Microsoft CART Precision Racing is a new release. It is not to be confused with Papyrus/Sierra's new release, CART Racing, which is a re-release of Papyrus' excellent IndyCar Racing 2.
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| Detailed Analysis |
| Bugs |
| Conclusion |
| Thanks |
| Other Voices |
| Dissent |
| CPR on the Web |
Whoops! Silly us.
In my initial review of CART Precision racing I expressed extreme frustration with several serious problems which prevented me from running the game properly on two different systems, despite many hours of struggling to work around the problems. The promise offered by features like slick menus and an elaborate garage, not to mention Microsoft's aggressive marketing, made my disappointment and frustration all the more acute.
Eventually, I did work around three of the four major problems that caused me so much frustration. For a little while after I got CPR working correctly in December, and allowing for the expected improvements which would be provided by the coming patch, I found myself enjoying driving in it under certain very limited conditions. Hoping for the best, I shelved CPR pending the arrival of the recently released patch from Microsoft, which addressed the fourth major problem.
Unfortunately, upon review of the patched version, my feelings about CPR have taken a definite turn for the worse.
CPR has many excellent features, such as a very well-designed menu structure, an unprecedented degree of configurability, and an elaborate garage with an innovative setup wizard. Leaving aside the NROS, CPR's network play implementation is unmatched among racing sims, in my opinion, and the engine sounds are excellent.
However, menus and networked play do not make a racing sim. Aside from the problems which caused me the initial difficulties, I found a number of bugs and design decisions with which I disagree. More importantly, I found CPR seriously deficient where it matters most.
In recent weeks, I have evaluated another new formula car racing simulation, Ubi Soft's F1RS. Although it has its faults, F1RS is superb in the most critical aspects of a racing sim, vehicle dynamics and graphics. I'm afraid that CPR's vehicle dynamics implementation as well as its graphics fall far short of the standard set by F1RS, and the patch does not address these shortcomings. CPR not only fails to measure up to its contemporaries, but its vehicle dynamics are laughable alongside those of ICR2, a sim released over two years ago, and its graphics fail to match those of an update of that sim which has been available for over a year.
After I got the patch, I tried running CPR at several different road courses. When I started it up after installing the patch, I was repelled. Compared to F1RS, visibility is terrible. Compared to F1RS, GP2, and ICR2, the game engine has a vague, "rubbery" feel, so lacking in precision (despite the name) and so annoying that I had to force myself to continue driving long enough to evaluate the patch.
The graphics are poorly detailed, fuzzy, and dull. The display implementation incorporates a fish-eye lens effect, presumably to enhance the sensation of speed. The tracks seem strangely distorted, with long straightaways and too-gentle corners. All this adds up to very poor visibility, which makes it very difficult to pick braking points and turn-in points, or, at times, to even be sure of which way the track is going next.
I feel that the vehicle dynamics are seriously deficient. As many people have mentioned, there are strange quirks like rolling backwards uphill, and spinning tires in neutral. More importantly to me, the vehicle dynamics are wrong in so many critical areas while at speed, that I find the sim not only unsatisfying to drive, but at times extremely aggravating.
The car is completely lacking in responsiveness to forward weight transfer under lift throttle conditions, and the brakes, even at full aft balance on the adjustment range in the garage, still lock the fronts at the slightest touch of the pedal. These two characteristics make it impossible to use trail braking to rotate the car at turn entry, or to tuck the nose into the apex once into the corner, both very important aspects of race car handling.
Even with the patch's additional controller input adjustability, the car lacks stability on the straight, perhaps due to a lack of caster on the front wheels. Also, small steering inputs just off center elicit nonlinear responses that are difficult to deal with. It's still tricky to drive in a straight line and unreasonably hard to place the car precisely on the track for turn entry.
The car's behavior is sometimes ludicrous, such as severe hopping in several corners at Mid-Ohio, even with all dampers set to maximum and with very stiff springs. The car signals it's at its limit not by sliding, but by hopping. This is silly. At Elkhart Lake, it's possible to spin the car on the main straight due to hopping over the bumps. There is far too much suspension travel, and the suspension is very poorly controlled.
With all the hopping and weaving around, the behavior of CPR's car is extremely unsatisfying, sometimes almost comical - and very, very far away from the brutally convincing realism of the F1RS car.
The tracks in CPR seem strangely distorted, and I felt that the braking points, acceleration and cornering forces and speeds in general bore little relation to those experienced by the real world drivers on the same tracks.
Other oversights become annoyances when they cause me to have to fiddle with things every time I play the game. I found the inability to assign a desired controller axis to a desired brake, steering, or shifting function to be an inexplicable oversight, particularly in the context of CPR's generally excellent configurability. On a machine with GP1 wheel and CH pedals, this forces me to delete my normal controller definition in Control Panel and redefine and recalibrate it just to play CPR. I then have to change it back for F1RS and SODA.
The game's insistence on rearranging my desktop icons into a 640x480 space is a continuing hassle. It goes on. See my bugs page for more gripes.
It is possible that CPR will mature into a really worthwhile racing sim, but I will be surprised if this happens in the near future. There is simply too much wrong at a fundamental level for quick fixes to make any real difference. The patch demonstrates this; although it was largely successful in meeting its objectives, those objectives represented only a small proportion of the serious challenges the developers face in bringing this game to a point where it qualifies as a decent racing simulation.
I believe Microsoft erred in releasing CPR before it was ready, and didn't leave enough time between the beta release date and the production release date to respond to feedback from the beta testers by incorporating changes in the full version before release. They repeated this error with the patch, releasing the final version less than a week after making the patch beta available to 500 sim racers on a first-come, first-served basis.
I feel that Microsoft did its customers a great disservice by releasing a product that was so badly implemented, and so far removed in reality from the image of it portrayed in their advertising. Many of us have wasted many hours on this game for very small reward.
Let's hope Microsoft's track record improves.
In the last two months, I have subjected several people to extensive evaluations of F1RS, SODA, CPR, and Pod. This included my brother (a mechanical engineer and experienced real world kart racer), his two sons, and a friend who has won many SCCA Showroom Stock races. The adults love F1RS, the kids love Pod, and everyone loves SODA. No amount of arm-twisting will get any of them to play CPR again.
My copy of CPR has now joined Psygnosis F1 and Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing on my "Historically interesting but useless racing games" shelf.
If you're still interested, please see my lengthy detailed analysis of CPR 's features, and the bugs and design issues page for a list of issues, along with explanations of how I got around the most serious problems I encountered.
CART Precision Racing has proven to be a controversial product, provoking strong emotions and sharply delineated camps in favor of and opposing this sim. If your experiences and conclusions differ from mine, please understand that I am delighted if you enjoy CPR, and have no wish to diminish that enjoyment.
If you feel moved to express your disagreement to me, first please read my detailed analysis, my discussion of bugs and design issues, and reviews by John Wallace and other experienced sim racers. If you haven't tried F1RS, please do so before telling me how wonderful you think CPR is and flaming me because I can't appreciate its finer points.