Be Excellent To Each Other

BEEX: Nothing is forgotten.

Maybe. What I can tell you for sure is that I have trade-in fodder waiting and if I'd enjoyed the demo tonight (and tried out the FF wheel support), there was a high chance I'd have bought this tomorrow. They've lost that sale now.

I imagine the demo disabled the day the game shipped in the US - Tuesdays, normally - but they should have left the UK one live through to the weekend. Or, you know, forever.

I don't even think it's out yet in the US, Rich. Which makes it even more strange. Think it comes out next Tuesday (then the following Friday over here). Whatever the case, I think we can assume it was either costing them money, or they genuinely think it's a piece of marketing genius to take it away and give people "withdrawal symptoms". As much as I'm looking forward to the game, I only played the demo for half an hour anyway so it's not exactly working.

I don't see this being a wheel game for me. I'll give it a go but arcade racers don't generally lend themselves to it, there's no real benefit to smooth steering and having the ability to snap the steering quickly from one side to the other usually tends to be hugely advantageous.

Apart from Daytona, Chase HQ, Outrun, SCUD race etc

None of these open-world racers seem to work very well with a wheel. You just need ridiculous amounts of precision, which you can only get with a pad.

Outrun Online Arcade and Sega Rally are the only two this generation that I've played that using a wheel seems to work for.

A very adjustable wheel sorts this, as per Outrun.

This is actually a brilliant idea, but it's a true EA-ism in the way they've managed to implement it.

Already got the demo and now you're hooked? What if we took it away, would you run straight to the shops to buy it? What if it wasn't out yet? Oh.
So you've got nearly two weeks to forget how much fun the demo was before you can actually buy it, by which time you're playing a demo of something else that isn't going to get snatched away from you.

I'm in the other camp, in that I thought it sounded like fun, but never got round to downloading the demo, but I'm sure my life will go on somehow.

If this had been done properly, it might have (and maybe it still will, but I've no idea how you'd demonstrate it) meant a significant increase in sales and would have led to other publishers doing similar things. So I guess we should be thankful really.

I'm referring to "arcade" racers on consoles not actual arcade games. What I mean is this. Games work best when played the way the developers envisaged that most people would play them. So when wheel support is tacked on as an afterthought with the pad controls just mapped straight to the wheel it isn't going to work very well.

I was looking forward to this coming out Tuesday... I won't be around next Friday! Fucking EA. This is why I said I wasn't going to buy any more of your shitty games.

Wait, what? All games come out on Tuesdays in the US and Fridays here. That's not an EA thing.

You're right, but I think JC's point stands -- the fact that many arcade racers on consoles suffer from tacked-on wheel controls isn't inherent in the genre, but is just a design decision by the devs. It doesn't have to be that way.

You Ask Grim....

Oh. Well. Then yes, I can't imagine why they did this. Hmmm.

I'm sure at some point YugoFlonks said that it was coming out Tuesday. Certainly the official release date is, according to them, a 'slip'.

Yeah it doesn't have to be but given that you can no longer even buy a decent wheel for the 360 you'd have to imagine it probably will be.

Wha?

Grim..., if there had been a demo of this that was pulled on or after the day of release, would the game have seen a marked increase in sales (compared to the demo being available indefinitely)?
Will the situation as it stands (demo pulled a week before release), lead to a marked increase in sales?

Thank you for you time.

Market research, innit. "How many of you guys who bought this game were influenced by the demo" etc.

Oh right.
Hang on, I'll just get you a quote...

Huh, I wanted to play the demo of this as well but hadn't gotten around to it. Odd. I can't afford it 'til after Christmas so I suppose I'll just need to stick it on my Christmas or birthday list. Hopefully we can get some fun online games

IT IS NEARLY TIME. Who's picking this up tomorrow then? Or are you opting for Ass Crud Blad-Hood: More Of The Same Edition (TM)?

Neither. I might have bought this if I'd played the demo.

I shall be buying this.

Well, it's true. I'd be more positive if I knew it worked well with the wheel; it probably doesn't, but I won't know until I play it for myself because reviews hardly ever mention this. And pulling the demo annoyed me just enough to push me into the wait-and-see category, which is also the buy-cheap-in-January category.

Yeah I don't blame you chief! I doubt it'd be any good with a wheel though from what I saw. It's very much tailored for twitching on your stick. (I'm just setting up the mum jokes deliberately now.)

Tis good. Tis very very good.

Would totally work with a wheel as it feels very much like Ridge Racer but with Daytona USA's drift mechanics (very heavy solid feeling drifts). Tap on the brake, get the ass out, glide around the corners.

The only thing I'm a bit dissapointed with so far is that it doesn't use FSAA. As thus some of the graphics can seem a bit.. How do you put it? 'seperated' (gritty sharp lines between the textures).

Now I know that may be down to disabling motion blur but motion blur makes I feel rather woosy and sick. I suffer badly with flickering light travel sickness you see.

Put a few hours into this earlier. It's bloody great.

Cop chases kick ass (especially when you're the cops) and you can drop spike strips and call road blocks

The rainy levels are a dream and I forced FSAA in the NVCP so I'm a happy bunny

Great fun !

I may not get into town tomorrow (well, today lol) to buy this so it might have to wait on until the weekend. Oh for digital purchases of new releases on the 360!

I even went into Game at about 5pm on my way home to see if they were breaking the release date but no joy.

I could however buy a Kinect of which they had 'very limited stock' and was about to sell out imminently(!!!) (Strange that they've had 'very limited stock' all week according to the sign outside). I also heard one of the assistants trying to blag some poor guy into insuring his new XBox 360 for two years for £40. ('Unlimited repairs!')

God I hate Game. IIRC the last game I bought there was C&C3 on the PC, they tried to sell me a USB gamepad to play it with

Hot Pursuit get!

KISS OF DEATH

KISS OF LIFE

I'm off out to get this at lunchtime. This practically guarantees that it will rank alongside such all-time forum-favourites as Race Pro, IL-2 Sturmovik and F1 2010.

You are very close to convincing me to go and buy this today, too. I actually think that will be the first time I get a new game around launch time instead of waiting for the price to drop since the early PS1 days. I tell myself I am mostly doing this to thank EA for their action against Tim Langdell.

*grumbles*

The times from the demo stages are on the leader boards in the game proper. Perkies. How the fuck did you get that time?

edit: And this is good! The first race is just the one from the demo. The second race actually has cops chasing you and takedowns and stuff. It's exciting and fun. Haven't tried the cop races yet (first one is also the one from the demo).

Does it have a proper crash mode like Burnout 2? If not, not interested.

I'm not sure - there might be some events like that. I've only unlocked a few races so far! Just did a time trial in a Zonda. Extremely fast, heart-pumping stuff. Woo!

Definitely the star of the show. Take Burnout and mix it with some Chase HQ love and you have it summed up pretty well.

And fuck me that piggy Lambo goes like the proverbial clappers

Yeah I'm not getting near that fucking time Perkies set. In the Boxster as well! What the fuck, man? You're like 4 seconds ahead of me and I'm doing a near-perfect run!

Yeah, but you're carrying a load of Halo guilt. That'll certainly slow you down.

POTW.

Live on the edge, live on the nitrous, get lucky. Oh and drift like a champ !

Before we know it Trousers will come along, then it'll be all over

Heavy lies the Halo of guilt.

In other news, new EDGE just dropped through. They give NFS Hot Pursuit a... 9!

You lot need to hurry and play some multiplayer, then come here and tell us how good it is, then before you know it you'll have won over me, Bobby, Riles, Curio, Nick and we'll all have rushed out to play it because we're so easily influenced.

I've already moved on. Playing Gran Turismo 5 now exclusively.

Hmmm, the weather here is fucking awful, it's a 32 mile round trip to the GAME shop which will cost me over a tenner in petrol (oh the joys of being a chav Scooby owner), and I'm feeling sooooo lazy as I'm on a day's leave and decorum dictates that I do fuck all, except perhaps shout at the missus to bring me more tea and toasted bagels *

But I really want this game!

DAMMIT.

* If shouting doesn't work I just throw my less-loved 360 games at her head until she complies.

The weather in the game isn't much better

Oh I can also confirm the PC version is 60fps. I ran FRAPS to take some screeners.

Right bollocks to it I'll put my shoes on and twat over the mountain to Douglas in the fog and the rain and get stuck behind some old crone doing 18mph in a Daihatsu Charade.

I'll check HMV first though, I hate giving GAME money.

Just went by my local Game here in Barcelona. They wanted an incredible 72 euros (about 62 pounds). I am just not going to pay that, so I'm ordering off Amazon.uk and should have it by Monday or Tuesday I reckon. I probably won't be home in the weekend anyway.

Good! I might've beaten your frigging time by then! The demo stage - you're 3.90 seconds ahead of me in second place, and Perkies is another 4.00 on top of that. And I can't even squeeze another second out of it. All using the Boxster S. What the HELL? GAAAARGH!!

Yay it is mine!

I am big idiot so I paid £42.99 for the limited edition.

INSTALLATION COMMENCES.