I received my copy of Supercar Challenge in the mail yesterday from GAME. I put the disc in the PS3 and played the game for about 4 hours straight. Here are my initial, early impressions.
The Good:
Load times have improved over Ferrari Challenge, especially the initial start-up. It was interesting to see all of the menus finally opened up and not locked as they were in the Beta. The first thing I did was run through them to see exactly what the options were and develop a familiarity with the controls and flow.
The options and features are MUCH improved over Ferrari Challenge. A perfect case in point, when running a time trial, you now have the option to change the car, change the track, or change the car and track. It's a welcome relief from having to back out to the main menu in order to restart. What's more, the car starts a time trial session on a tear, negating the need to do a full 'warm-up' lap in order to set a competitive time. As a developer, Eutechnyx has clearly listened to it's fan base and there are many welcome changes for the better.
But none of these changes are as welcome as the most basic and fundamental part of the game. Compared to the public Beta, there is a significant difference in the feel and physics of the cars. And it's truly for the better. Using a G25, I was amazed to feel how much smaller the deadzone is and how much smoother the cars are to control. Gone is the loose, disconnected feel. Done away with is the ponderous, guess work in transitional moves. It's wonderful and I love it. Great job guys! But it goes deeper than that. Eutechnyx clearly spent time further refining the cars. After running the first Challenge round and earning some money, the first three cars I purchased were the 355 Berlinetta, the 348 Challenge and the 250 GTO, all of which were available in Ferrari Challenge. Every one of these cars has been slightly tweaked and refined. They feel completely transformed and I couldn't be more thrilled. The 355 in particular has truly been given a new life. I was very critical of the handling characteristics of some of the road cars in Ferrari Challenge and felt that the team had simply gotten things quite wrong. This has been corrected in a big way. The 355 with all assists off is quite squirrelly, especially when under power but the way the four tires interact with the road has been completely remapped and it feels much more realistic. It's tricky but predictable and the way the suspension now reactions with the curbs is simply wonderful. I would buy this game just for this car alone and it was never one of my favorites.
Likewise, as much as I liked the 'classic' cars in Ferrari Challenge, I feel the 250 GTO in Supercar Challenge is now much more representative of a real 60s automobile. It's much more lively and interesting to drive with levels of detail in it's suspension movements that were simply glazed over in FC. It now requires more than just balancing the throttle and controlling the oversteer. The sense of weight seems to move back and forth and forward and back in an extraordinary way. I also had a chance to drive the F40 during the "invitational" Challenge event and noticed an equally impressive improvement in the car's behavior. It sounds better. It looks better. It feels better. The car is much more controllable in oversteer conditions (if you have a light touch) and seems much more three dimensional compared to the F40 in Ferrari Challenge.
Without going into too many details, I also purchased the Corvette, unlocked the McLaren SLR Moss & 599FXX--all of them are a lot of fun and interesting to drive. As a big fan of the ALMS series, it was a blast to drive the Corvette. Going down the back straight in Montreal in the playseat with the buttkicker going and the surround sound system screaming, my entire room was shaking! LOL! The 348 Challenge now feels like a genuine race car. Shifts are improved and the car feels much more 'lively'. I'm so happy that you guys went back and refined these cars and truly for the better.
Although I had only limited time to try it, I'm very impressed with the new replays. They give you so much more control compared to the one-way shows we had in Ferrari Challenge. At any time you can pause, fast forward, reverse, take a picture or alternative in real time between different views and vantage points. You can therefore review an incident from various different angles over and over again. It's brilliant.
The Bad:
The most important part of Ferrari Challenge to me, or any racing game for that matter, has been it's physics engine and Force Feedback implementation. And Supercar Challenge seems to have nailed it. There's no tire wear or pits stops, as we long since knew, but I'll take what I can get and relish it. But one area where I'm quite disappointed is in the graphics. Yes, there has been noticeable improvement over FC as far as the in-cockpit graphics and certain aspects of the track and surrounding area.
But frankly, I'm terribly disappointed in the background images. Simply put, they're awful and the faux forced perspective doesn't work. I know it's a cliche to say it, but it's worse than a PS2 game. I don't know if this was done on purpose to preserve the frame rate and be able to dynamically switch views, but the compromise is all together unacceptable. I'm sorry guys but it's horrible. The 'top view' of the car during replay mode is particularly bad with the entire car looking like a pixelated mess from the late 90s. It's probably not possible to correct something like this and we just have to hope that Eutechnyx's art team does a better job on future titles because this really detracts from the game like a fly in the wine. Unfortunately this poor graphics showing also extends into the game as well with low resolution backgrounds mixing together with well rendered high resolution foregrounds and it goes as well together as oil and water. Why are their mountains in Montreal??? Please, get them out of there. The mountains and backgrounds at Mugello in Ferrari Challenge looked like a work of art by comparison. And if one looks at the mountains in GT5P, the art team should be embarrassed to release something like this into a game that otherwise has such wonderful attention to detail.
Likewise there are a lot of little touches that I was hoping would be corrected from the Beta. I always assumed that awful world map and small front graphic of the DBR9 were just temporary for the Beta and would be replaced with higher detail images and nicer backgrounds. Come on guys. If this game had come out in February we could accept that it was rushed. But do something about this in a patch please. Granted it doesn't add anything to the actual gameplay but it's like driving through a slum on your way to a nice hotel--it just leaves a bad taste. The opening video in Challenge mode is a nice overlay and shows what could be done. And get a decent map. LOL What is this? A 9K GIF image?
I also wish there was a clearer way to turn assists on or off before an off-line event starts. Once they're set, their set, although perhaps that's not a bad thing. But I realized upon starting the first Challenge event that I had left the racing line and ABS on max and had no way to disable it except to exit.
And upon trying to leave the showroom after purchasing two new cars, the PS3 froze on me and I had to do a hard reboot. Things like this are a little troubling.
And I don't quite understand the need for a "Leaderboard" and a "Champion List". I forgot the actual names. But the list that shows the top 100 times where you can choose the track and car, etc is enough. I don't see the point to have two.
Over All:
After a few hours with this game, I feel much, much better. I've been somewhat silent lately. I must admit, I was rather underwhelmed with the Beta and I'm thrilled to see that the final release is much improved. I can now proudly and confidently recommend this game with no footnotes attached. Even to my Ferrari Challenge loving friends who are still sitting on the fence.
I'll post more when I've had some time with it.
and here: 
But I've just been more concerned with how the cars from Ferrari Challenge stacked up. There are a lot of Ferrari Challenge regulars here who are sitting on the fence if SCC is worth a buy. And my priority has been trying to give them an enthusiastic, but honest comparison.
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