leileilol wrote on 2020-08-13, 02:06:

The thing about Codemasters....they've always wanted to make "Simulators", so it's not surprising that it's very non-arcade (though ironically, their earliest "simulator" series titles are pretty arcadey due to C64 hardware limitations)

All Codemasters racing games are very arcadey. Including GRiD. F1 20** editions have very terrible damage models.

Meanwhile I'm grabbing my popcorn and watching the fall of Epic Games/Fortnite. I've always thought it was a stupid game.

Calling any Codemasters game a proper simulation is criminal..

I can't deny they (Codemasters) do a good job in reproducing all details of cars, drivers and tracks, but when it comes to physics and AI, they're utterly terrible. As of now, Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix series AI is the best of any racing game ever. With regards to the damage model, iRacing has the best I've ever seen, although they run it on top of an outdated engine (NR2003 engine) with updates.

For example, in Codemasters F1 2010, I could drive in a fully drenched track and rain with intermediates or even soft tyres, lowest aero and ride height settings, and I've set an impossible laptime for a wet Spa Francorchamps lap driving at my very best ability. The feeling was like I was on rails in a dry track, I could even hammer the throttle as early as possible on corner exit, just like in a dry track. While I've driven karts in a fully drenched track several times before, and these were indoor karts without tyres for wet races, I had even to take a very different racing line to stay on track. I could go off track at any time without a warning (any feeling from the kart that could be used to predict that), with a simple small distraction or hammering the throttle too early. So you can imagine that in a F1 it would be even more harder than that to keep it on track; and Codemasters failed epically to bring it for their game. I presume that they targeted the casual players who would feel very frustrated if they couldn't be able to drive in wet races...

I can bet that ten years later Codemasters hasn't improved in that aspect, considering that Max Verstappen made public that he refused to play that game when F1 promoted these virtual races while the pandemic was going on. Max, being one of the main members of Team Redline (along with Lando Norris), only plays iRacing or rFactor 2. When two very good F1 drivers have very strong opinions about the realism of a F1 game, I have to take them seriously... If anything, these virtual races F1 promoted just damaged even more the (bad) reputation of Codemasters games.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-08-15, 13:29:

Calling any Codemasters game a proper simulation is criminal..

Dirt Rally seemed like a sim to me.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-08-15, 13:29:

Calling any Codemasters game a proper simulation is criminal..

I guess it depends on your experiences and perspective. F1 2018 and DiRT Rally are both extremely simmy to me. I would consider them "proper simulations". Or maybe I'm just a criminal.

clueless1 wrote on 2020-08-16, 09:45:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-08-15, 13:29:

Calling any Codemasters game a proper simulation is criminal..

I guess it depends on your experiences and perspective. F1 2018 and DiRT Rally are both extremely simmy to me. I would consider them "proper simulations". Or maybe I'm just a criminal.

Here, Codemasters F1 2010 in the wet. See how arcade it is. Yeah, it’s me. Forget the sound - the engine sounds of this game were never spot on so I just slapped a sound track over it for fun.

1:47 at Spa, in a wet track? Never. Never in real life. Real life wet races are close to 2:00 laptimes.

https://youtu.be/U4KkbZpe_RQ

Bruninho wrote on 2020-08-16, 17:01:

Here, Codemasters F1 2010 in the wet. See how arcade it is. Yeah, it’s me. Forget the sound - the engine sounds of this game wer […]
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clueless1 wrote on 2020-08-16, 09:45:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-08-15, 13:29:

Calling any Codemasters game a proper simulation is criminal..

I guess it depends on your experiences and perspective. F1 2018 and DiRT Rally are both extremely simmy to me. I would consider them "proper simulations". Or maybe I'm just a criminal.

Here, Codemasters F1 2010 in the wet. See how arcade it is. Yeah, it’s me. Forget the sound - the engine sounds of this game were never spot on so I just slapped a sound track over it for fun.

1:47 at Spa, in a wet track? Never. Never in real life. Real life wet races are close to 2:00 laptimes.

https://youtu.be/U4KkbZpe_RQ

That's what I mean by "it depends on your experiences and perspective." Arcadey to me is little to no attempt at somewhat realistic physics and easy for a newb to jump in and be good at it with just good hand-eye coordination. When it takes lots of practice and learning of controls just to be somewhat competitive with the AI, then it starts to feel simmy to me. Others (like you and appiah4) have different experiences and perspective that redefine the realism level for you guys.

I mostly enjoy the arcadey racing games, regardless of practically no realism like the Need for Speed games (comon, 200MPH slamming head on into a truck just to drive off without a scratch?) After playing F1...meh. I've always enjoyed with NFS games, except the one on Wii U. Thanks to some patches, I've been re-living Underground 2 and Carbon now in ultrawide on ultra settings and flawless performance. It's just awesome.

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).