Alright, after seeing the positive reactions on the first one and since I didn't had anything better to do, I decide to modify the original one I made quite a lot to be more grammatically correct ,thus more readable, and to be a bit more helpful for a new comer and to simply do more justice to our beloved sim.
Here's the result and please don't forget to post your opinion or to just say if I missed or you didn't liked something. Enjoy:
In today's world, most if not every gamer played or heard of the Need for Speed franchise but it never was a game that was realistic in terms of physics. Sure it's a nice, arcade racer with which you can have a lot of fun but it is not everyone's cup of tea. There is that special kind of gamers, the ones that know the difference between camber and toe, the guys that find Need for Speed too chav-ish, too boring, too annoying and I'm pretty sure you realized about know that I'm speaking about the racing simulator enthusiasts. Well this bunch likes the kind of games which require a steering wheel to be able to actually drive without crashing in the first turn. Not a lot of games in this niche since it targets a small category of players but the ones that deserve mentioning are: iRacing, rFactor and the game I'm going to review, Live for Speed.
You probably never heard of it, due to the fact it isn't advertised , but never the less it's one of the best car simulators out there. It's a game that strongly relies on it's online community without which, it wouldn't even be half as fun.
You start by going on their main page , www.lfs.net , and creating an account, after which you download a copy from any of the download mirrors , preferably the closest to you. Next you install the game, create a profile as you would in any game, set up your steering wheel or your mouse since using the keyboard is as pointless as breaking wind in the face of Goliath....sure you can do it but it won't help you too much. After completing the steps above you'll be "demo licensed". A "demo license" will give you limited content which only consists of 3 cars: a front wheel drive hatchback, a rear wheel drive reasonably powered coupe, a Formula BMW and one track. That doesn't sound like much, does it? But you do get unlimited online gameplay so it's a fair compromise.
Now as I mentioned above, you won't have the same experience without joining the community so I strongly recommend you to make an account on www.lfsforum.net as well, a pretty big forum where you can post your opinion, find out the latest news, join leagues and pretty much discuss anything with other members from around the world, since it also has an off topic section.
An interesting fact is that this is ,in a bizarre way, similar to an MMORPG. Some of you might consider this quite a bold statement so let me explain this comparison a bit. In the games that claim to be in the respective niche , just pushing some buttons will decide your abilities which you'll improve while you advance trough the game. In LFS your decisions will effect in real time at what you become good at and only by trial and error will you improve your abilities.
It's quite clear that automotive tastes differ from one member to another thus in LFS you will find the appearance of different types of racing and with it, the appearance of groups. There are three main groups: the first one being obviously the racers, they form the majority of the community, the second one being the drifters, you can find their community at www.lfsdrift.net, and the last one being the cruisers , the guys that drive slow to relax on tracks made to look like real streets.
This groups also further divide into teams. Joining one presents you with numerous advantages: they can offer you better setups, they can help you improve your driving, give you support in leagues which require team mates such as 24h races or simply to gain new friends which share the same passions as you do.
In terms of abilities your main one will be your ability to drive in a particular way or a particular car thus as a racer and/or a drifter, you will be able to compete in different leagues and events. The secondary ones are in my opinion the most interesting ones. You can be a setup maker, the guys that tweak every setting of a car specifically for a track (www.setupgrid.net) , a skinner, the artists that make paint jobs for cars (:skinnerz.proboards26.com/index.cgi), layout builder, Insim programmer, custom textures designer, sound files maker, etc.
I should add that as "demo licensed" you won't be able to do some of the things I specified above, plus you might even get mocked or get denied some requests by the "S2 license" gamers. So I suggest that you keep requests to a minimum until you get a "S2 license". I should clarify that after using the word "license" so much that it's a code you usually get e-mailed by the ishop ,which is usually one of the websites that also had a mirror download on the game's main web page, from where you bought it with your imoney thus now you will get access to it's full content consisting of 20 cars and 7 tracks which have a total of 60 different configurations , without mentioning the layout editor which rises the configurations to virtually a infinite number.
After reading the entire text, I believe that you are wondering why I haven't actually spoke about the physics or about the graphics. Well first of all, speaking about the physics of a simulator is like complaining of the horrible smell of a bucket full of manure. I mean what where you expecting? The cars react exact like their real counterparts in racing scenarios thus you will get to see and feel understeer and oversteer. You'll be pleased to know that unlike some of it's competitors, LFS has a ticker line between control and out of control. This means that when you over do it, you'll have a bigger chance of stabilizing the car back. Too give you an example let's say you negotiate a 60 degrees, right turn in a rear wheel driven coupe. You press too much on the gas pedal and what happens next? In most sims I've tried, at this point the car will loose traction and will spin you around no matter how valiantly you try to regain control. In LFS, the car will start to slide or drift(if you prefer this term) which you can control or stop by letting of the gas. Now you might say that harder is more realistic but that's not always the case. From my experience in automotive racing, I can say that Live for Speed's physics are more true to real life.
Another thing that makes it stand out from the rest is it's superior car setup adjustment. You can literally adjust any part which you would normally find in a real racing car. The way you set the anti-roll bars, camber, toe, gear ratios, suspension stiffness, dampers, differential, tire compound, tire pressure, downforce, etc. will severely change the way the car handles. How understeery or how oversteery it is, how fast it wears the tires. Now you might be wondering how you're going to tweak the car at a competitive level with getting a diploma in engineering, aren't you? Well there are websites that give you a wide variety of setups which you just need to simply download. I believe I mentioned such a site but just in case, here's one of them: www.setupgrid.net
I will admit that the graphics are not the best in the world but yet again, it's a simulator so it won't pull you into the action with the help of boom or sound effects, it does that with the physics although I've seen a few visual mods on the main forum which make it look quite stunning. The good part is that this means you don't need a powerful computer to play it at normal frames per second.
As a side note I might add that you are racing against people from all over the world so I must warn you that all the ,hard earned, self confidence you had about being fast will completely vanish the moment all the others pass you at a blistering pace as if they where rampaging stallions and you where a three legged, mentally disabled tortoise.
The only problems you might find is that the racing etiquette on some demo servers usually lacks fair play and that if you hit someone that suffers from lag or vice versa , you both will end up being pushed in different directions quite hard, the same thing also being said about hitting the red-white-red barriers as I like to call them (the ones you usually find when a road is in construction or in repairs) and sponsor banners but you won't have to worry too much about them since you will rarely find them on the tracks. They become a pain in the neck only when used in layouts.
To resume everything I said in one sentence, the game is worth buying if your into sims or cars in general and/or if you simply want a cheaper hobby then racing in real life.
Here's the result and please don't forget to post your opinion or to just say if I missed or you didn't liked something. Enjoy:
In today's world, most if not every gamer played or heard of the Need for Speed franchise but it never was a game that was realistic in terms of physics. Sure it's a nice, arcade racer with which you can have a lot of fun but it is not everyone's cup of tea. There is that special kind of gamers, the ones that know the difference between camber and toe, the guys that find Need for Speed too chav-ish, too boring, too annoying and I'm pretty sure you realized about know that I'm speaking about the racing simulator enthusiasts. Well this bunch likes the kind of games which require a steering wheel to be able to actually drive without crashing in the first turn. Not a lot of games in this niche since it targets a small category of players but the ones that deserve mentioning are: iRacing, rFactor and the game I'm going to review, Live for Speed.
You probably never heard of it, due to the fact it isn't advertised , but never the less it's one of the best car simulators out there. It's a game that strongly relies on it's online community without which, it wouldn't even be half as fun.
You start by going on their main page , www.lfs.net , and creating an account, after which you download a copy from any of the download mirrors , preferably the closest to you. Next you install the game, create a profile as you would in any game, set up your steering wheel or your mouse since using the keyboard is as pointless as breaking wind in the face of Goliath....sure you can do it but it won't help you too much. After completing the steps above you'll be "demo licensed". A "demo license" will give you limited content which only consists of 3 cars: a front wheel drive hatchback, a rear wheel drive reasonably powered coupe, a Formula BMW and one track. That doesn't sound like much, does it? But you do get unlimited online gameplay so it's a fair compromise.
Now as I mentioned above, you won't have the same experience without joining the community so I strongly recommend you to make an account on www.lfsforum.net as well, a pretty big forum where you can post your opinion, find out the latest news, join leagues and pretty much discuss anything with other members from around the world, since it also has an off topic section.
An interesting fact is that this is ,in a bizarre way, similar to an MMORPG. Some of you might consider this quite a bold statement so let me explain this comparison a bit. In the games that claim to be in the respective niche , just pushing some buttons will decide your abilities which you'll improve while you advance trough the game. In LFS your decisions will effect in real time at what you become good at and only by trial and error will you improve your abilities.
It's quite clear that automotive tastes differ from one member to another thus in LFS you will find the appearance of different types of racing and with it, the appearance of groups. There are three main groups: the first one being obviously the racers, they form the majority of the community, the second one being the drifters, you can find their community at www.lfsdrift.net, and the last one being the cruisers , the guys that drive slow to relax on tracks made to look like real streets.
This groups also further divide into teams. Joining one presents you with numerous advantages: they can offer you better setups, they can help you improve your driving, give you support in leagues which require team mates such as 24h races or simply to gain new friends which share the same passions as you do.
In terms of abilities your main one will be your ability to drive in a particular way or a particular car thus as a racer and/or a drifter, you will be able to compete in different leagues and events. The secondary ones are in my opinion the most interesting ones. You can be a setup maker, the guys that tweak every setting of a car specifically for a track (www.setupgrid.net) , a skinner, the artists that make paint jobs for cars (:skinnerz.proboards26.com/index.cgi), layout builder, Insim programmer, custom textures designer, sound files maker, etc.
I should add that as "demo licensed" you won't be able to do some of the things I specified above, plus you might even get mocked or get denied some requests by the "S2 license" gamers. So I suggest that you keep requests to a minimum until you get a "S2 license". I should clarify that after using the word "license" so much that it's a code you usually get e-mailed by the ishop ,which is usually one of the websites that also had a mirror download on the game's main web page, from where you bought it with your imoney thus now you will get access to it's full content consisting of 20 cars and 7 tracks which have a total of 60 different configurations , without mentioning the layout editor which rises the configurations to virtually a infinite number.
After reading the entire text, I believe that you are wondering why I haven't actually spoke about the physics or about the graphics. Well first of all, speaking about the physics of a simulator is like complaining of the horrible smell of a bucket full of manure. I mean what where you expecting? The cars react exact like their real counterparts in racing scenarios thus you will get to see and feel understeer and oversteer. You'll be pleased to know that unlike some of it's competitors, LFS has a ticker line between control and out of control. This means that when you over do it, you'll have a bigger chance of stabilizing the car back. Too give you an example let's say you negotiate a 60 degrees, right turn in a rear wheel driven coupe. You press too much on the gas pedal and what happens next? In most sims I've tried, at this point the car will loose traction and will spin you around no matter how valiantly you try to regain control. In LFS, the car will start to slide or drift(if you prefer this term) which you can control or stop by letting of the gas. Now you might say that harder is more realistic but that's not always the case. From my experience in automotive racing, I can say that Live for Speed's physics are more true to real life.
Another thing that makes it stand out from the rest is it's superior car setup adjustment. You can literally adjust any part which you would normally find in a real racing car. The way you set the anti-roll bars, camber, toe, gear ratios, suspension stiffness, dampers, differential, tire compound, tire pressure, downforce, etc. will severely change the way the car handles. How understeery or how oversteery it is, how fast it wears the tires. Now you might be wondering how you're going to tweak the car at a competitive level with getting a diploma in engineering, aren't you? Well there are websites that give you a wide variety of setups which you just need to simply download. I believe I mentioned such a site but just in case, here's one of them: www.setupgrid.net
I will admit that the graphics are not the best in the world but yet again, it's a simulator so it won't pull you into the action with the help of boom or sound effects, it does that with the physics although I've seen a few visual mods on the main forum which make it look quite stunning. The good part is that this means you don't need a powerful computer to play it at normal frames per second.
As a side note I might add that you are racing against people from all over the world so I must warn you that all the ,hard earned, self confidence you had about being fast will completely vanish the moment all the others pass you at a blistering pace as if they where rampaging stallions and you where a three legged, mentally disabled tortoise.
The only problems you might find is that the racing etiquette on some demo servers usually lacks fair play and that if you hit someone that suffers from lag or vice versa , you both will end up being pushed in different directions quite hard, the same thing also being said about hitting the red-white-red barriers as I like to call them (the ones you usually find when a road is in construction or in repairs) and sponsor banners but you won't have to worry too much about them since you will rarely find them on the tracks. They become a pain in the neck only when used in layouts.
To resume everything I said in one sentence, the game is worth buying if your into sims or cars in general and/or if you simply want a cheaper hobby then racing in real life.
, three camps (drifting, cruising, racing) 
. It has just sounded funny(in a good way :razz
. And yes, it was a nice review, very neutral.
