Phew! Finally won this mission and won the Jay Leno Tank Car. No more missions to do! Ta-da!
Still flogging along at this one (given up on the GT40 at Laguna Seca for a while).
I'm starting to have my suspicions backed up with this one...you need a specific controller and there does seem to be different versions of the game depending on where you are.
I've watched that video above of the lap time and time again, and I've tried following as clean a line as possible through that first set of corners...all sorts of lines, all sorts of speeds, and even when I fluked the fastest one possible, the fifth place guy was still pulling away from me when I got onto the first short straight before the left hander. There seems to be no way, on my version, to catch and pass him in that first corner. Very odd. I notice a simply massive amount of understeer from that Puegeot as well...I mean, the slipping tyres on cobbles I can understand, but the understeer is just rediculous.
Cornering speeds throughout the lap...You mean a full-on rally car can't negotiate a tight hairpin bend at anything more than about 35kph without understeering straight off into a wall? Really?
On a lighter note, in real life I could imagine what a French crowd would do to organisers who would give a French car a penalty when some damn foriegner in a foreign car cuts thier driver off and the French car ends up with the penalty and the other car is allowed to go on it's merry way...
Back to it...must be about my fiftieth attempt now...
EDIT: another couple of little things I noticed...anyone else with an overseas version seen the same?
1: The severe dip in the tarmac at the end of the beginning couple of turns where you enter the first straight. Chucks you off line every time...and there isn't a real way to avoid it without running wider, which slows you down.
2: The amount of understeer on the left off the first straight...astonishing!
3: The rediculously low speed the car has to go round the tight hairpin and again the level of understeer shown there...double astonishing!
4: I've noticed people saying enter the kink in the long straight doing up near 180kph...how? On mine, understeer means it will slide straight out towards the wall on the right...and believe me, I've tried maybe two dozen different entry lines so far.
5: in the video, the fifth place car is overtaken just after the left hander near the start...once again, how can you carry enough speed to do this after the "s-bends" after the finishing lines?
I really don't want to have to invest a large amount of money in a steering wheel setup...and to be blunt you shouldn't have to just to play the game without endless frustration.
Codebreaker here I come...
Back to it...must be about my fiftieth attempt now...
EDIT: another couple of little things I noticed...anyone else with an overseas version seen the same?
1: The severe dip in the tarmac at the end of the beginning couple of turns where you enter the first straight. Chucks you off line every time...and there isn't a real way to avoid it without running wider, which slows you down.
2: The amount of understeer on the left off the first straight...astonishing!
3: The rediculously low speed the car has to go round the tight hairpin and again the level of understeer shown there...double astonishing!
4: I've noticed people saying enter the kink in the long straight doing up near 180kph...how? On mine, understeer means it will slide straight out towards the wall on the right...and believe me, I've tried maybe two dozen different entry lines so far.
5: in the video, the fifth place car is overtaken just after the left hander near the start...once again, how can you carry enough speed to do this after the "s-bends" after the finishing lines?
:
I've been trying a few differnet ways of "driving" and actually found that with our wide screen TV, sitting close to the screen and using the "dashboard" view actually made it a lot easier...that's probably coming from my real motor racing background.
This brings up something I've wondered about since starting the Missions...who is the game aimed at? I'm 45 and started playing the game as soon as it came out years back, and with an actual steering wheel in my hand and a real car or bike beneath me, I'm pretty good...not great, but better than average I suppose.
I've noticed guys saying they have no interest at all in motor racing "IRL"...and I think that might be part of my problem...I haven't been approaching it as a video game, but more as a "real driving simulator", and expected the cars to act accordingly...it probably isn't aimed for someone who has driven a hell of a lot of the actual cars that are in the game (not the Le Mans ones of course...), but a lot of the Japanese ones, many of the European ones, some of the Yank ones, and all the Australian ones...and while most of them are pretty damn good, there are, let me assure you, a lot that will make you go "Hmm...don't actually remember it being that bad...".
Frankly, I still think the game should be for everyone who has spent the money on it...not leaving huge areas sealed off for the so-called "truly dedicated gamer" who is at a level most people cannot come near (in hours and literally dozens of tries, I can't get the split time down below 10.05 seconds at that first marker while following the fifth place guy), instead of allowing everyone to enjoy every part of it.
Going to go back and try a few more laps using my "new position" and see what happens...but at this stage, I still stand by my claim that it's more like "work" than "having fun"...
Just tried this mission a few dozen times, after taking a break from literally over a hundred goes at Mission 12...and still getting nowhere.
A couple of things spring to mind...the sort of thing a racer might say over the headset to his pit crew...
"Remind me to strangle the idiot who bought the useless tyres on this damn thing"
"Oh, and find me the guy who set up the suspension for so much understeer...and see if you can find me the biggest heaviest spanner you can..."
"No no no...it's perfectly understandable that I get the 5 second penalty when that guy cuts in on my driving line and slams into me..."
"I'm never coming back to Paris again...."
...other than that...
In the evening of March 8 I had done a +0.007, so I kept persisting, staying up a little late
Some ridiculous actions don't get one, but sometimes the AI nicks you just slightly, and you get the penalty!