RACE 360

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:11 pm

Rodster wrote:
Someone referred to it looking like an Xbox game. It's pretty close at times. I mean it doesn't look bad but it's not the game that's going to give PGR3, PGR4, Forza 2 a run for it's money.

The most important part of the game they got right. The way each class and model of cars drive is sublime. There's a difference between between how a Mini, BMW 320i and Viper drive and handle. The AI for the most part does it's job competently.

As I racer i'll take that every time over pretty graphics. The bottom line is, it's worth $40 bucks.

TOCA also was never the prettiest girl at the dance, but she sure "put out"!

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:11 pm

My understanding is that the difficulty is tied to the AI, so you won't be able to modify it.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:12 pm

JackB1 wrote:
Rodster wrote:
Someone referred to it looking like an Xbox game. It's pretty close at times. I mean it doesn't look bad but it's not the game that's going to give PGR3, PGR4, Forza 2 a run for it's money.

The most important part of the game they got right. The way each class and model of cars drive is sublime. There's a difference between between how a Mini, BMW 320i and Viper drive and handle. The AI for the most part does it's job competently.

As I racer i'll take that every time over pretty graphics. The bottom line is, it's worth $40 bucks.
TOCA also was never the prettiest girl at the dance, but she sure "put out"!

I never had a problem with Toca graphics on the original Xbox. In fact I thought they looked pretty good for an Xbox game.

toonarmy · Post by **toonarmy** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:19 pm

Picked up my preorder. The card with the bonus code is included in the case with the manual. I was expecting a lot from this game and it has delivered on all fronts. I don't get the worries about the graphics. First, if I want to look at the scenery I'll go on a safari. The cars, courses, kerbs, etc. all look great. Second, I recommend playing from the cockpit view. The sense of speed is greater and the graphics aren't as worrisome since you are mainly seeing the dash, the course, and the cars.

As for the physics -- thank you SimBin! Someone finally got braking right in a console racing game. Forza 2's braking is an utter mess, and it is better than the other 360 racing games in that respect. The braking, handling, steering, weight, etc... all seem to be spot-on. There are a good variety of customization options for the control as well. Race Pro is truly the first real racing sim on the 360.

The CPU AI has been good so far. I have tried a variety of maneuvers on the AI cars thus far and they have responded fairly realistically. Pro level is a sight to behold. It is darn hard to overtake on some of the courses on Pro.

I'm sure some people, as well as some reviewers, will totally miss the point of this game and try to compare it to Grid and the like. For those people who don't care about ridiculous crashes and glitz and glamour, but are looking for an exciting and realistic racing game, then you can do no better than Race Pro. The fact that it's only 39.99 makes it that much better. I'm getting ready to put this on my HDD so that I don't burn out my 360's disc drive playing Race Pro.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:22 pm

The graphics engine is pretty good...the resolution is just pretty low. Overall it's not a bad looking racing game for the amount of control you have in the physics.

And as for difficulty in career, I doubt most of the guys here will have a huge problem with it. I couldn't adjust AI, but in single race they're set to "Very Hard" and I was struggling to maintain 6th out of 16, until butchering the last lap and finishing dead last.

In career I took the pole position and then won by a full straightaway in my first race. I'd have to guess that in Career they're just set to "Hard" whereas on single race they are bumped up a bit. They're definitely a happy medium on Career without assists on.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:28 pm

I only asked because I'd hate for the career mode to stop being fun because semi-pro AI cars are too slow and pro AI cars are too fast.

It would really suck if I just wanted to turn stability control to 'low', but doing so made the AI cars turn to s*** because I'm no longer on pro difficulty.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:29 pm

the review in OXM mentions how the career mode difficulty is too easy for semi pro and too hard for pro...

http://www.oxmonline.com/article/xbox-soapbox/race-pro

Hopefully online play can make up for that, although I have a hard time believing semi-pro mode would be too easy FOR ME.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:43 pm

JackB1 wrote:the review in OXM mentions how the career mode difficulty is too easy for semi pro and too hard for pro...

http://www.oxmonline.com/article/xbox-soapbox/race-pro

Hopefully online play can make up for that, although I have a hard time believing semi-pro mode would be too easy FOR ME.

Yep, this is exactly what I was talking about;

Since the difficulty levels don’t let you tweak the opponent A.I. skill in the career mode, most players will be stuck beating the field by 17+ seconds in Semi Pro, or screaming in frustration at their inability to stop spinning out every 10 feet in Pro.

Man, I just wanted fast CPU cars while allowing me to have 1 or 2 assists on the powerful cars like the racing line or stability control. I guess I'll have to see for myself how it plays out.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:00 pm

Naples39 wrote: Man, I just wanted fast CPU cars while allowing me to have 1 or 2 assists on the powerful cars like the racing line or stability control. I guess I'll have to see for myself how it plays out.

I'm not a sim racer like TCrouch. I tried racing the AI in hard and it was a struggle staying out of last place. I'm sure with practice i'll get better but it's really tough with AI set to 100%.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:09 pm

I've decided to just be honest with myself about my abilities. I now, and always have, sucked at racing sims. I'm terrible-there's just no getting around it. And given that I have MUCH less time to play games, much less play games in order to shave a fraction of a second here, or run laps to learn the best braking point there, yada, yada, I'll never be able to be competitive in any kind of online race against guys who still are able to give that kind of time to it, so I just wondered, as I was turning a couple of laps..."So what's the friggin' point???" Answer: There isn't one.

So...I'll leave it to you gearheads, and I'll just be happy with Burnout and it's plethora of downloadable content, it's crash-happy gameplay, and ridiculously arcade physics, and stop wasting money on racing sims. Can't play 'em worth a damn anyway...

Probably will put this toward Halo Wars or something of the sort. Ya'll have fun!

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:19 pm

Teal wrote:I've decided to just be honest with myself about my abilities. I now, and always have, sucked at racing sims. I'm terrible-there's just no getting around it. And given that I have MUCH less time to play games, much less play games in order to shave a fraction of a second here, or run laps to learn the best braking point there, yada, yada, I'll never be able to be competitive in any kind of online race against guys who still are able to give that kind of time to it, so I just wondered, as I was turning a couple of laps..."So what's the friggin' point???" Answer: There isn't one.

So...I'll leave it to you gearheads, and I'll just be happy with Burnout and it's plethora of downloadable content, it's crash-happy gameplay, and ridiculously arcade physics, and stop wasting money on racing sims. Can't play 'em worth a damn anyway...

Probably will put this toward Halo Wars or something of the sort. Ya'll have fun!

Teal before you take it back we can try some races. I'm not all that good so it should be some fun or at least good for some laughs.

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:31 pm

Rodster wrote:
Teal wrote:I've decided to just be honest with myself about my abilities. I now, and always have, sucked at racing sims. I'm terrible-there's just no getting around it. And given that I have MUCH less time to play games, much less play games in order to shave a fraction of a second here, or run laps to learn the best braking point there, yada, yada, I'll never be able to be competitive in any kind of online race against guys who still are able to give that kind of time to it, so I just wondered, as I was turning a couple of laps..."So what's the friggin' point???" Answer: There isn't one.

So...I'll leave it to you gearheads, and I'll just be happy with Burnout and it's plethora of downloadable content, it's crash-happy gameplay, and ridiculously arcade physics, and stop wasting money on racing sims. Can't play 'em worth a damn anyway...

Probably will put this toward Halo Wars or something of the sort. Ya'll have fun!
Teal before you take it back we can try some races. I'm not all that good so it should be some fun or at least good for some laughs.

Oh, we'd be laughing, all right...eh, maybe, bro, but I don't know when. I'm having to go to bed at 8 or 8:30 just to be able to function when the alarm goes off at 4am for me to go to work. I'd only be able to play in the afternoons during the week. I'll probably GF it after I return it, so I'll still be around with it...just not with that much money out of pocket for something that'll likely not get alot of playing time...

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:43 pm

Teal wrote: So...I'll leave it to you gearheads, and I'll just be happy with Burnout and it's plethora of downloadable content, it's crash-happy gameplay, and ridiculously arcade physics, and stop wasting money on racing sims. Can't play 'em worth a damn anyway...

Did you like GRID Teal?

FifaInspected · Post by **FifaInspected** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:20 pm

As for the graphics... They didn't strike me as being all that bad. Back in the day look how many of us were addicted to Winning Eleven, and none of us were playing it because of it's great graphics.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:28 pm

FifaInspected wrote:As for the graphics... They didn't strike me as being all that bad. Back in the day look how many of us were addicted to Winning Eleven, and none of us were playing it because of it's great graphics.

Yeah, saying the graphics are Xbox 1 quality is a little ridiculous. Go back and play those games. It's still a nice step up.

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:44 am

For those using the MS wheel: Is there any force feedback in this game? I had seen some impressions that it was not great, but I found it completely non-existent. Not even shaking on rumble strips. No weight transfer when throwing the car back and forth, nothing. (Yes, I had the power plugged in on the wheel.

)

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:33 am

JackB1 wrote:
Teal wrote: So...I'll leave it to you gearheads, and I'll just be happy with Burnout and it's plethora of downloadable content, it's crash-happy gameplay, and ridiculously arcade physics, and stop wasting money on racing sims. Can't play 'em worth a damn anyway...
Did you like GRID Teal?

Yeah...somewhat. I preferred DiRT, but it's online component sucked. GRID was not anywhere approaching a sim, however.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:42 am

DChaps wrote:For those using the MS wheel: Is there any force feedback in this game? I had seen some impressions that it was not great, but I found it completely non-existent. Not even shaking on rumble strips. No weight transfer when throwing the car back and forth, nothing. (Yes, I had the power plugged in on the wheel. )

I get shaking from each side when I run over rumble strips, and while it's not as pronounced as the G25 or anything, it has resistance to turns and gets "sloppy" when I lock up the front wheels. Something's definitely wrong if you have nothing at all.

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:47 am

TCrouch wrote:
DChaps wrote:For those using the MS wheel: Is there any force feedback in this game? I had seen some impressions that it was not great, but I found it completely non-existent. Not even shaking on rumble strips. No weight transfer when throwing the car back and forth, nothing. (Yes, I had the power plugged in on the wheel. )
I get shaking from each side when I run over rumble strips, and while it's not as pronounced as the G25 or anything, it has resistance to turns and gets "sloppy" when I lock up the front wheels. Something's definitely wrong if you have nothing at all.

I dropped by the official forums for the game this morning and about half the people are seeing absolutely no FFB effects like Don and the rest say it's fine. There definitely appears to be problem. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it in an update.

What I couldn't find on the official forums was anyone else running into the hosting problem I had where I couldn't advance the session past qualifying. I wonder if I was somehow doing something wrong. I did notice that when I chose to advance TO qualifying it would go back to the menu and I had to choose to advance to qualifying again. Then on the second time it worked fine.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:08 pm

So what's the verdict on this game? I can't get a sense if you guys overall like it or not? Most of you seem indifferent. The game is not getting rave reviews from most review sites and magazines...mostly numbers like 7/10 or 70%.

I guess the final verdict lies in the online play and in how many guys here get it and if we get a regular Poker Night going.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:10 pm

It's f*cking stellar. It's a no-frills racer, but the AI is fun to race with offline, and online was overall an absolute blast. There seems to be a few issues with getting dropped from a room and whatnot here and there, (as well as FF issues apparently), but overall it's amazing.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:12 pm

JackB1 wrote:So what's the verdict on this game? I can't get a sense if you guys overall like it or not? Most of you seem indifferent. The game is not getting rave reviews from most review sites and magazines...mostly numbers like 7/10 or 70%.

I guess the final verdict lies in the online play and in how many guys here get it and if we get a regular Poker Night going.

As a racer it gets a 90/100 but when viewed as a complete package i'll only give it a 75/100.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:49 pm

All I know is I'm having a blast with Race 07 for the PC

still waiting for my gf copy of this one.....

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:59 pm

JackB1 wrote:All I know is I'm having a blast with Race 07 for the PC

Very good game. I enjoyed that one, too. Better driving model and physics than original RACE.

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:13 pm

mixdj1 wrote:
TCrouch wrote:
DChaps wrote:For those using the MS wheel: Is there any force feedback in this game? I had seen some impressions that it was not great, but I found it completely non-existent. Not even shaking on rumble strips. No weight transfer when throwing the car back and forth, nothing. (Yes, I had the power plugged in on the wheel. )
I get shaking from each side when I run over rumble strips, and while it's not as pronounced as the G25 or anything, it has resistance to turns and gets "sloppy" when I lock up the front wheels. Something's definitely wrong if you have nothing at all.
I dropped by the official forums for the game this morning and about half the people are seeing absolutely no FFB effects like Don and the rest say it's fine. There definitely appears to be problem. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it in an update.

There seems to be a vast majority of users reporting no FF at all, and when I say none at all I mean none. There is tension, but that is it. If I switch over to Forza, FF is just fine. In the Atari forums there have been a couple supposed fixes reported, however, most seem to be saying this does not work.

http://forums.eu.atari.com/showthread.php?t=89034

First of all, the credit goes to flantheman on these forums. He's not online and I asked him to start a thread so everyone knew so thought id do it. Nagge on the forum has said he can feel a definite improvement.

- - - - -
guys, i had the same problem, but i MAY have resolved it, i'm definitely getting better feedback than when i first started playing.
"
press your guide button(big silver "X" on controller)in your system blade go to "settings", then "profile", scroll down to "Game Defaults" and press "General", at the bottom there is an option for "Controller Sensitivity", mine was set at Low sensitivity, i changed it to "High" and the FF was much better.

all this can be done without quitting the game. hope this works for you.

** EDIT **

May be worth restarting the console once the change is done so you know its picked up.