A rant on rain and racing
As I drove home Monday from Kansas through torrential rains it occurred to me how little fun I was having. Even on the highway going relatively straight I was constantly having to lookout for puddles or compensate for what sometimes felt like light hydroplaning going on as I rode down the road. There was reduced visibility and also the usual assortment of idiots who either saw the downpour as an excuse to go as fast as they liked since the cops were less likely to be out or those who felt the need to drop down to 30 MPH (Which is something like 500 KPH in metric. I may be a little off on the conversion) on the highway even when the rain wasn't that heavy.
I don't understand the obsession with game developers to include "Realistic weather" in games of any sort. I truly don't understand it in racing games. Look, I have a high powered sports car and I'm looking for a race and it starts to rain? I'm going home. I'm not going to drive my multi-thousand dollar investment through the rain so I can go skidding into a wall. Most racing games have a strong illogical element to them anyway, but this adds what? It's not fun, it makes driving frustrating as hell. It doesn't add to immersion unless I'm actually a character in the game and apparently he's brain dead enough to drive 100mph through city streets in the pouring rain or blizzard like conditions.
From a technical standpoint I don't appreciate the framerate drop associated with weather effects. If you're going to use more power from the CPU, then add some more racers. Seriously, you can't possibly add enough opponents to make me happy. While a silly little racer, I love Everywhere Road Trip's races with like 30 CPU controlled cars.
I really loved Midnight Club 3, but I hated it's rain and snow. It was unavoidable. Once it started coming down it would not go away until you placed 1st in a race! I'm looking forward to the next game, but I just read about how they're doing even more with the realistic weather effects. Gah! Add some more cars numbnuts! At least give me the option of turning off the weather or make it go away by something other than winning a race! How is that immersive anyway? "Well gee Bob, it looks like Blizzard conditions will persist until this llama of a driver playing finally wins a city race"
What kind of masochistic playtesters are they using anyway? "I really enjoyed the weather elements and how I kept skidding out of control? If I continue playtesting will you put my testicles in a vise and tighten it until your knuckles are white? I promise to continue giving feedback on your game!" Obviously the same people who playtested Turning Point: Fall of Liberty would be my guess.
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The only racing game that's ever made driving in weather fun for me to date has been PGR4. That's partially because the rain and snow both never really come down heavy enough to be a visual impairment. You just get to slide around on the track more, but it's much more controllable in PGR than it has been in other racing games I've tried.
Much like you I despised the rain in Midnight Club 3. Not only did it make the game harder to control to start with but it cut the framerate in freaking half most of the time and murdered your control response too. Way to go rockstar. You made pretty rain effects that completely ruin any fun people may have been having in your game before it started.
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For off-road rally games, at least you have some ability to adjust for the bad weather. But, that's part of the challenge. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it snows, and sometimes you just didn't hear your navigator call out rocks on the inside.
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I probably should have made an exception for Rally games, because at least then it makes some sense. Besides which, Rally drivers are crazy mother____ers anyway. I don't mean people who play Rally games, I mean the actual real life drivers. Being American I don't exactly follow the sport but I've seen enough to convince me that you've got to be a special kind of adrenaline junkie to do that. Weather and terrain are supposed to be active players in the events.
However, in your typical street racing game (I'm just not into Nascar or Indy cars) it's just an annoyance and serves absolutely no purpose.
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I think the people standing next to the course are crazier than the drivers.
I agree though, weather in racing games is a pretty bad idea. It seems as though other than pg4, most games have avoided messing with it. Forza i know doesn't have it, and the GT series until at least 2. I think developers know it wouldn't be fun, and they casually toss an excuse at the audience who generally doesn't know any better. I think you can still do interesting things with changing the time of day and clouds without having them affect the surface of the road, and i'd like to see games focus on that stuff more. Cloud shadows are my number 1 next gen feature.
Formula 1, and many other real life racing series race in the rain.
One of my favorite games on the PC (GTR-2) has changing weather, and I've had great fun with other members of my league trying to come up with a strategy when it looks like it might get wet. After it starts, do you stay out on the track and hope that it doesn't get worse, or do you make the call and pull in for wets with the idea that it will get worse, and you'll be the one prepared. Misjudging that call either puts you on a wet track with slicks and driving very slowly for a lap to get to the pits, or into a wall, or you end up driving wets on a dry track and having your tires wear out in a matter of just a couple laps.
I agree with you on the framerate hit, and that's very frustrating, but as far as it's inclusion in the game, I'm all for it. I also believe that it should be user adjustable. If you only want to race at high noon on a perfectly dry track at 80 degrees fahrenheit, then that should absolutely be your option.
Myself, I'll stick it on 'random' and enjoy.
Cheers!
Nyxs
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell
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It probably helps that "sliding around the track" is PGR's raison d'etre.
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I enjoy the weather options in PGR4. It adds some hazard that is fun to me, and it's also kinda cool to race in the snow. Heck just giving a day/night option is a great addition to racing games.
I'd like to see the really arcady racers embrace this more since they tend to push you to crash, etc anyway. Imagine Burnout Paradise with night races or icy roads.
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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell
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