I presume it has to be a massive pricing error of some sorts, probably meant to permanently reduce the price after the current sale (as both versions are 60% off currently) but somehow its been reduced and then again by 60%? Whatever, cracking deal
The pricing error that dropped it to £7.99 arrived first. No indication it was on sale or anything. Then, the next day, it joined the sale and clearly no-one has noticed anything odd in a 60% discount dropping the game so low. Whatever it is, everyone gets an excellent deal on such a recent game.
Of course, I wouldn't put it past Nacon to have dropped that price deliberately to encourage people to get into the series for when the next game is out, along with perhaps also getting people following the developers ready for when the new Test Drive Unlimited releases.
I had a good long VR session on kartkraft at the weekend. Just hot lapping one track, it's so strawberry floating good. Got to 3rd in the UK on this track, so I might try to crack the top 5 on all tracks.
After a month, I finally got around to trying iracing tonight. I only had a free practice session at Oulton Park on my own, but it was pretty damn good. Very consistent handling and the wheel feedback was great for knowing what was going on. Great feeling of the back of the car squirming if you brake on the limit too.
I bought a new monitor arm a few weeks back, so this was the first time trying that. I can lower the desk and pull the monitor right above the wheel now, perfect positioning. It was running at over 200fps too, which looked gooseberry fool hot on my 144hz monitor. I might have to try some of my other games on it now (I've never played any of them outside of VR before) and see what they're like if I can run games on a monitor at that kind of frame rate and detail.
I spontaneously decided to play Dirt 3 the other day, having never really got into it, finishing the original Dirt earlier this year (CBA trying to navigate Dirt 2 round all the GFWL garbage) and wanting to carry on. I really don't like how modern rally games have you doing the team finances and HR as well; all stuff that means you spend less time actually driving. Thankfully this is quite light in that regard, pick a car with a rad and cool 2010s livery and go.
However the events don't have any real theming beyond the bright "greetings fellow kids"-tier corporate-sponsored iconography, and the voiceover people come across as absolute twats "Wow amigo, that was sick, you should post that footage on Youtube!"
Trelliz wrote:I spontaneously decided to play Dirt 3 the other day, having never really got into it, finishing the original Dirt earlier this year (CBA trying to navigate Dirt 2 round all the GFWL garbage) and wanting to carry on. I really don't like how modern rally games have you doing the team finances and HR as well; all stuff that means you spend less time actually driving. Thankfully this is quite light in that regard, pick a car with a rad and cool 2010s livery and go.
However the events don't have any real theming beyond the bright "greetings fellow kids"-tier corporate-sponsored iconography, and the voiceover people come across as absolute twats "Wow amigo, that was sick, you should post that footage on Youtube!"
Completely agree on that. Cut the shite and let me just race. As for the dude bro voiceovers, dirt 5 is insurers me for this, endless YEAAAAH DAWG DAT WIZ SICK INNIT, which you can mute, but the game is built around it so much that muting the twats just give you silence at the end of races and in everything in between.
Victor Mildew wrote:After a month, I finally got around to trying iracing tonight. I only had a free practice session at Oulton Park on my own, but it was pretty damn good. Very consistent handling and the wheel feedback was great for knowing what was going on. Great feeling of the back of the car squirming if you brake on the limit too.
I bought a new monitor arm a few weeks back, so this was the first time trying that. I can lower the desk and pull the monitor right above the wheel now, perfect positioning. It was running at over 200fps too, which looked gooseberry fool hot on my 144hz monitor. I might have to try some of my other games on it now (I've never played any of them outside of VR before) and see what they're like if I can run games on a monitor at that kind of frame rate and detail.
What cars and tracks come with the subscription these days? Last time I played iRacing I think it was basically just the Miata paired with Okayama, Lime Rock Park, Summit Point, Sebring and Road America. A pack at the time unlocked a Cadillac and Laguna Seca. There was enough content there to get a lot of racing in, but buying say the Skip Barber along with all the tracks in the season was going to set me back an extra £100 or so.
I think there's about 10 tracks and cars included. I found the interface a bit confusing, but it looks to be that amount when you start the updates window (as those don't have a buy icon beside them).
F1 2021 embargo was up yesterday for people in the beta, one thing I’ve noted (about 3 minutes in) is that damage received on the floor and side pods causes a lot more drag, massively harming your overall pace. They also mention how your engine temps rise a lot more when following a car closely. I’ll probably end up getting F1 2021 but not till later in the year when it’s on sale as F1 2020 is fantastic (somehow I’ve put about 80 hours into it despite not really achieving much in the game) and hopefully 2021 will be a continuation of that. I’m kind of more optimistic that the F1 games will continue improving as EA have said they won’t be interfering too much with Codemasters which is a good thing!
Disappointed the consoles only have raytracing in the photo mode and replays. I don't think this is a series I want to pick up every year, but I'll probably end up wanting 2022 for the proper raytracing and potential PC VR.
I thought on the new consoles and PC it’d have RTX all the time, bit of a shame really. I’ll be getting 2022 at launch, purely due to the rule change coming into the sport next year so that should feel quite a different game to play, maybe by 2022 they’ll have dropped support for the PS4 and Xbox One family of consoles too?
Victor Mildew wrote:. As for the dude bro voiceovers, dirt 5 is insurers me for this, endless YEAAAAH DAWG DAT WIZ SICK INNIT, which you can mute, but the game is built around it so much that muting the twats just give you silence at the end of races and in everything in between.
I did the final main event in Dirt 3 and afterwards they were all talking about how rad it was working with me and being sorry they had to go etc. I immediately went and muted them in the options menu to make sure that was the case.
I might stick around in it for a while longer, it's refreshingly simple; no team roster/HR, no having to pay to upgrade cars so no meme builds like in Forza that take something from the 60s and make it the only leaderboard option or anything like that, just the leaderboards with their obviously hacked top 4 or 5 places. I'm really not fussed about the gymkhana stuff but may push the difficulty to complete the rest. Also I remembered that this has been delisted on Steam so going for leaderboard improvements on a "dead" game is a good idea for sure.
Ended up ordering F1 2021 on disc as it's only £45 on TheGameCollection. Would much rather it digitally but that's a fairly big saving. Could always replace it with a digital copy later on. And I guess I'm not really using many other discs in my Series X now that I'm done with the old delisted Forza games, so it can just live in there.
£45 is not a bad price at all for it really, I’m still planning on picking it up when it (hopefully) goes on sale later in the year as I feel like I’ve still got a bit of life left in F1 2020 before moving over (not even finished a season yet), the new damage model is a good addition as it’s what a lot of people have been asking them to implement for a while now. With the rule change I'm still planning on getting F1 2022 at launch as hopefully that might feel like quite a remarkable change, if EA stay true to what they’ve said and don’t interfere too much in the making if the games. Let’s hope they don’t go any further with the micro transactions too (although I fear they will).
Continuing my apparent trawl through old codemasters games, onto Dirt 4, which I bounced off of a while ago but after getting finally fed up with Dirt 3's dudebro attitude I was ready to move on.
Six years later and the tonal shift is quite stark, with only the block-breaking stuff returning but as part of the side activities away from the main game and the focus being on running a team. There is some team HR/admin but its pretty minimal, and I quite like the random stage generation as a tool to give some depth; covering so many different sub divisions of off road racing meant that 3 had quite a limited rally stage selection that no amount of reverse routes or time/weather variations could get away from, especially given the lack of licensed routes/teams.
I've been playing some more iracing recently, took part in my first live practice session (essentially a virtual track day). It was great, and I loved having the entire field be real people, obeying actual real life racing etiquette, instead of the GT sport bumper car fest you get. If there's a faster car behind you, it's the done thing to take a wide line and let them through, and you'll usually get a thank you message from them as they go past. At one point I was gaining on a pack of 4 cars which were definitely holding each other up, and a message popped up saying, "Oh come on dude, this is just PRACTICE", so I assume someone was racing them and getting in the way. Best part is, after a session you can lodge official protests, so if someone had been a twat, or generally disruptive to the session, someone will officilaly review the session and take action.
I was about midfield in pace, which wasn't bad really comsidering how little time I've put in so far (maybe 5 hours total) and most of the field were high level drivers.
Probably going to attempt my first non AI race this weekend, just try to keep it clean and not worry about where I finish until I get more experience with the engine (Its so realistic).