🚀 go-pugleaf

spco...@enviroclean.ca (Lephturn) wrote:

> alp...@hunterlink.net.au (James Wall) wrote:

> >b) the only thing I can think of that would slow NASCAR down would be
> >the driver AI, but I think it sucks in the first place [watch 'em
> >avoid your car if you park in the middle of the road - not], and it
> >doesn't get any better with less drivers .. I think the graphics
> >coding in NASCAR was pretty ordinary myself, USNF for example runs a
> >much more detailed and complex world and doesn't go below 25/30FPS on
> >my system.  NASCAR dies in VGA when I stick the road texture on.

> Actually the AI in NASCAR is excellent!  I know where of I spead as I
> have driven similar race cars for many years.  If you park in the
> middle of the racing line, cars at full speed CAN NOT change direction
> fast enough to avoid you.  

Yeah, ok.  That's good, but when they stop, they stay there,
twitching, until you get out of the way.  They don't reverse or try to
go around, they just stop.  When you crash into them and you both
survive, they spin around to get in the right direction, clipping you
and knocking you into things if you stay close to them.

I realise that this is better than NFS's AI [at least in the small
demo], where they can't get going again when they're on all 4 wheels
after you crash into them half the time ... but really .. getting cars
to go around in a circle isn't the programming coup of the century.

But NFS's cars actually do interesting things, like try to take each
other over over a period of less than 40 minutes, bump each other into
corners and out of the way, etc.  NASCAR drivers crowning achievement
seemed to be formation driving for an hour, very little of this
slamming, spinning out and flipping over stuff - which is, basically,
the only reason anyone would wanna watch NASCAR stuff on TV in the
first place :>.  I don't want to give the impression that I don't like
NASCAR btw, it's just that some areas of it don't really interest me.


[...]

> I like NFS as well and own
> both games.  I just would have loved to see car damage and better AI
> from NFS.  Fantastic graphics though.

Yeah, I remember thinking exactly the same thing after I played Lotus
Esprit on the Amiga - you couldn't get damaged in any way and you
always stayed upright, and the other drivers bounced from one side of
the road to the other without slowing down at any corners .. but those
things didn't stop it from being a brilliant game though :>

...waiting for a Stunts/4D Sports Driving game with the graphics of
NFS ... 

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[alp...@hunterlink.net.au      -        Newcastle, Australia]
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