Ha!! Turns out there's one of those cockpits here on Orlando!! Definitely checking it out this weekend!!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/RaceSimCentral
Ok, so I went and tried this thing last night. Initially I was hessitant to post anything about it because the place and pricing for it is plainly criminal! They charge you 8 bucks for 3 minutes of track time counting your outlap wich doesn't give you enough time to even finish your second lap.
So... here we go! Keeping in mind that the hardware used by this cockpit is pretty much high end commercial grade wich ultimately is going to affect the FFB and overall experience.
-Graphics, it looks awesome! Great cristal clear graphics but not the over the top, over done BS we get from other titles. Think of it as iRacing on DX11!
-Sound, it's an F1 car, it's loud! Nothing special but it sounds naturall enough and it works!
-Physics, not enough seat time to do a serious review... but enough to say it's going to be awesome! There's absolutely no need to worry about Kunos going soft!
I went to hot into the first Lesmo having to brake too deep and spun it arround. It felt like a real life spin feels like, not the eternal never ending spin of rF2, not the wait you can't do that so you have to spin feel you get on another betas.
So, after the spin I spen't a good 30 seconds getting out of the gravel traps wich actually work, they slow you down and hold you there like they do in real life. After getting back to the track I took it easy on 1st gear and the bottom of second, the tires where still dirty but I floored it at the top of 2nd and spun it again.
Now I'm in a hurry to get a clean lap in so I got a bit too hot into the Variante Ascari and the car understeered naturally and predictably, some corrections later and i'm out of the Variante with no major drama.
Flying lap coming up and going in and into the Parabolica the car felt well planted and on just my outlap I can already start to use the throttle to rotate the car!
So I went for it and coming out of T1 I got some wheel spin but manageable enough to not fly off the track into the barriers. Second chicane coming up and I get a bit of lock up but a little modulation took care of it, took some curb on track out and the car bounced off of it predictably with some opposite lock. Now set for the first Lesmo and the stupid timer runs out! Sorry guys but I was just not gonna pay 8 bucks again for 3 minutes, this place is an absolute rip off!
Now the software itself and the hardware used in this cockpit is absolutely top notch, other than some wheel aligment issues everything feels incredible! From the seating possition, to the awesome brake pedal wich feels like a correctly bled brake system, to the wheight of the wheel at speed with the aero in full effect wich feels to what experienced race drivers describe all the time.
Very much looking forward to this title coming out!
Hope my review is not terribly lame and boring.