GTPNewsWire
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This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Adam Ismail (@glassjaw) on June 8th, 2017 in the Features category.
Mirror Mode: Sega's GT Killer That Never Was
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
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- Seattle-ish
I had a Dreamcast and I had this game. After all the fun I had with Sega Rally Championship, I had high hopes for Sega GT. I was really looking forward to the Carrozzeria, building my own cars. Sadly the handling was as awful as they say. The cars were completely undrivable. It was so frustrating I abandoned the game after about two weeks of trying.
By the way, speaking about creating your car and then driving it, there was one PC game, made by some unknown Hungarian (EU) company, which would allow you to build your engine, drivetrain and the whole car from tiny little parts and you could mix them and create your unique car and then go racing in the streets (mostly drag racing for money)..I can't remember the name, it had actually sequel as well, but the level of tuning was amazing. Especially in part 2.
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Sega GT was the reason I bought the Dreamcast.. I really miss it!
- 298
- Brazil
- RodSk8Dude
- RodSk8Dude
I never heard of this game at the time. And more recently, I tried it out on PC (There is a PC version, btw. I don't think you mentioned it), but it might have been even worse than on Dreamcast, since I couldn't map the throttle and brakes to anything but a normal button, without any precision whatsoever.
Still, I would like to try it on Dreamcast, if it has precision there. And would like even more to try the sequel, but it being an Xbox exclusive makes it REALLY hard. I never even saw one of those in person, the Xbox 360's claimed backwards compatibility was ****, so I doubt it would work well, and I don't even know any emulators for that thing that work, (unlike the Dreamcast).
Still, I would like to try it on Dreamcast, if it has precision there. And would like even more to try the sequel, but it being an Xbox exclusive makes it REALLY hard. I never even saw one of those in person, the Xbox 360's claimed backwards compatibility was ****, so I doubt it would work well, and I don't even know any emulators for that thing that work, (unlike the Dreamcast).
glassjaw
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- pioneerspine
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There IS a PC version! I probably should have given it a passing mention but, yeah, that's something that's very interesting about these Sega first-party exclusives from back in the day. Pretty much of all the racing games made it to the PC in one form or another. The port for Sega GT seems to be pretty much spot on with the Dreamcast one, but not necessarily improved in any way.
It could have been a huge opportunity to give PC gamers something comparable to GT, but yeah, they missed the boat there too.
- 298
- Brazil
- RodSk8Dude
- RodSk8Dude
Good thing the Dreamcast version has that track lighting effect. Since I never saw/played the Dreamcast one, only on PC for a bit, I just thought the game was THAT UGLY.
Also, what was with games on that era usually being prettier on consoles, even with lower resolution, simpler 3D models and smaller texture sizes? It was still better looking simply because it was better made, they used those pixels very well (Need for Speed from III to Porsche is like that IMO [though with Porsche, it might just have been a problem with a newer OS/videocard not being recognized.])
glassjaw
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Not only were they better on consoles, in some cases they were completely different games. I vaguely remember the PC NFS titles you mention feeling and running way differently. Much smoother to look at, but still worse to play. It's almost like what happened with NFS HP2 between the PS2 version and all the other ones. Very different experiences.
But yeah I think it was still early days for hardware acceleration and graphics cards, so developers didn't put as much time and effort into the PC port. That's just speculation as I have little knowledge about PC gaming history. In this instance you could also say Sega wanted to deliver a better experience on their platform.
- 40,757
Porsche Unleashed is an unbelievably, comically better looking (and playing, and designed) game than the PSX version. It was also programmed in a stupid way that made it have compatibility problems with Windows XP less than a year after release and tons of niggling graphical problems with hardware even a couple years newer than the game:
What a midrange Pentium 4 would make the game look like.
What a top-spec Pentium III would make the game look like.
What you're saying holds true for the other two, though. Just a bad art direction in general for the PC versions of the other two and clearly still using a holdover engine from NFS II; and High Stakes on the PSX was also very good looking by PSX standards to boot. Even the higher framerates are a bit moot because NFS III on the PSX was (sometimes) a 60 FPS title itself.
I was just about to make a post about this game but you beat me to it while I was watching the video above. What is it with these games that have awesome premises but the handling model is absolutely botched? I heard the NTSC-U and NTSC-J versions handle differently, but they both still feel bad to drive. It's a shame because I would play it just for the art style alone. I think the only PS2 GT-lites I've played and didn't totally hate were Enthusia and R:Racing Evolution.
- 298
- Brazil
- RodSk8Dude
- RodSk8Dude
I played Auto Modellista too, and liked the looks of it.
And I also found Driving Emotion, which is mentioned on the article, interesting. The driving was awful, but it had Ferraris, Porsches, and a cockpit camera. I think it was a mixture of 2D with 3D, or entirely 2D, like PS1 era games. WHY DIDN'T PS2 GAMES HAVE THAT? At least in 2D like in Driving Emotion (if I'm correct about that).
I mean, how many games can you think of that had? Test Drive Unlimited (and Eve of Destruction), Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 had TWO EVENTS where such a camera replaced the bumper camera, TOCA 3 SORTA had it... what are other games that had? I can't remember any other right now...
Well, I WAS playing it with an AMD Quad-Core and GeForce GTS 250, so maybe that's the problem. Even when I got it to not crash after like 5 minutes, it might still have had graphical problems.
And I feel like the worst part is the reflections. I don't know, they just make the car look like one of those cheap plastic toys, but then again, AMD Quad-Core and GTS 250 (and later GTX 550). Even now that I'm stuck with an old PC, it's still a high-end Pentium 4 and an AMD Radeon 9250, released some years after the game, so I guess it might still look weird.
And I also found Driving Emotion, which is mentioned on the article, interesting. The driving was awful, but it had Ferraris, Porsches, and a cockpit camera. I think it was a mixture of 2D with 3D, or entirely 2D, like PS1 era games. WHY DIDN'T PS2 GAMES HAVE THAT? At least in 2D like in Driving Emotion (if I'm correct about that).
I mean, how many games can you think of that had? Test Drive Unlimited (and Eve of Destruction), Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 had TWO EVENTS where such a camera replaced the bumper camera, TOCA 3 SORTA had it... what are other games that had? I can't remember any other right now...
Well, I WAS playing it with an AMD Quad-Core and GeForce GTS 250, so maybe that's the problem. Even when I got it to not crash after like 5 minutes, it might still have had graphical problems.
And I feel like the worst part is the reflections. I don't know, they just make the car look like one of those cheap plastic toys, but then again, AMD Quad-Core and GTS 250 (and later GTX 550). Even now that I'm stuck with an old PC, it's still a high-end Pentium 4 and an AMD Radeon 9250, released some years after the game, so I guess it might still look weird.
