I mean, I have no problem in playing arcade style Need For Speed like I did in the past. It's obviously fun to forget for a minute that it's not intended to be realistic or a sim. It's fun, it's a great game when you want something different. I myself have NFS SE II installed here. Even Daytona USA, Test Drive, Stunts are fun games too, the old Bruninho child in me likes them all too.
But when a developer like Codemasters announce a game like F1 2020 to be like a sim racing game and brag about it with F1 promoting virtual races between some of their F1 drivers and celebrities where they just crash into eachother... yes it's "criminal".
F1 2019 and 2020 versions is what clueless1 defines as "little to no attempt at somewhat realistic physics, and easy for a newb to jump in and be good at it". But guess what, for PlayStation and casual players it works just fine. F1 2020 does include stuff like in-car adjustments to fuel mixture, engine mapping and DRS, to mimic what the real current F1 drivers do, but they fail to produce good car physics. For example, we see players abusing track limits or corner kerbs to improve laptimes, but when we watch the real drivers at the real thing, they never do the same things because in real life driving like us (simracers) would damage severely their cars. For example ride over a kerb before a corner for a better line on exit. In real life that kerb is higher and would produce damage to the floor of the car.
Let me be clear: Are we discussing the realism of the game or how good are the physics included in the game? Because to me, Codemasters failed at both, where MicroProse (and then Hasbro) got both right with Grand Prix 1, 2, 3, and 4. The only thing I can applaud Codemasters for is the fidelity of their cars, drivers and track graphics details. But anyone with the same talent outside Codemasters could do the same.
Even ImageSpace Incorporated rFactor game was good thanks to third party modders who had some very good developers behind their perfect 3D car models developing very good physics. The hardest part of the job is to make good physics for tyres. No one has got it right yet, but some groups like CTDP (Cars & Track Development) came very close with F1 2005 and 2006 mods for rFactor 1, that made Codemasters job look like amateurs.
While I'm at it, I suggest to watch some professional sim racing races like Formula-SimRacing.net or iRacing competitions to see the difference. Myself was in a few Formula-SimRacing.net events for Torrent Motorsports's amateur division entrances back in 2008, where more than 50 drivers would fight for a place to be one of the 26 drivers showcasing their talents and all with streaming broadcast for the main race only. I managed to compete in a pair of races and even be competitive enough for a midfield top 10 battle in these broadcasted races. I had to quit because their mod favoured a car set up for oversteer (loose rear end, early turn in, smooth and progressive throttle usage) instead of understeer (straight and late turn in, hammering the throttle as early as possible, my style in these days before I had gone to indoor karting real life tournaments and it changed my style completely when I returned to sim racing).
"Design isn't just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
JOBS, Steve.
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