My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Mon Jan 11, 1999

Good weekend.

Based on mail to Nick.

Well, at the end of last week, I had all 8 arcade tracks and my Toyotas. During the weekend I finished off the rest of the tracks at easy, and got all the cars.

On tracks with good traction and line-of-sight, that Viper ridiculously outclasses the competition. So I have five tracks done at normal, with the A class done at difficult on those five.

I discovered another trick. I have a racing Subaru Legacy in emulation mode (You need to buy at least one four-wheel drive car, and my nephew's parents have a Legacy, so I thought it would be fun to race one...) I've tuned the engine fully, but am too cheap to buy subtle stuff like a racing clutch , and boy are they serious about that low-speed torque problem. I lost control up the hill in Trial Mountain II, and the car would not start moving. I thought, "in real life, I might pop the clutch, but I don't have an explicit clutch, so perhaps I'd better pit in and lower(raise) the first gear". But then I realized that in real life, before popping the clutch, I'd have to hold the car on the handbrake, and, sure enough, if you rev against the handbrake and then release it, it sort of lets you emulate popping the clutch, and the car gets enough of a jump to start moving fast enough to be in efficient first gear range. Now, one of those triple plate clutches might solve this problem; perhaps I'll try it sometime. When I seem to have an excess of Cr. (I wonder why the races all pay out in Chromium?

Late last night for fun I dug up the Jam Pack demo disk version of Gran Turismo, with a Honda NSX, 90's Corvette, and [R]Subaru Impreza on the Clubman Route 5, with choice of easy, normal and difficult. After a little practice it was relatively easy to win with all three cars at easy and normal. Almost startlingly so. Just don't worry about the body panel damage. (It's not like I drive right along the wall, but on most of the corners at least the tail touches the wall at least once; I'm sure they clean that up somewhat in the replays) I won with the Corvette at difficult, and kept coming second with the other cars. That demo sells the game short. Grand Valley East would be a much better demonstration, with its sand traps around the hairpins.

One funny thing is that the back of the racing Impreza says "SURARU", not "SUBARU". Quite clearly, both while driving it from behind, and when it is spinning on the display stand. It says "SUBARU" on the sides, though.

After that I tried the Test Drive 5 Demo. Test Drive 4 had impressed me when my nephew had rented it once when I was over there before I got my own Gran Turismo Station, but did the Test Drive 5 demo ever seem atrocious. Not quite as bad as Grand Tour Racing, but it seemed mostly easy. I never used to like slow-moving traffic in race games, but it seemed somewhat irrelevant in Test Drive. My reactions had sharpened to accomodate it. It was difficult to see what would put your speeding car out of control. And while Gran Turismo scenery does not seem totally realistic, Test Drive 5 looked like a cartoon. And they don't have proper route maps. And, if it is like Test Drive 4, they don't have circuit races at all. (Not sure if you can't win the demo or if I just kept choosing the wrong forks ; if potential customers lose a demo game, it is better if they know clearly why).

But based on those two demos, my nephew (and also his mother) seem to prefer Test Drive 5 over Gran Turisimo. One of these days we'll have to confess to having Gran Turismo. In theory I should be able to lend him my disk sometime. But not until after I, and I, and I...

Repeatedly failing my A-3 test (I can reliably come within a second now... sure helps my high speed straight to low speed cornering technique.

When I first tried the GT demo weeks ago the NSX was a pig to drive. It seemed to have super excess oversteer. Drift mode seemed to reduce that, but, as far as I can tell, drift mode makes it impossible to win, but maybe I should try that again too. The manual is really vague about the purpose of drift mode.

Similarly I used to have a tendency to induce overcorrection oscillation into the Subaru Impreza's movements. That tendency seems to have vanished.

And the Corvette always seemed nice to drive, but now I can hold a slide before it turns into a spin and so I actually finish without spinning out. Actually, I won with it once after I did spin it out; it might not even have been easy mode, either. Those competitors are so polite the way they wait for you when you slow down. It does make it difficult to tell what your target time is for a particular course/mode however... (Though again, that is somewhat realistic; Juan Manuel Fangio used to say that to win a race you drive just fast enough to win, and no faster).

One interesting game might be to try and set the slowest winning time. Try and see how much you can utilize (abuse?) the handicapping algorithm and still be able to win with a very fast finish.

Conversely, when I finally did win with a Toyota Soarer in normal on the Autumn Ring, it sure seemed like the computer's Eclipse slowed down right at the end. It was right behind me, but dropped from second place to fourth place for no apparent reason. I think perhaps it realized it was going to go below the programmed time for normal mode, and slowed down because of that. Usually I botch something after the hill climb and cannot stay or get ahead on the finishing straight. I think I saw the same phenomenon with a Civic on Grand Valley East. I had a Civic too, and I was behind at the last corner but passed the other Civic into first on the finishing stretch. It didn't look like the other car had botched its exit or anything, and my exit was just okay, not great. It sure looked like the other car slowed down. That might even have been in difficult mode. But if you've done anything wrong and are working on a slow time, the other cars always seem to have a strong finish.

Speaking of botching, it is amusing when the competitors try and taunt you into a bad turn by braking too late and losing control. (Sometimes a gentle tap from behind can help mess up their calculations, but that's not always necessary; they definitely do it all by themselves sometimes

(Rest based on mail to empire) Subject: Gran Turismo and stuff

I have owned Gran Turismo for a little while, and played it quite a lot. I can relatively easily win the JamPack Demo now with all three cars at easy and normal, and be competitive at difficult. (Usually 2nd, have won with the Corvette). The demo sells the game short, especially since it has too many walls. Better tracks in the real game have sand traps you end up in if you corner too fast, where you lose a lot of time.

There is a lot of stuff there. It seems to be the number one PlayStation game for young adult males (like me?). As evidenced by its Web Ring.

A certain logic would say that my nephew should have one game, and I the other, and we could trade, but Gran Turismo has lots and lots of stuff to do and is difficult to give up. If he had a game, I could give him a saved game cartridge with a passed B license (I'm still stuck on test 3 of my A class license, unable to get closer than a quarter of second to the goal time, and then there's International A after that), and a bunch of "Emulation mode cars" (including a racing Legacy and a tuned street Legacy ) but it's probably good for someone to pass their own driving tests. Another alternative is to buy a "Game Shark" and patch memory to get what one wants. (Several web sites feature Game Shark codes for various games, includig Gran Turismo).

But repeatedly failing the A-3 test keeps teaching me more and more about low-speed cornering after high-speed straights, for instance. As well as persuading me that perhaps it's good that I ended up in my career and never tried to race cars. Sort of like occasional MFCF go-kart expeditions. I know enough technique to be reasonably competitive, but don't have reactions or feel to be outstanding like RJ White (well, and am now way too heavy for go-karting ) (RJ White DoD #51112, see http://www.dod.no/dod/superfaq.txt)

Also in the separate Arcade mode I have not got all the simple bonus items (four more tracks, and four more brands of cars), and a dump of my game would include that too. That's probably slightly easier to do than B class license. Maybe. The B class tests teach you techniques you can use in Arcade mode. Arcade Mode tracks are the same as some in simulation mode, but the bumps on a given track are very much exaggerated in Arcade mode.

And I tried the Test Drive 5 demo again last night, and it really did seem bad. Little feedback. And, while Gran Turismo scenery is not totally realistic, the Test Drive demo looks like a cartoon in comparison. The car did not lose control when logically it should have done. And Gran Turismo has race circuits (though only two are based on real prototypes ) and, in emulation mode, you can have arbitrary practice sessions and have qualification runs for grid position.

And then there are the Gran Turismo tune-up shops.