I've played quite a bit of AC, and like all other PC racing sims, they seem to have a certain "feel" to them. The physics might technically be a lot more realistic than GT, but I find no PC game nomatter how much you turn the graphics up look as good. They are of course a lot sharper and more detailed but the way the cars look and move is like a static "PC ish" look where everything looks fake and weightless.
I know it's obviously possible to have much better graphics on the PC but I guess where a companty like PD spends so much time and optimizing just for the PS3 hardware they get all the lighting etc so real. This really takes the feel away from sims like AC, I'm playing @ 2048 x 1536 on a good CRT and compared to GT on an LED TV it looks nowhere near as real.
Also while PC sims can have realistic tyre / suspension etc physics, I find all the sims I've played I get no real sense of weight, something GT does really really well, on PC sim regardless of FFB it feels a lot more floaty and unrealistic in some ways.
Another thing is the sounds, while sounds in AC at first sound better than GT, the sounds in AC sound very recorded and cheap to me, like there's not enough range, and digitalized, especially on things like lifting off accelerator and going back on. So I find the sounds on GT to be more satisfying and refined, even if they do sound stupid and similar to each other.
I wish GT stayed with it's hardcore roots as it would be a better game than it is now. I remember GT1 being released, reading playstation magazines at the time being so excited, the game was well known for things like the AI not using rubber band catch up, good physics and graphics etc, nowadays it's pretty bland. I used to play GT around 8 hours a day on school days when i was a kid I was addicted
I skipped GT5 and played Forza 1 then 2, didn't like either as much at first as GT, then they (especially 2) grew on me and I much prefered Forza for racing pleasure more than anything, it had amazing online, decent physics, decent PP system, livery editor, car swaps, engine and other nice upgrades, hotlap leaderboards etc etc then I sold the 360 and played PC games, until couple of months ago when I got a free PS3 and bought GT6.
The thing I like about these games (GT, Forza) is the actual pleasure of the game, I love super realism, but you have to think about why you play games. What made GT famous was its sheer number of cars and a very good selection of tracks. It's quite depressing jumping on AC and seeing only a handful of random cars, I know there can be endless mods but they are usually worlds apart in terms of quality. On GT it creates excitement saving up and choosing a car to buy, waiting to test it out and tune it, buy parts, paint it etc hardly anyones 2 cars are the same online.
For people who like GT and Forza there really aren't any other games like them, nearly all the other games are just GT3 / race cars and to me that's pretty boring. I just never got the same feel playing PC sims as I do playing console racers, and going back to GT6 after playing AC is like going home
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