Guys.. You wanted us back, so we came back. I know that you've tried these setups, so please, leave some feedback. Good review means you can request a custom tune for the car you like from the maker of the tune you reviewed.
I haven't forgot about posting my review of both of MFT's Retro Racers; Real-Life has just gotten in the way... I hope to have it up ASAP.
EDIT: And here it is.
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Being a BIG fan of the Mad Finn's since the glory days of GT4, I snapped up the chance to test and review it's latest duo: The "Retro Road Racers".
As you can see, I took a few little liberties with a few details of these cars so that they'll stand out in my garage (And also because I'm a bit of a paint-chip collector
), but I took both of these beauties out to Grand Valley Speedway for some good old'fashioned track testing. First up (And against my better judgement, given that I only have a trusty Dualshock 3 Controller to work with):
Greycap's Ford GT ST '06:
There's definitely a sense of menace oozing from this car without the white stripes and matching wheels, and it matched that feeling out on the track. The GT ST '06 was fairly solid on corner entry and under braking, though the braking power itself was nothing to write home about; As Greycap himself said in the description, this is definitely a car where early braking in a straight line pays off. The handling on this car through corners was quite impressive overall, though there was quite a lot of understeer on-power, which made learning how to drive the car difficult for me at first. This is balanced by an impeccable poise off-power, which made setting the GT ST '06 up for successive corners a tad bit easier than I expected, though when I drove it the car HAD to be slightly off-power to get it to set it up through corners, with the Final Corner leading onto the main straight and the high-speed esses leading to the hairpin being "Heart-in-Mouth" moments every lap for this underskilled driver...
I have to admit that I generally use about 1 unit of the dreaded TCS in two-wheel drive cars with over 600+ BHP and especially when running on Sport Soft tires, but the acceleration and lack of wheelspin this car had in the lower gears was quite striking to me. Equally striking was the GT ST 06's tendency for the rear-end to step out at inopportune times, especially at lower speeds. Part of this has to do with how GT6 handles it's "Physics" Engine for mid-engined cars ("Physics" being a ferm used loosely for a varied of reasons I don't want to start talking about here), but the biggest might be the immense amount of downforce that the rear wing on this car makes: With 205 Units and no front adjustment at all, it could be overpowering the front end, givinging clues for how tail-driven this car can be at times... On the other hand, that prodigious downforce keeps the car relatively pinned to the ground, which is something that you can't say about most Road Cars at 600 PP (Keep this thing away from kerbs though; It'll spin you around in a heartbeat if you aren't careful).
In the end, the GT ST '06 was a stellar performer, with my best lap coming in at
1:50.817 and much more left on the table... But, I never really felt comfortable enough to really push this car at 10/10ths. The slight Time and again I would improve in one sector, only to through it all away in another, or end up slower by not sticking this car in the grey stuff around Grand Valley's corners (As it had equal amounts of under and oversteer depending on the arc of the corner when running off-line), all of which hurts this car's overall "Race-ability" to me.
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Leonidae's Camaro GT3'10
All it took was one lap in the Chevrolet Camaro GT3'10 to have me wondering if I had fitted Hard Racing Slicks on the car instead Sports Soft tires by mistake, as the braking and handling really showed just how much a difference that "Flat Floor" fitted can make. A few more laps made me realize how many things these two cars have in common, as well as a few inverse effects. For a start, the Camaro GT3'10 was rock-solid through both high and medium-speed corners, with a perfect amount of turn-in both on and off throttle as well as on and off line. However, both cars needed to be off-throttle to set them up to hit the apexes of most of the corners at Grand Valley Speedway, though it was a relatively minor lift-off or a tap of the brake with the Camaro compared to the Ford (Though the final corner was still not exactly "Brain-Dead" in this car, though if it were on actual slicks it might be...).
At the slowest corners on the track (The final chicane before leading up to the last turn in particular), the Camaro exhibited a surprising amount of understeer, which would lead to controllable power-oversteer as the car would lurch back on the throttle most of the laps I succumbed to this (While the Ford was a touch neutral all around unless you REALLY mashed the gas pedal). Speaking of which, just like the GT ST '06 this car was an absolute blast to drive without Traction Control, easily pulling away from second gear with nary any wheelspin and first gear pretty much redundant on this particular circuit for me (Both things you can't really say about the Ford).
Lap time wise, it was pretty academic: with "Only" 595 BHP pushing 1301 Kgs, the Camaro GT3'10 is undoubtedly slower, though not by as much as I had expected:
1:51.873 to be exact, just over a full second behind the Ford's best time. Otherwise, there's not much else to say about this car: It's pretty fast if a tad underpowered and sluggish in a straight line (270 Km/h Max Speed down the main straight for Camaro compared to 291 Km/h for the Ford), stable, has great braking and handling... And just feels a tad bit "Lifeless" at the end of the day. Well, until you clip a kerb maybe, as this car also shares the GT ST '06's tendency to lash out at ham-fisted drivers (Like me) that kerb-hop lap after lap (Though not nearly as badly as the Ford does; It just feels like more of a shock when such a "Friendly" car like this can get a bit vicious when using up just a little bit of road on the exit or entry of certain corners).
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The Verdict:
As it stands, Greycap was pretty much dead-on in commenting about these cars:
Going to be another "handles very well" vs. "barely stays on the black stuff but goes like hell" comparison, I presume. In other words no changes to the ordinary situation.
And while that IS true, my personal take on it is this:
If you enjoy the thrill of driving fast road cars in this game and want to learn how to be precise as a driver, hop into the Ford GT ST '06 and start practicing wherever you please, because it's a car that requires a delicate touch to get the most out of, yet has that certain intangible "Something" that keeps a driver coming back for more.
If you just want to have fun and thrash around any given track without having to worry too much about what the car's going to do or react to what might be just beyond the next blind corner (Spin-Out/Pile-Up/Bump in the Road/Etc.), go for the Chevrolet Camaro GT3'10 as it's fairly beginner-friendly and feels like a racing car most of the time.
No matter which one you choose though, you can't go wrong with either one of these Retro Road Racers.