closers must be kept in teh back of the pack. An indicator in the top left of teh screen tells you whether your horse is in proper position. It seems a lot easier to win races with front runners and stalkers. It is tougher to win with closers as it should be (they need the pace to be favorable).

All horses have stats: Speed, power (endurance), temperment, fitness, and fatigue. There are also "DRF" speed figures (just like Beyer Speed figures, but they are on a scale from 1-100 with 100 being the best). The "DRF" figures measure the horses overall stats and ability. They also have surface preferences (turf/dirt) and distance preferences (short, mid, long).

Betting is allowed on all races and it is fairly comprehensive: win, place, show, exacta, tri, boxes, wheels, pick 3, pick 4, and pick 6.

All races are represented: Maiden Claiming, Claiming, Allowance, and Stakes.

Audio/Sound: Tom Durkin sounds pretty good (a little choppy) and calls every horse's name in the race. He gets pretty excited when there is a close finish. I found this to be awesome (despite being a little choppy) because for years I have been listening to Gallop Racer's terrible announcing (if you want to call it that). The thundering hoofs sound cool and the crowd begins yelling when the horses enter the stretch.

Tracks: Keeneland, Belmont, Del Mar, Saratoga, Aqueduct, Sam Houston, Emerald Downs, Monmouth, and Gulfstream are in teh game as well as a few fictional corses. No Kentucky Derby (Churchill) or Preakness (Pimlico), but this is a Breeder's Cup game and the first NTRA officially licensed game, so I'm not complaining.

Career Mode: This is fairly deep (not nearly as deep as Gallop Racer, but still deep enough). You start out with a little money and a 2 year-old horse. You can do various training exercises (schooling, breezing, walking, galloping, gate work). You then enter him into races. You manage a stable of 6 horses total. There are 8 races every week at a certain track. To qualify for the Breeder's Cup, you have to win three of the featured races (usually the 8th race on the race card). You can also breed horses, but it seems you can't retire your own and breed them - breeding comes from a list and you pick your sire and dam (their stats are provided) and pay the fees. I wish you could breed your own horses, but oh well. When you breed, you get the horse as a two year-old immediately. I got to about June in my first year and had three horses (one from breeding, the one I started with, and one I claimed). You also choose a jockey for each mount. When you enter your horse to race, you can bet on them also. Like I said, it is fairly deep and will keep me busy for a long time.

Problems: (1) It seems too easy to win races. I have 3 horses in my stable and none are that good stats wise. One horse has won 6 out of 7 (allowance and stakes races), the second has won 2 and placed 2 times in 4 races, and the third has won twice, placed once, and showed once in four races. It is way harder to win in Gallop Racer '04 (it took me a few weeks to win my first stakes race on medium difficulty). I just hope it gets more challenging later in the year. This leads to number 2; (2) there are no difficulty levels to choose from (which is kind of a bummer); (3) there are 2 year-old races that are 1 1/4 furlongs at the start of the year (very unrealistic because most 2 year-olds don't even run at the start of the year and if they do, they run in sprints); (4) no replays - I love the replays and camera angles in Gallop Racer because I can re-watch a race I was in and see what happened. Breeder's Cup has no replays.

However, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The official license is awesome (real horses, real tracks, and it is better seeing a "DRF" ad then some made up Japenses ad). The graphics and audio and presentation are very well done. The actual racing is pretty fun. And the career mode is deep enough to keep me playing until the next version comes out. It was very addicting last night and I could have played throughout the night if I didn't have a job. At $19.99, you have nothing to lose.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:07 am

Excellent impressions, Drag. As someone who appreciates horse racing but doesn't follow it that closely other than the Triple Crown, this sounds like a fun, fresh alternative to my steady diet of motor racing games.

And it's $20, as you said!

You appear to be a big-time horse racing fan, so I guess this question begs to be asked: Does this game have long-term appeal for those who only have mild interest in horse racing or only follow the sport during the Triple Crown, like me?

Thanks again for the detailed impressions, and keep them coming as you discover more positives and negatives about the game!

Take care,
PK

AcemanPR · Post by **AcemanPR** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:33 am

Awesome impressions Drag. I enjoy going to the horsetrack myself, but don't do it very often. I have little knowledge in horse racing, but something I've always wanted to learn more about.

Like pk said, keep us updated with impressions. Next time I make it to EB Games, I may consider picking this up.

Also, how well is the instruction manual? Like I said, I'll be going into this game pretty dumb, so if the manual helps me understand a few things, that would be helpful.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:40 am

Just the fact that Saratoga is in the game has me very interested. I love that beautiful place -- going there is a great way to spend an August day.

Take care,
PK

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:59 am

pk500 wrote:Just the fact that Saratoga is in the game has me very interested. I love that beautiful place -- going there is a great way to spend an August day.

Take care,
PK

I have been to Churchill, Belmont, Keeneland, and Gulfstream. I have always wanted to go to Santa Anita, Del Mar, and especially Saratoga. I have heard the "Spa" is incredible.

Aceman, the manual is pretty good at explaining everything (from horse running styles, to types of races, to even betting). Of course, if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:55 am

Thanks again, Drag. Keep all impressions coming!

Take care,
PK

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:25 pm

Sorry, double post.

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:26 pm

pk500 wrote:Excellent impressions, Drag. As someone who appreciates horse racing but doesn't follow it that closely other than the Triple Crown, this sounds like a fun, fresh alternative to my steady diet of motor racing games.

And it's $20, as you said!

You appear to be a big-time horse racing fan, so I guess this question begs to be asked: Does this game have long-term appeal for those who only have mild interest in horse racing or only follow the sport during the Triple Crown, like me?

Thanks again for the detailed impressions, and keep them coming as you discover more positives and negatives about the game!

Take care,
PK

PK, I didn't see you asked me another question. I think it can have long term appeal for the casual fan. There is a lot to do and it is not that overwhelming. The problem with the casual fan is that most like the Triple Crown races and they are not in the game. The game closely follows a season aiming for the Breeder's Cup races (which I personally love). But it is still a lot of fun and you will learn a little more about the sport. The beauty of this game is that it is different from everything else most people have played. It's like me with Winning Eleven 8. I don't know much about soccer and don't follow the sport that closely, but I played the heck out of that game and got the hang of some soccer nuances. I think Breeder's Cup is the same way for the casual horse racing fan.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 7:03 pm

Drag:

Thanks, man. I was out running errands this evening and stopped at my local EB, which didn't have the game. Bummer. I'll keep an eye out for this one.

Take care,
PK

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:52 pm

Saratoga and Santa Anita are two of the most beautiful tracks in the US. I was at the Saratoga meet last fall (my dad had a horse break his maiden there) and we also went to the yearling sale. That was a rush.

Of course the king of beauty was Hialeah until the area went to hell and the track pretty much died.

I got a review copy of BC today and haven't had time to play it. I'm not in the casual race fan group either; I'm a thoroughbred fan like PK is a car guy. Hopefully I can dig into the game this weekend. I did like what I saw at E3, though. Well, aside from Funny Cide beating Man O War..

tjung0831 · Post by **tjung0831** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:54 pm

I tried to get this tonight but no luck at ebgames. hopefully tomorrow..

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:06 am

A few more impressions:

Played for a few more hours last night. And I had a few more observations. It is WAY to easy to win races with frontrunners and stalkers. I only lost 2 out of 12 races last night. I literally blew away the field a few times. The cool thing is if you go balls out with your horse (take a 7 length lead too early in the stretch full throttle), you can injure the horse. It takes about a few weeks to a month to heal the horse depending on the severity of the injury. The silver lining in all of this is that I got trounced in the 2 Breeder's Cup races I was in at the end of the year (5th with one horse and fourth with the other). I just wish the races throughout the year were this challenging. If only they were, I would really love this game. I still like it, but it can get too easy at times.

Another problem: there is a glitch in the monthly calender at the top right of the screen when you are at your stable. For example, I played through July 2005, and when I got to the first week of August, the calender says that it is week 1, July again. Usually by week 4 of the month, it changes to the correct month (except in October - I'll explain below). This seems to happen during every month change. The race dates are still correct on the horse's stats page, but you have to remeber that you are usually a month ahead of what the calender says. Then at the end of the year (October), I went through October twice because of the glitch. The first time through, I thought the Breeder's Cup would be at week 4, but it wasn't. I continued palying and the second time through week 4 in October, the Breeder's Cup races occurred. It is definitely a glitch, but just remeber that you have one extra month than you should have. It's not a deal breaker, but something that should have been caught. This might be hard to understand, but if you get the game, you'll see what I mean. Hey, I play a lot of 2k sports games and deal with much more significant bugs than this.

Other than this, I still had a lot of fun last night and I'm glad I bought it, but Bethesda needs to make the game more challenging, add replays, fix the calender glitch, make it online, give you the ability to breed, and manually train your horses and this game will be reaaally good. The core is there, now I hope they are able to build on it with a future edition.

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:11 am

Bill_Abner wrote:Saratoga and Santa Anita are two of the most beautiful tracks in the US. I was at the Saratoga meet last fall (my dad had a horse break his maiden there) and we also went to the yearling sale. That was a rush.

Of course the king of beauty was Hialeah until the area went to hell and the track pretty much died.

I got a review copy of BC today and haven't had time to play it. I'm not in the casual race fan group either; I'm a thoroughbred fan like PK is a car guy. Hopefully I can dig into the game this weekend. I did like what I saw at E3, though. Well, aside from Funny Cide beating Man O War..

I am defintely the most interested in seeing Santa Anita - so much rich history there. I have heard it is awesome. I've been to all the major tracks and races in the east (save for Saratoga). I have been to the Kentucky Derby 7 straight years and to Keeneland's opening weekend for both the spring and the fall meets. Now I want to be able to get out west sometime soon and check out the Cali tracks (Del Mar and Santa Anita).

You think Funny Cide beating Man O' War was bad, in Breeder's Cup, I beat Citation with a $10,000 claimer.

lexbur · Post by **lexbur** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:25 am

I'm just a casual racing fan but I probably spend more time at the track than I should. But thanks to Afleet Alex I'm having one of my best years ever.

His performance at the Preakness was one of the most amazing and memorable things I've ever seen in sports.

Each year I get more and more tempted to make the pilgrimage to Saratoga. Had Afleet Alex run in the Travers this probably would have been the year.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 10:46 am

Thanks for the impressions Drag. I've always had some fun with the Gallop Racer series so this title piqued my interest. If I can find it I might just pick it up now.

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:48 pm

Drag66 wrote:
Bill_Abner wrote:Saratoga and Santa Anita are two of the most beautiful tracks in the US. I was at the Saratoga meet last fall (my dad had a horse break his maiden there) and we also went to the yearling sale. That was a rush.

Of course the king of beauty was Hialeah until the area went to hell and the track pretty much died.

I got a review copy of BC today and haven't had time to play it. I'm not in the casual race fan group either; I'm a thoroughbred fan like PK is a car guy. Hopefully I can dig into the game this weekend. I did like what I saw at E3, though. Well, aside from Funny Cide beating Man O War..
I am defintely the most interested in seeing Santa Anita - so much rich history there. I have heard it is awesome. I've been to all the major tracks and races in the east (save for Saratoga). I have been to the Kentucky Derby 7 straight years and to Keeneland's opening weekend for both the spring and the fall meets. Now I want to be able to get out west sometime soon and check out the Cali tracks (Del Mar and Santa Anita).

You think Funny Cide beating Man O' War was bad, in Breeder's Cup, I beat Citation with a $10,000 claimer.

Wow. It's THAT easy? That's a huge, huge deal for me. Are there no diff settings? (its killing me that I cant make time to play this yet.)

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:02 pm

Bill_Abner wrote:
Wow. It's THAT easy? That's a huge, huge deal for me. Are there no diff settings? (its killing me that I cant make time to play this yet.)

No difficulty settings. This is the biggest drawback of the game. If it were more challenging, I would like it a lot more.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:28 pm

Drag:

Sorry to bombard you with questions, but is this game easy because you're a "horse racing guy" or is it just plain easy, period? In other words, could a horse racing chimp like me still win easily or take a claimer and beat Man O'War?

Thanks,
PK

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:38 pm

pk500 wrote:Drag:

Sorry to bombard you with questions, but is this game easy because you're a "horse racing guy" or is it just plain easy, period? In other words, could a horse racing chimp like me still win easily or take a claimer and beat Man O'War?

Thanks,
PK

That's OK, glad I can answer questions (seems the game is getting delayed everywhere, good thing I pre-ordered directly from Bethesda's official site). I think after you play the game for an hour or two, you will win pretty easily as well. If you keep your horse close to the front or on the lead, you will likely win more often than not.

The stats are beginning to seem pretty meaningless (other than fatigue and fitness).

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:52 pm

Thanks, Drag. I'm almost glad my local EB didn't have the game in stock the more I hear about it.

Even though it's $20, it sounds like this game is devolving into a typical piece of feature-bereft, shallow Bethesda crapware for consoles. I honestly can't think of one good Bethesda sports console game.

A shame.

Take care,
PK

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:58 am

Sorry to keep bombarding with impressions, but I had a very positive experience playing last night. In year 2 of my career, I have actually been losing more than winning. I lost a few tightly contested stretch battles and got blown away in some other races. Maybe the ease of year 1 was a fluke. It's not the best horse racing game available for the consoles (Gallop Racer '04 is - but it has its drawbacks as well - PS2 exclusive, no real horses, races, and too cartoony), but it is still pretty darn fun and you can't beat the official license - real tracks, horses, and races. I am still really enjoying it.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:07 am

Drag:

Don't EVER apologize for quality impressions, especially for a "niche" title like this that isn't getting much coverage in the mainstream gaming press.

Keep 'em coming!

Take care,
PK

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:22 am

Definitely keep the impressions coming.

This sounds like it could be a very good chill game. I'll probably check the Gamestop near me this weekend to see if they are carrying it.

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:25 am

Finally got about 90 mins of time with this tonight.

Initial impression is that this does not come close to Gallop Racer for me in terms of both realism and just plain good game design. My manual has went AWOL on me so Drag feel free to correct me if my assumptions are wrong re: any of this as I was flying blind w/o any docs.

--Only 6 silk designs? That's very weak IMO.

--Two year olds do NOT RACE IN JANUARY. This is a racing pet peeve more than a design problem, but sheesh. Also, 2 year olds do not race 1 1/4 miles...ever. To see a 2 year old 1 1/4 mile race in January is like seeing...man it's so unrealistic I can't even think of a witty comparison. It's just silly. Not only that but why have stakes races for 2 year olds in January, esp. when the horses in the race have never started? That makes no sense whatsoever.

--Durkin's announcing is ok. Not great, but not bad. Some of its out of sync. I like how he calls the names of the horses but he'll say "at the top of the stretch" and the next second the race is over. There's also very little variety in the calls. It's basically just him saying the names in the order. There's no flash and no specifics, which is really what makes Durkin's calls so great in real life.

--I challenged a champion (Citation) and beat him in my first attempt. So much for that feature...

--The above stuff is more annoying than a big problem, but hewre is where th egame is losing me:

--As stated dy Drag, there are no replays which is just ridiculous. One of the coolest parts of gallop racer was watching a replay of a close race to see how the race unfolded. Not here. Race over, let's move on. WTF?

--Unless I am missing something (boy I hope I am) I see no way of skipping races during race day so that you can just race YOUR horse. As is, I have to press "skip race" 7 or 8 times and then see the winning horse? This is a HUGE waste of time. Again, Gallop Racer allowed you to go immediately to your race and not have sit there and press "A" for 3 minutes to get through the card. And what if you don't have a horse entered on that day? You still have to go through the "skip race" process 8 times? Am I the nly one that thinks this is asinine? Drag, tell me I am just overloooking something because this is a huge pain in the ass.

--The races themselves aren't bad, even though it's still way, way too easy to steer a horse; you can move it around like a mouse cursror which is just a shade unrealostic. Still, the racing has potential even though I think I prefer Gallop racer's feel.

Again, this is only about a 90 test run but the only thing this seems to have over gallop racer is the NTRA license that focuses on North American racing, Tom Durkin, and it's not cartoony.

Not the kind of first impression I was hoping for.

Drag66 · Post by **Drag66** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:26 pm

Bill, everything you said is pretty spot on. As I mentioned, the 2 year-olds racing in January is crap as is the 1 1/4 distance. The silk designs are pretty limited. The fact that there are no replays is really bad. How hard could it have been to put them in? You are right about not being able to go straight to your race. You have to skip each race on the card manually which is stupid and is a big pain. I am still enjoying the positives I mentioned and I hope they do come out with another version in the future to fix the problems.