Have you tried this yet, Don? Thought I'd have a bash at answering your earlier question.
DChaps wrote:So, would you say that this quote from SMS's Ian Bell is not true, or have you all yet to try this Pro mode that is mentioned below.
“SHIFT is built on the most advanced physics engine we’ve made, and is by far the most advanced and realistic physics engine of any of the mainstream racing games. We’re talking about an engine that can run unlimited threads, detailed physics parameters running at around 400 Hz on consoles. Things like tire deformation based on g-forces, tire pressures, rubber thickness, which only the most diehard sim fans will notice, but we know it’s there.
We have a full realism hardcore mode called Pro that you can choose to race in from the start that will feel natural and comfortable as well as raising the bar for handling compared to anything out there (or due out soon) for all of our hardcore race sim fans.”
No, it's not true. I'm on Pro handling and Hard AI, and you can't feel any of the things Ian Bell says the physics engine features. The engine may well be capable of producing it, but it surely isn't doing so here. If the dev team were really catering for the hardcore race sim fans, they'd have used a version of Spa that hadn't become obsolete 3 years back, wouldn't they?
Not that you, I or anyone else really gives a dry-roasted Mediterranean toss about that, of course, but it's the sort of thing they'd surely have paid more attention to had it really been intended for 'our hardcore sim fans.' The NFS: Shift I'm playing is a halfway house of a game to me, in the same way GRID was but more irritatingly so, because it gets more things right. The in-car camera really makes you feel like you're strapped into a flying machine once the speed builds up, the AI race both you and each other in a very convincing way (covering their lines, actively looking to pass, making their own mistakes independently of any shoves you might give them), and it sounds excellent too.
The chief problems I'm having are the handling and some of the other AI behaviour. Those curious slides that Naples described earlier are how the game wants you to corner at all times, and they just feel a bit off to me. It's not a Burnout or Ridge Racer drift, it's not a Forza death-dealing kind of slide, and it doesn't compare to anything I've felt in a game or a car. I wonder if that's what people meant when they referred to twitchy controls - the controls are alright both out of the box and with Terry's settings from earlier, but every time you approach anything tighter than a kink, you're going to start that slide the instant you turn in, whether you like it or not. It doesn't help me that I have the same feeling of slight detachment that GRID gave me, this sense that when I angle the stick towards a piece of track, sometimes the best I can hope for is to go in the general direction I wanted and see where that leaves me.
It
really doesn't help me that the AI do the kamikaze drive-into-the-side-of-me thing that I do to them to score points, because the hard AI are too fast to give you a chance of finishing at the front in the short races you're given. [Edit for clarity: that is, too fast for you to catch them up once they've spun you off. If you can make it through a race without that, the hard AI is quick enough that you can't afford to make a mistake, but not unbeatable.] That part of things doesn't feel very well balanced, which is leading to a lot of restarting, an amount of controller throwing and enough frustration that I'm probably going to give up soon. I see completely why people like this game so much - I have the odd race where I love it too. I have too many, though, that annoy the life out of me...
How can the developers even claim to be catering to the sim crowd when they specifically task you with spinning out opponents to win the race?!?
