The real problem with this game is...

[SpeedyGTR]

...because all the talent (programmers and artists) behind the GTR / GT Legends series on PC 3-4 years ago that received fantastic reviews and were fairly reliable/stable and polished games on release, left the company and formed Blimey Games (which is now called Slightly Mad Studios and working on NFS Shift).

They left behind them the name "SimBin" a couple of board directors and nothing else.

The company called SimBin then hired a new development team and continued work on the engine left behind them (as SimBin owned the rights to the game code and assets).

This new team has produced the very flakey and sub-par (quantity over quality) Race series on PC and this is their first (poor) port of that engine to Xbox 360. It was never going to be anything very clever.

I will be very suprised if they do actually manage to fix the problems they say they will with the "Title Update", that would mean the programmers need to understand the game code, and if that was the case the bugs would not have been there in the first place!

I don't buy "unforseen numbers of people". These bugs could have been found with a small QA testing team if the played the game for any length of time. The amout of people on line are controlled by XBox Live, and it handles millions of people very nicely. Its not ATARI servers either, as the game does not support backend servers. Its Peer to peer hosting that's it, there are no server loading issues, just very flakey software bugs in the game.

I feel sorry for ATARI getting suckered in to the SimBin hype/lies expecting a quality game that matched the quality of GTR/Legends on PC. It was never going to be so, and probably will be full of issues for ever more as is the Race series on PC.

Race PC crashes often, disconnections are rife, no host migration, speed bug, all problems evident in their PC games, and have never been fixed in the entire lifetime of the Race PC series, now they've just added a whole load of new bugs and crashes to the Xbox 360 version, and left the old ones in.

Best waiting for the old SimBin team now known as Slightly Mad Studios to release NFS Shift.

That will be what this game should have been!

[GHR Soundman]

Interesting read, and worrying too, especially if you are suggesting that NFS will be better. Not a single NFS game has been anything more than an arcade game for chavs and kids to powerslide and crash their way round made up road courses, and I cannot see it suddenly becoming a true racing sim.
I so dearly hope you are wrong and that the issues can be fixed, or we will have to simply continue the wait for Forza 3. :down:

[kalniel]

...because all the talent (programmers and artists) behind the GTR / GT Legends series on PC 3-4 years ago that received fantastic reviews and were fairly reliable/stable and polished games on release, left the company and formed Blimey Games (which is now called Slightly Mad Studios and working on NFS Shift).

They left behind them the name "SimBin" a couple of board directors and nothing else.
I'm afraid that's just not true. A few people from Simbin are now with NFS, but the vast majority aren't - Simbin even threatened legal action over these claims in the past.

[SpeedyGTR]

I'm afraid that's just not true. A few people from Simbin are now with NFS, but the vast majority aren't - Simbin even threatened legal action over these claims in the past.

From the GTR2 Credits...

This is who was involved from SimBin...

SimBin Management
Chief Executive Officer - Henrik Roos
Chief Communications Officer - Magnus Ling
Chief Marketing Officer - Johan Roos
Chief Operations Officer - Tomas Karlsson
Chief Financial Officer - Peter Arrman
Chief Technical Officer - Peter Bj”rklund
Press Officer - Marie Moqvist
Management assistant - Jessica Stark
Studio Coordinator - Heidi Nikunen
FIA GT Coordination - Henrik Roos
Production Manager - Tomas Karlsson
Assistant producer - Diego Sartori

Programming -
Jens Agby, Peter Bj”rklund, Jon B„cklund,

Art and Reference Coordination -
Henrik Andersson, Kalle Helgesson, Jay Ekkel

Car Modelling -
Henrik Andersson, Kalle Helgesson

Car Texturing -
Bram Knot

Characters -
Roger Bacon

Animation -
Dan McGeoch

Track Modelling -
Jay Ekkel

Artwork Production -
Bold Communication / Mats Persson

QA Officer -
Diego Sartori

Beta Testers -
Karsten Borchers, Marko Hartikainen, Jesper Haulund Christensen,
Peter Jensen, Peter Madsen, Ferenc Pal, Ronnie Pedersen



And from the company that really made the game (Blimey Games/Slightly Mad studio)...


Subcontracted Development Team & Consulting-

Blimey! Games Ltd.

CEO/Creative Director - Ian Bell
Technical Director - Andy Garton
Lead Designer/Producer - Stephen Viljoen
Art Director - Eric Boosman
Physics and AI - Doug Arnao
Art Lead - Jan Frischkorn
Build/Asset Manager - Viktor Kolomiets

Programming -
Darren Barrett, Robert Dibley, Steven Dunn, Andy Garton,
Florian Gerhardt, Matt Hobbs, Paul Houbart, Anders Johansson,
Ged Keaveney, Martial Reynes, Iain Wallington, Steve Wilson

Lead Car Modeller - Perran Truran

Car Modelling - Casey Ringley, Gustavo Olivera, Bryn Alban
Additional Car Modelling - Martijn Haans, Ruben Campi¤a

Lead Car Texturer - Jan Frischkorn

Car Texturing - Vincent Dambreville, Daniel Karlsson

Track Modelling - Andy Garton, Dominik R�hl-Mezzetti, Sean Vollmer

Track 3DO Modelling - Luis Barata, Roe Tengco, Daniel Thies

Track Texturing - David Driver, Cyro Pires Filho, Marcio Ramos

Additional Track Production -
Eric Boosman, Sven Moll, Andreas Moll, Danilo Monno,
Gustavo Olivera, Perran Truran, Stephen Viljoen

Track Organics - Sven Moll, Andreas Moll

Sound Director & Music Composer - Dr. Stephen Baysted

Vocal Performances on "GTR2 Head to Head" - Susan Legg

Guitar elements on "GTR2 Assassin" - Eric Boosman

Sound Design
Greg Hill - Soundwave Concepts

Additional Engine, Vehicle & Environmental sounds
Dr. Stephen Baysted

Video Compositing - Rod Chong

UI Graphics - Sven Moll, Andreas Moll

Animation -
Andy Everett

Technical Writing - Karin Groepper Boosman

Server Side Coder / Administrator - Vittorio Rapa

Testing Manager - David Wright

QA Coordinator - Denis Paradis

Development Administrator - Laura Zareckaite

Beta Testers -
Mick Dunn, Jochen Fr”mel, Marcus Jirak, Henk Kristel,
Matthias Marquardt, Daniel Roberts, John Schoen


You see the difference now?

All the programmers, artists, modellers etc that actually made the game are not from the company called SimBin. SimBin had very little involvement apart from the management structure at the top.

GTR2 was the last good game that came from "SimBin", they are no longer what they were as Race proves time and time again.

It would be funny if SimBin did proceed with legal action, I dont think they would have a leg to stand on. Which is why they only threaten. SimBin try to cover their history and their lack of proved GOOD games, and pump rubbish like Race out on the back of credit to the old team.

[kalniel]

All the programmers, artists, modellers etc that actually made the game What? You have no idea how much of the game was made by people not working at Simbin.

GTR2 was the last good game that came from "SimBin", they are no longer what they were as Race proves time and time again. Rubbish - GTR:Evolution/Race07/STCC/Race on is better than GTR2 in nearly every way.

[SpeedyGTR]

Ok, I'm just stating facts here, not wanting a flame war.

But a) I do I know.

b) Race suffers constant crashes (mini-dumps), dedicated server crashes random client disconnections all of which have never been fixed in 3 years of Race's life with the new team formed after the departure.

Yes, graphically things have advanced, graphics cards have gotten more powerful meaning more detailed textures and faster FPS are possible, but it would be a very sorry state of affairs, if that had not happened. (Ie old graphics + added instability)

But better I would not say.

Much more unstable with a few bits of eye candy to help distract from the fact the game has gotten worse since the the new team took GTR2 from the old team legacy and started modding it to make Race.

The GTR2 sounds and physics and immersion levels, stability of the game & lack of bugs etc are way in advance of anything that Race has offered.

Well we can agree to disagree friend, but its proof of the pudding with their latest Race Pro release for 360.

Graphically inferior in every way to every other game out at the moment, full of bugs and glitches, poor poor UI menus, no depth in gameplay etc.

Let's rest it there, but imo it is folly to try to defend what is now known as SimBin, surely they have now proved what they are actually capable of releasing.

The team that made GTR2, would never release anything like this, they would be too ashamed. Believe me, NFS Shift will open your eyes to what the people that were orignally called SimBin are capable of.

[kalniel]

I'm not seeing any of these bugs or stability issues with GTR:Evolution - it's been rock solid for me. As for immersion sound and physics - again, way higher in GTR:Evolution than in GTR2.

Race Pro though has a completely different engine to GTR:Evolution, is on a completely different platform and has a different target audience.

[SpeedyGTR]

Race Pro though has a completely different engine to GTR:Evolution, is on a completely different platform and has a different target audience.

My last word on this myth that SimBin created a new engine for this game...

Please see :-

http://www.f1gamers.com/f1/bb/?a=view&t=32361

(Re Speed Bug in F1 Challenge 99-02)

Speed Bug:

Players should be honest if they have a speed bug during the race since that will be an unfair advantage.. He can post in the race for the members to know so the race restart can be made early.. The player with the speed bug must do atleast 1 flying lap for him to know and also for the members to know if he really has the speed bug during that time.. He must inform within the first 3 laps of the race if he has the speed bug.. Players that will be caught not being honest of having the speed bug during a race will be disqualified for that race..


Also it was present in the very first SimBin game GTR1. Evidence is hard to find as its an old game now, but

http://www.racingfr.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5180

Translated point about "speed bug"

3. The "speed bug" GTR achieves sometimes multi times, well beyond its usual performance. It's easy to check that you have achieved a performance that does not correspond to your level of piloting.

And now the "speed bug" raises its head again in Race Pro.

The reason?

GTR was based on the original game engine developed by Image Space Incorporated (ISI) that was used for the the F1 series back in the nineties for EA. An engine called gMotor.

Hence F1 Challenge and GTR had the speed bug as they are derived from the same engine.

Race Pro suffers exactly the same bug.

Now ask yourself,

a) did during the development of the entirely new Lizard engine for Race Pro, the new SimBin team managed to recreate such an odd 100% identical bug that the original gMotor engine had?

or b) did SimBin port the gMotor engine to Xbox and inherit this bug?

b. seems much more likely does it not?

The reason SimBin claim Race Pro is developed on a new Lizard engine, is so that they do not have to pay loyalty costs to ISI for their original gMotor engine. Something that ISI are no doubt very displeased about, and highly illegal.

I have no proof of this, but the very presence of the "speed bug" in Race Pro should be a major cause for raised eyebrows, and i'm sure it would be grounds for a very close scrutineering of the Race Pro game engine should ISI ever decide they want to start legal action themselves.

[Big Bill]

NOw that NFS Shift is out, how do you feel?

[F4H Red Pod]

NFS Shift is good and bad, but mostly bad.