As someone who:
1) works on old race cars and new exotic cars all day for money
2) drives their own cool car(s) on a 50-mile round-trip commute to work
3) races or participates in drivers education events over twenty weekends
out of the year (for the last dozen years)
4) finds computers and the "bleeding edge" of technology as fascinating as
it is in making real cars go quicker
I recommend, in no particular order:
1) Playstation 2, Gran Turismo 3, A-spec - Absolutely stunning! The
lighting, the car dynamics, the pukka F1 cars! Nothing else even comes
close, even with the hand controller. I bought the console JUST to play this
game! The steering wheel and pedal set is marginal, but Laguna Seca in the
late afternoon sun is just plain AWESOME! The F1 cars are sublime!
2) Sega Dreamcast, Ferrari F355 Challenge - Damn near as good as the $22,000
three-monitor arcade console (which I was fortunate enough to preview at the
1999 Ferrari Club Annual Meet, came back after the festivities closed down,
found the power switch and played like a demon until 3 o' clock in the
morning!) The best bang for the buck, only one camera view, but to drive
Fiorano! Try Gran Turismo 2 with the Bleem emulator on the Dreamcast, you'll
be amazed.
3) PC (Athlon 1.4 266 FSB, DDR SDRAM, Ati Radeon, Creative Audigy Sound,
Klipsch 4.1 and a 19" Mitsubishi Diamondtron monitor, so that's where the
money goes?!?) The aforementioned Grand Prix Legends (with downloaded car
setups and new tracks, Savannah's Roebling Road, Lime Rock now plus VIR is
in the works), a little tough for me. I prefer Grand Prix 3, Monaco Grand
Prix 2, Need For Speed (Porsche Unleashed) and Colin McRae Rally. Sports Car
GT and Test Drive LeMans are only ok, but you can fix that with downloads.
The beauty of the PC platform for me is the infinite variety of "hacks"
people have available in regards to cars, instrument panels, steering
wheels, set-ups, circuits and advertising, et cetera, all available from
various web sites. It's just unbelievable what is out there.
The Game Cube has nothing out yet and the X-Box is only mildly interesting
with NASCAR Heat and Gotham Racing. You have to make the commitment to learn
and practice these games like the real thing, otherwise you'll get
frustrated.
If you can only buy one, GT 3 on Sony's PS2!
-Peter Krause ($8,950,300 in trophy money, 411 trophies, 74 bonus cars won
in GT 3)
/// vintage-race@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or go to http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
///
|