WRC 5 Thoughts ...

Since ever, really, i wanted to learn to drive Rally. It's interesting. Such online competition would be i assume, really great. No one to crash into you no one to spoil your lap. It's you and the time. Imagining that?

For those who know me might be wondering, seeing me speaking about Rally since i have never ever drove one. Truth to be told, this is for them, my first interaction with racing games was Rallying. I always hate when one guy is bothering you with how good he is in something and you are not. So we had this guy playing Rally, and happened to work at the PS1 gaming store, and we who went to play Tony Hawk or Crash Team Racing at the time, having only 8 - 9 years, wanted to beat him. He was perhaps 25y at the time. But we couldn't. Tracks were really long and we couldn't bother with learning them all. I think that at those times racing games kinda stuck with me and i continued till this very day. 

Leaving aside my totally irrelevant stories about it, my point is, that maybe i am not really  good speaking about Rallying since i dont have much experience with it. But i am not here to talk about that but about new game that is coming up...

As time passed by and we are now 2015 Richard Burns Rally is still regarded as the best simulation when we speak about Rally games, which dates from 2003! 
I have on just few occasions tried Rallying and since RBR was the best, as far i knew, it was the only one i drove. But the graphics that game had and still has, are appalling! So i never bothered much. At the time, back then in 2003-04 and the following years, i was too busy with driving F1. I was totally into F1 ! But i am very keen to finally try out something that would be worth spending the time on it. Not some arcade like all other rallying titles, but a simulation that will surpass Richard Burns Rally! 

Now Kylotonn Games have published some images from whats to be their upcoming rally title, WRC 5, and we can see the first glimpse of the new Rally... i hope it will be more towards simulation than arcade! Since every Rally game is arcade! -_- 

Not much i know about Rallying games, even least i know about this game, other than it's the first time the WRC series will appear on next-gen consoles. They have teaser on their facebook profile. 

The picture below which was have been published on the game's official Facebook page, they show M-Sport Ford Fiesta RS kicking up some dust. Where this is, id say Texas haha and you'd laugh. I have no idea really. 



What is interesting is that the game also has WRC driver Sebastien Chardonnet as its ambassador! That's cool! Like i have said i really hope we can have one great graphic looking game with great sim-racing simulations, to be worth really. And we can read the comments on the people in their posts, asking just the same thing! 
We can hope and expect that the WRC real life driver will, or is contributing with his experience and helping the development team. We can only hope that will result in a great game, fun and challenging... 

WRC 5 as i have read will be out for PC, PS3, PS4, X360, X1 and Vita and that's not all! Their rivals from Milestone with Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo which will go out for PC, PS4 and X1 when they are going to be released later this year, we, who love sim racing, can expect great things when it comes to rallying, finally!

And perhaps i can try myself again in a much more realistic game for the first time after 15 years. Stay tuned!  

Sim Racing - just a game or something more?

Just 10 years ago it was not an option even if available but today, PC simulations are big time part of real racing. We can see that more than on any other place in Formula 1.

PC simulations have reached that far, that they are used in high spending motorsport like F1 to cut the money spend while F1 teams are doing researches on their cars. 

I remember when i played F1 Challenge 99-02 back in 2000 and how i learnt about apex, about how tyres are damaging how aerodynamics work and all those things. I even learnt what drag was and how i could stay behind another car that would make me go faster. And i was only 10 years old. Those at my age, learnt about it perhaps 10 years later than i did. And now those same games, they are far more advanced!

By 2015 we have guy who never drove car and never left his country went from very cold place to a very warm one and drove at most 20 laps in Formula 3 car and was only 2 seconds shy of the record at the track. To repeat, that guy has never driven normal car, F3 car is out of question. And he did that? How? Through the school of driving simulations on PC.

Can you play Call of Duty or Counter Strike and use those skills in real life? No! 

Can you play Pro Evolutions Soccer or NBA and use those skills in real life? Of course no, again. 

Strategic games? There is a little bit more of a brain activity but yet that's only a game. In real life you don't build cavalries or tanks in 5min. Neither you can press escape or pause or even restart after you crash some car, but you know what you are doing. You know the law of the physics you know how to apply the aerodynamics. You have steering wheel and you have pedals. And you work. You work on your reflexes you work on your senses and how that reacts. At least one guy who drove Nismo on Gran Turismo, had that luck that from playing it on Play Station 3 now is driving real racing car and is performing really good!

As time passes by we more often see new products and highly priced steering wheels that recreate the same power of the original steering wheels if not stronger. The only problem is that while driving in front of the PC monitor you don't feel any fear. That's crucial in racing, very often. In every other term about racing, you apply your brain and you are concentrated on the driving all the time. And if racing is state of mind, who says you cannot perform that in the real life? It takes practice, a lot of guts and you have to be passionate about it. If someone is good on simulations that doesn't mean he will be too good in real life. Perhaps he will be scared to death, who can tell. But still even in a game on PC you need some talents if you are the one who is winning or doing lap times other cannot. And not only that, you must have great understandings of the car and how to setup the car. How to find that tenth or some through car setup changes. That takes a lot of feel and feeling the limits. Not anyone can do it.

I regard myself as one of them. Those who will win etc. But yet there are times, often, when while i am thinking i am on the limit, that guy comes and he goes 1-2 seconds faster. Then you realize that you were mistaken. You felt like it was the limit but its not. You realize someone has much more understanding in working on the car setup or adapting it to certain track. It takes a lot of practice. 

Sim racing games today, at least by some of my friends, are taken as a very stupid, game not worth losing the time on, etc. I realized that they are not stupid but they are so much complex and they don't have time to bother with it so on the contrary they are one amazing piece of software that enables thousands of people out there in the world to enjoy their favorite cars and now as very popular thing, in fact started some year ago, tracks are laser scanned meaning that every bump every curb is placed 100% like it is and you would feel it. You can experience it. I know many people who are throwing money on their cars, preparing them, going and having drag races etc and sometimes i wonder, these guys dont have that much money to allow themselves that luxury why they spend whole fortunes on something they wont get any profit out of it, only pleasure, and still the pleasure, it doesn't have that big meaning when those same guys who are accelerating on that straight line and nothing more, if ever happens that we go to Nordschleife for real (which laser scanned i have experienced now many times)  i bet they won't have a chance against me even i have never been that much enthusiast about those drag races and never participated in one. Of course i won't go out there like i do in front of the PC but they won't know much about it while i would know every corner and how it comes. It won't be the same exact feeling for sure but you would know already even you have never tried it. That's precious!

The same guys who think that sim racing is joke are wondering how one can spend 2-3 hours driving in circles all alone...and if you put them behind the steering wheel they won't know how to start running the car. 

Sim racing technologies today are used by champions like Vettel, Raikkonen, Alonso, Hamilton, Button and the rest. Those simulations are very expensive softwares with parameters added directly by F1 team engineers the only ones who know the real engine paramaters of their cars and thats the only difference between that one and the one which is build by modders, people who earn money for living from modding. Those simulations in F1 are also generating the G-Forces through very big build cockpits who cost millions of dollars. Even though not one of them would ever say that both things are close because they are not but they still get plenty amount of informations out of them that they use in their races...races which count, on which they win points and eventually they win titles. 

Sim racing cannot be just one simple game. It's something more