MyFirst impressions.
Got it saturday at noon, played it this weekend when I had time. Currently at level 20 in career mode.
As a game it is vastly better than F2. The race-calendar gives you a much better sense of purpose than F2's bunch of race-cups. It also starts you off with a lot of different race tracks from the get go, which again makes it much more fun than F2's grinding around in the test track that everybody hated (King Cobra for V8s, *hngh* ).
The quick upgrade will help beginners a lot because it balances power and grip fairly well. One shortcoming is that it doesn't apply any of the aerodynamic packages, which normally gives free grip (ie no performance index increase). Once you know this you just add the spoilers youself and use quickupgrade after that.
The menu structure is much the same as F2, but because the menus are so much snappier it doesn't drive you crazy to back all the way out, go into upgrade, then back all the way up again and go into race.
The races are more fun because you now have performance index restrictions on them, there are also more performance classes (A-F instead of A-D), which means that your opponents are much closer to you in performance. The narrower performance bands and the performance restrictions makes for much closer racing, which goes a long way to alleviate the 8 car-on-track cap.
As for the AI, I feel it has been taken down a notch compared to F2. I've played on hard AI since I started, and I've had no real problems winning so far (hint: start with the Ford Fiesta Zetec).
Graphically it is improved over F2, but the lighting is still a mixed bag. Ambient lighting on the Nurburgring for example is too dark.
The core mechanics are the same as F2. The physics almost feels the same. My Exige feel the same as the one in F2 (Winning every thing in the A-class
). The tuning options are the same and so is the response. One minor thing they've corrected is that you can no longer drive with a super soft frontend to get that massive dynamic camber that enables unreal cornering, - your car will bottom out.
I give it 9/10 (deduction for graphics)
Cheers
Got it saturday at noon, played it this weekend when I had time. Currently at level 20 in career mode.
As a game it is vastly better than F2. The race-calendar gives you a much better sense of purpose than F2's bunch of race-cups. It also starts you off with a lot of different race tracks from the get go, which again makes it much more fun than F2's grinding around in the test track that everybody hated (King Cobra for V8s, *hngh* ).
The quick upgrade will help beginners a lot because it balances power and grip fairly well. One shortcoming is that it doesn't apply any of the aerodynamic packages, which normally gives free grip (ie no performance index increase). Once you know this you just add the spoilers youself and use quickupgrade after that.
The menu structure is much the same as F2, but because the menus are so much snappier it doesn't drive you crazy to back all the way out, go into upgrade, then back all the way up again and go into race.
The races are more fun because you now have performance index restrictions on them, there are also more performance classes (A-F instead of A-D), which means that your opponents are much closer to you in performance. The narrower performance bands and the performance restrictions makes for much closer racing, which goes a long way to alleviate the 8 car-on-track cap.
As for the AI, I feel it has been taken down a notch compared to F2. I've played on hard AI since I started, and I've had no real problems winning so far (hint: start with the Ford Fiesta Zetec).
Graphically it is improved over F2, but the lighting is still a mixed bag. Ambient lighting on the Nurburgring for example is too dark.
The core mechanics are the same as F2. The physics almost feels the same. My Exige feel the same as the one in F2 (Winning every thing in the A-class
). The tuning options are the same and so is the response. One minor thing they've corrected is that you can no longer drive with a super soft frontend to get that massive dynamic camber that enables unreal cornering, - your car will bottom out.I give it 9/10 (deduction for graphics)
Cheers
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