Need For Speed: SHIFT & SHIFT 2 Unleashed

[Serj]

Someone beat it.....
1:27.187 - GT1 Class - Brands Hatch GP
No Assists

You think that time is a benchmark for Brands Hatch? Its not too fast IMO.

 

[Peter Hooper]

Had a quick check of what's possible with this game earlier and there is no qualifying either offline or online and you can only set up for a single race so we would have to drop back to the lobby and go again from there for our double header races. Also as with Grid there is a restriction on the number of laps which is limited to 25 in this game which is a real pity but ok for our purposes.

 

[Peter Hooper]

You think that time is a benchmark for Brands Hatch? Its not too fast IMO.

We've only just picked up on this game so it's a good place to start. I'm sure it will come down quickly once we start putting in the laps there.

 

[Serj]

We've only just picked up on this game so it's a good place to start. I'm sure it will come down quickly once we start putting in the laps there.

ok, thats very interesting wheres can push the limits for Brands Hatch and the GT1 car.

 

[Rob]

ok, thats very interesting wheres can push the limits for Brands Hatch and the GT1 car.

Push away serj. I'm sure you would kill us. Hey, look up a guy named Maxtoto or "Marcin" on here. I think you two would really hit it off.

 

[Rob]

I will try and make this race as well. Hoping to get Force Feedback at the start. Robert, is there a chance we have a Parade Lap, That way us Fail-atec users can reset our wheel and restart in the back of the pack?
Michael Watts/ Michaei Watts

If we want to race 4-6 cars w/o A.I. then this is certainly an option. Otherwise, I don't think it matters much, but a parade lap would be preferable to destroying 1/2 the field or starting 1/2 a lap down. . Also try turning your wheel on and off during the start.

 

[Peter Hooper]

1:17.77X. Now I know I'm nowhere near Michael and his Maserati, but keep in mind we are running at Dusk. Post your best times when running then. Once I got the understeer under control, 4th gear reminded me of being able to control the car's angle similar to the carousel at Road America. Good stuff!

Posted my dusk time of 1:17.558, bit gutted seeing as I did a 1:16.852 but was logged out of autolog so it didn't get posted. Never mind, I'll get it again soon enough

 

[Rob]

Posted my dusk time of 1:17.558, bit gutted seeing as I did a 1:16.852 but was logged out of autolog so it didn't get posted. Never mind, I'll get it again soon enough

16 huh? Link it or it didn't happen. lol.
Railer was soon besting my time (shocker I know) in the Corvette after a few advanced tips on the settings...and he went from using a MS Wheel to a MadCatz, (which may be even more difficult than the Fanacrap). Proves that anyone can get this game to feel good with a bit of learning and a LOT of testing.

 

[Peter Hooper]

16 huh? Link it or it didn't happen. lol.
Railer was soon besting my time (shocker I know) in the Corvette after a few advanced tips on the settings...and he went from using a MS Wheel to a MadCatz, (which may be even more difficult than the Fanacrap). Proves that anyone can get this game to feel good with a bit of learning and a LOT of testing.

Fair enough

Still more to come, I lost some time on the last sector so reckon a 15 is in there. Still haven't made many setup changes either.

 

[Peter Hooper]

That's a good description, except for the last roundabout at Willow. That reminds me of the Carousel at Road America. You can really use some slight looseness to your advantage, but you are playing with fire since this game is so finicky. I think you are right Mike, in that the wheel settings I have work better for different cars. It's generally acknowledged that the Maserati is the fastest just stock, but I like the feel of the Chevy (It shoudl be the fastest, considering all the series' and races it has dominated). The Aston is not bad either, but a little skittish for me. Truth be told, I chose the Chevy for the pure sound. lol. I may have to get my headphones plugged back in for this one. lol.

I have only driven the Aston here so far but grabbed the Chevy and Masserati from the car lot tonight so will give them a run out too this week. Of course if my connection woes don't improve it will all be moot anyway as I can't even get an invite let alone race

 

[Rob]

I have only driven the Aston here so far but grabbed the Chevy and Masserati from the car lot tonight so will give them a run out too this week. Of course if my connection woes don't improve it will all be moot anyway as I can't even get an invite let alone race

I really think the hardwire (I'd just go get a cable) will solve all of your problems, unless it's your ISP. Are they a Monopoly over there? Surely not in London....

 

[Rob]

Fair enough

Still more to come, I lost some time on the last sector so reckon a 15 is in there. Still haven't made many setup changes either.

Woooo. Be careful what you ask for I guess. lol. My best so far is 1:17.014 or close. So you are about 2/10ths ahead. This will be quite a battle it seems, but I fear once you get your stuff tuned, you will run away. In fact, after I gave Railer my settings and a tune, he went from not being able to steer to posting a time somewhere around 1:17.5. This game takes work, but, as you are finding out, it's well worth it.

 

[Rob]

I was trying to get a feel for the track, there feels like there is more speed there if I could just get the tuning down. I WANTED to drive the Lambo, but I think the Masseratti suits my driving style better since I'm fairly aggressive on the throttle. I still have a couple of corners to Master at Willow Springs. I may get on later today as my Flight has been cancelled and rescheduled for early tomorrow due to Winter Storm Linus.

I'll be home tomorrow also due to sunny and warm day Camille.
Weather coverage used to not be so annoying. Now they practically cancel shows to talk about it, which drives people to think the sky is falling. Anyone who has purchased Bread or Eggs or Milk the day before, because of some weather forecast (except Karl, who probably really knows how to prepare) is an official doofus.

I can only imagine what this game would have been like without E.A. screwing it up. I think 360 users are used to games, like Forza and GRID, that are, at heart, more arcade than Shift2, even with the screw ups involved with Shift2. So, you have to drive like you are on a real road course instead of a go cart track. But it's still difficult to come to grasp with, so I feel your pain. However, the realism and non-static environment makes everything but Race pro and (maybe) F1 2013 look like Mario Cart. No wonder the PC crowd scoffs at console users, who gave up on this game.

Even FM5, I see cars literally going around the track with constant puffs of smoke coming from their wheels. This is some guy on a pad who can turn on TC or SC and drive around as if the laws of physics are not applicable to him and get rewarded nicely for it. As good as FM5 feels and as good as the experience can be, physics-wise, they still reward the pad/novice user. Leaderboards are 90% assists. A shame, which is why all the Forza leagues are set to abandon it....finally.

Here's hoping that we get a game that actually punishes throwing the car around (unless you are an assist junkie) and treats assists like the stepchildren they are.

I can't say I agree with the assessment of the guy who rated all of the cars either (for aggressive drivers, for precise drivers, etc.). Any car can be anything you want if you learn to drive it and tune it right. For instance, he said the Maserati was just made to blow away everything else, but this isn't true, at least in my case. Times are the same for any GT1 car if I put the effort into it. And THIS is why pCARS not caving onto the teenage "I want to endlessly swap parts in my car" (which is anything but how racing works) crowd, was just one of many brilliant decisions they made.

They are pointing testers to the RUF now in pCARS and it looks good. Kinda reminds you of something now. But I'm sure it will be night and day aside from the small video clues.

 

[Peter Hooper]

I really think the hardwire (I'd just go get a cable) will solve all of your problems, unless it's your ISP. Are they a Monopoly over there? Surely not in London....

The cable will likely solve it as my connection from the exchange to the router is very good (about 40mb down and 20 up) it's just the wireless connection from the router to the devices thats a problem.. at least to the laptop where it was bombing at 2mb down and 3 mb up (still had a decent ping though), can't really test that to the Xbox but I can only assume thats suffering similarly.

Unfortunately going to buy a cable fo that length is not so straightforward where I live. No PC shops locally and the only local store that I can get one from only does 5 or 10 metre lengths which is too short. I'll order one online this week and hopefully it should arrive in a few days.

 

[Peter Hooper]

Woooo. Be careful what you ask for I guess. lol. My best so far is 1:17.014 or close. So you are about 2/10ths ahead. This will be quite a battle it seems, but I fear once you get your stuff tuned, you will run away. In fact, after I gave Railer my settings and a tune, he went from not being able to steer to posting a time somewhere around 1:17.5. This game takes work, but, as you are finding out, it's well worth it.

Well, that gap has now increased and Michael needs to get himself back on track to grab his lead back . No wonder he drove the Maserati.. it’s like a rocket!! So much quicker than the Aston but it does come at a price as it’s much more skittish especially with the default tune but I still snuck in with a 1:15.611 I actually had two better sector times in other laps which would have had me at about 1:15.2 so I am definitely aiming for a 1:14 if I start to tune the car as well.

I now see what you mean about the wobbly car @Michael Watts, the Maserati is very loose and I spoilt several laps by having the car wobble on corner exit and slip into the gravel. It’s a lot of fun to drive though and stunningly quick!!

I am going to try one of those Renown Tuning tunes for this car and see how that changes things for me

 

[Peter Hooper]

I'll be home tomorrow also due to sunny and warm day Camille.
Weather coverage used to not be so annoying. Now they practically cancel shows to talk about it, which drives people to think the sky is falling. Anyone who has purchased Bread or Eggs or Milk the day before, because of some weather forecast (except Karl, who probably really knows how to prepare) is an official doofus.

I can only imagine what this game would have been like without E.A. screwing it up. I think 360 users are used to games, like Forza and GRID, that are, at heart, more arcade than Shift2, even with the screw ups involved with Shift2. So, you have to drive like you are on a real road course instead of a go cart track. But it's still difficult to come to grasp with, so I feel your pain. However, the realism and non-static environment makes everything but Race pro and (maybe) F1 2013 look like Mario Cart. No wonder the PC crowd scoffs at console users, who gave up on this game.

Even FM5, I see cars literally going around the track with constant puffs of smoke coming from their wheels. This is some guy on a pad who can turn on TC or SC and drive around as if the laws of physics are not applicable to him and get rewarded nicely for it. As good as FM5 feels and as good as the experience can be, physics-wise, they still reward the pad/novice user. Leaderboards are 90% assists. A shame, which is why all the Forza leagues are set to abandon it....finally.

Here's hoping that we get a game that actually punishes throwing the car around (unless you are an assist junkie) and treats assists like the stepchildren they are.

I can't say I agree with the assessment of the guy who rated all of the cars either (for aggressive drivers, for precise drivers, etc.). Any car can be anything you want if you learn to drive it and tune it right. For instance, he said the Maserati was just made to blow away everything else, but this isn't true, at least in my case. Times are the same for any GT1 car if I put the effort into it. And THIS is why pCARS not caving onto the teenage "I want to endlessly swap parts in my car" (which is anything but how racing works) crowd, was just one of many brilliant decisions they made.

They are pointing testers to the RUF now in pCARS and it looks good. Kinda reminds you of something now. But I'm sure it will be night and day aside from the small video clues.

The main thing is to get the balance right with any sim \ game and of course there are many very different styles of racer out there.. some smooth and some aggressive so neither should be disadvantaged particularly, you should be able to set up most cars at most tracks to suit whatever your particular style is.

Race game \ sim developers do have a very tough job in terms of getting it right for all types of racer both in terms of the way they drive but also for the level of ability they have and excluding those that have less ability than others just loses them sales at the end of the day. Grand Prix Legends is kind of proof of that because it was just too hard for many and therefore never became as popular as it should have been considering how ahead of it’s time it was. They included F2 and F3 ‘trainer’ cars with less power (and less gears in the case of the F3) to enable people to learn how to drive the cars properly and to help them work their way up to the full GP car but of course everyone just wanted to jump straight into the GP car and expected to be able to drive fast and win races which just was never possible and resulted in the sim getting a reputation as too tough which badly effected sales.

Many people have this idea of what a sim is and that it’s something that they really want only to find that when it actually does arrive it takes too much work to get competitive in and so give up on it. Hopefully pCars with it’s wider appeal in that it doesn’t concentrate on one era or form of motorsport will become a massive success and give console racers something that can give them the sim that so many have been crying out for. But for others who ‘thought’ they wanted a sim it will be a case of I can’t drive it so there must be something wrong with the game… and they’ll quickly return to the games that they were racing before. For me this may explain why Shift 2 wasn’t more of a success… it’s more involved than most other games we have in terms of what is required to drive fast and consistently so too many people gave up on it because the work needed was more than they were prepared to put in.

Where did you see this rating of all the cars Robert and was that related to Shift 2 or pCars? I would have to say that the Maserati based on my run this morning is massively quick and I was easily able to best my time in the Aston within a few laps so that guys assessment of it seems pretty accurate at the moment in terms of it’s lap pace. But of course with some setup work maybe there is more to come from the Aston and it is much more stable off the bat and that has to come into the equation over a race distance.

 

[Rob]

The cable will likely solve it as my connection from the exchange to the router is very good (about 40mb down and 20 up) it's just the wireless connection from the router to the devices thats a problem.. at least to the laptop where it was bombing at 2mb down and 3 mb up (still had a decent ping though), can't really test that to the Xbox but I can only assume thats suffering similarly.

Unfortunately going to buy a cable fo that length is not so straightforward where I live. No PC shops locally and the only local store that I can get one from only does 5 or 10 metre lengths which is too short. I'll order one online this week and hopefully it should arrive in a few days.

Really? No PC shops in London? I'm kind of shocked. Is the Tower still operating and they just don't' tell tourists?

 

[Peter Hooper]

Really? No PC shops in London? I'm kind of shocked. Is the Tower still operating and they just don't' tell tourists?

lol I don't live in Central London. I can get there in about 45 minutes or so but just not possible on a work day.

 

[Rob]

Well, that gap has now increased and Michael needs to get himself back on track to grab his lead back . No wonder he drove the Maserati.. it’s like a rocket!! So much quicker than the Aston but it does come at a price as it’s much more skittish especially with the default tune but I still snuck in with a 1:15.611 I actually had two better sector times in other laps which would have had me at about 1:15.2 so I am definitely aiming for a 1:14 if I start to tune the car as well.

I now see what you mean about the wobbly car @Michael Watts, the Maserati is very loose and I spoilt several laps by having the car wobble on corner exit and slip into the gravel. It’s a lot of fun to drive though and stunningly quick!!

I am going to try one of those Renown Tuning tunes for this car and see how that changes things for me

I'm thinking of proposing a ban on the Maserati. It's akin to driving in F1 2014 in unequal cars and getting the Merc. Counter argument: Anyone can pick it. Counter to Counter: If you can't tune it to control it or it does not suit your driving style, then why should be forced into a lesser car. The websites that say it's programmed to be faster are above.

 

[Matthew Booth]

Hopefully my copy will arrive today then shall set about practice Where are these times being done?