Racing Sims: A Few Quick Laps Down Memory Lane (Lap 2)
As I wrote in my most recent piece, no other type of video game captures my imagination quite like a good racing game/sim. For sure, this is my favorite video game genre.
I’ve been playing racing video games/simulations for quite a few years. As the years have gone by, the quality of the games seems to be in lock-step with the technology available. With every advance in the technology comes a natural and corresponding advance in the quality of the sims available.
Let’s take a couple of steps back, then, to a year or two before those gloriously awesome years playing the Sega Genesis port of Super Monaco GP. Before the Genesis, Nintendo’s NES was the console of choice. My sisters and I had one, and so did my friend Rick, who is also as big a racing nut (but alas, not a sim racing nut) as I am. One of the few racing games Rick and I played at that time was Al Unser Jr.’s Turbo Racing. I actually don’t remember too much of this game now, but I do remember that once Super Monaco GP came out for the Genesis, neither Rick nor I brought out the NES to play AUJTR anymore.
I suppose Super Monaco GP was just about the apex of the pre-PlayStation console racing sims for me. Not even Ayrton Senna’s Super Monaco GP II (for the Sega Genesis) was as good as the original SMGP port. Graphically, the Senna-endorsed sequel was maybe a little bit more refined. The sound, though, was a HUGE letdown. The original SMGP had pretty cool engine sounds, with variations in pitch as the revs escalated. Then there was the very impressive and immersive positional audio, wherein you can actually tell which side a rival car is on just by listening to the audio cues (a smart implementation of stereo, for sure). In comparison, SMGPII’s engine sounds were quite uninspired. Your car’s engine sounded like it wasn’t revving very high at all (no real discernible variations in pitch as the RPM increased, actually), and it sounded way too heavy in the lower portions of the mid-range frequencies. Very unnatural. Positional audio was still there, but it wasn’t any good to listen to. What I did like about SMGPII more compared to SMGP was that the race tracks were probably more accurately modeled. Other than this one element, though, I definitely felt that the original Super Monaco GP port for the Sega Genesis was a better game overall.
Come to think of it, SMGP was so much fun to play with, it surpassed a couple of games which were actually played on newer hardware. I was one of those people who saved enough money to get the frankly pathetic Sega CD add-on for the Genesis. I owned exactly THREE games for this hardware blind alley: One of them was Formula One: Beyond The Limit (the other games were NFL Football ’94 Starring Joe Montana and Sonic CD, which were bundled in with the Sega CD module).
FO:BtL wasn’t awful, but I can’t say that it was as brilliant as SMGP was. For one thing, FO:BtL featured a picture of my all-time favorite F1 driver of all time, Alain Prost (driving his iconic 1986 McLaren-TAG Porsche), on the cover. The gameplay featured a couple of interesting touches. For example, in starting the Career mode, you had to test drive a generic car; based on your performance, the different racing teams in the game would offer you a seat in one of their cars. This was a simplified simulation of how drivers actually get offers from real-world teams, so as a fan simulating this process was pretty cool. Another interesting facet of the gameplay was the fact that each car had its own unique characteristics. SMGP had similar performance variations in the different cars in the game, but most of the differences were purely in engine performance; FO:BtL actually tried to convey the idea that a Ferrari handled pretty well, but had a gutless engine; the Larrousse-Lamborghini had good straightline speed, but bad handling; the Williams-Renault had great handling and very good top speed, but not as good performance in low gears + low RPMs (relative to the Benetton-Ford and McLaren-Ford cars, which had great Ford V8s with gobs of low-end grunt but lacked in top speed). Allied to the cool variations in handling properties was the fact that each engine type had unique engine sounds. The Ford V8s sounded different from the Ferrari V12; the Lamborghini V12 was different from Ferraris there again; and the various V10s all had subtle differences as well (the Ilmor-Mercedes in the Sauber was actualy the best-sounding V10 to me).
One other notable feature about this game’s gameplay was the fact that, for the very first time in racing games, there was a risk of doing permanent damage to your car if you drove it poorly. In most other games beforehand, you could crash into the scenery or obstacles, but it wouldn’t necessarily spell the very end of your race; the game would simply let you continue from the point you had crashed. The only time such crashes were terminal was if the Time Remaining countdown (i.e., a clock that told you how much time you had left to make it to the next checkpoint) reached zero. In FO:BtL, you could do damage to many parts of your car if you drove poorly. The car’s tires wore down as the race progressed; your engine could overheat, or even destroy itself if you downshifted at full throttle; the handling could go awry if you bumped wheels with rivals too often (simulating suspension misalignment/damage). In my opinion, this particular feature of the game was awesome in that it taught sim racers one of the foremost maxims in the sport: To finish first, first you have to finish.
Another first was the possibility of changes in the weather. This was an awesome advance. This was simulated graphically — rain drops were added on to the gameplay screens — as well as in the game physics. As you might expect, traction becomes more elusive, and you could actually lose control when the heavens open up and rain pelts the circuit.
Lastly, the game also allowed the player to change certain settings on the car, much as real-life racing cars do. As I recall, you could change front and rear wing settings, gear ratios, as well as some very basic suspension adjustments. As Alain Prost was renowned for his prowess in racing car set-up, this particular aspect of the game was just absolutely awesome for me.
As good as these features were, though, in total the game was lacking, given the theoretical superiority of the hardware. For one thing, as lovely and detailed the effort was to replicate the actual engine sounds, they didn’t really connect you to the game as well as SMGP’s sound effects were. I think the engine sounds in isolation were great; as part of the gameplay experience itself, though, you felt more as though you were hearing a recording of the engine sounds instead of actually causing the rise and fall of the RPM, the changes in gears. The graphics, too, were a little disappointing. Believe it or not, SMGP’s graphics looked more refined; during gameplay, FO:BtL’s graphics looked too pixelated. Cutscene graphics, such as they were, were acceptable. Though the game allowed for some of the cars’ settings to be modified, the effects of such changes were not as noticeable as I think they ought to be. As I recall, the most obvious effects were changes to the gear ratios; aerodynamics and suspension adjustments were not as perceptible.
Perhaps FO:BtL was too ambitious, trying to incorporate many ideas and enhancements which the available hardware and software coding ability could not deliver. Nevertheless, as a game it paled in comparison with SMGP. It just didn’t measure up in the FUN factor.
One game that DID measure up to, and surpass, SMGP was Virtua Racing. Virtua Racing did not simulate any particular F1 car or F1 season, but it did a superb job of simulating the experience of driving and racing a Formula One car. VR, like SMGP, was originally an arcade game. You sat in a racing seat, with two pedals at your feet (throttle for the right foot, brake for the left foot) and a steering wheel at chest level in front of you. As you took hold of the wheel (it was a fair facsimile of a racing car’s steering wheel, with a thick rim and a diameter of around 10″), you would immediately notice the gear shift paddles just behind the spokes. The right-hand paddle was for upshifts, while the left-hand paddle was for downshifts. The pedals at your feet had different weights, with the brake pedal being much heavier than the throttle; this was very realistic. Also, most arcade setups that I played with even simulated G-force loadings through movable pads in the seats. Take a tight right hand at high speed, and you’ll feel an almost-violent punch in your left side; use more finesse in your cornering techniques, and the movable pads would move and make contact with your body with more subtlety.
My friends and I spent a good amount of money going to different video arcades racing each other on Virtua Racing. Funnily enough, though, my most outstanding memory of this sim is from the L.A. Auto Show. I don’t precisely remember what year it was — I think it was either 1995 or 1996 –, but Team Penske’s IndyCar operation had a display with their title sponsor. Very prominent on their display was a group of several Virtua Racing machines on a LAN link-up.
As I recall, there were maybe eight or ten machines linked together. Showgoers could race in the machines against each other, and there were prizes on offer for outstanding achievements, including winning the race and setting the fastest lap of the day.
There were two catches, though: 1) First, you had to be past a certain age; 2) you also had to be a consumer of the title sponsor’s product.
At the time, I was not quite yet at that required age. Moreover, I didn’t (and still don’t) buy that sponsor’s products.
My friends and I just wanted to race.
Undeterred, we found used-up packages of this sponsor’s product in the parking garage of the L.A. Convention Center, got into line, and passed ourselves off as legal users of the product. I was actually asked for identification, but since producing ID would have exposed the ruse, I merely and nonchalantly said that I didn’t have my driver’s license on me since I didn’t drive to the Auto Show. The young lady controlling admission into the Virtua Racing LAN competition took my word and allowed me to race.
By the end of a five-lap race, I wound up winning the race and also setting the day’s fastest lap time so far. If my lap time held until the end of that day, the prize was a bona-fide leather and suede jacket emblazoned with the sponsor’s logos.
Amazingly, my time held up, and the sponsor actually complied and sent me the prize! I still own that red and black jacket, in fact (though I don’t wear it since I don’t want to advertise the product or the company).
Who knew racing sims could be so rewarding?
