doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (11/25/87)
[I tried posting this before, but I think it expired before it got to most
of the net. I've made a few revisions since then anyway.]
Name: Revs+
Type: Auto Racing Simulation - 3D Graphics
System: Commodore 64 disk. Joystick and/or Paddle optional.
Publisher: Firebird Software (British Telecomm)
Price: $23 at B. Dalton's Software Etc., maybe less elsewhere
Overall Grade: A
Summary: a simulation of open wheel auto racing on European road courses.
A must-have for any driving/racing enthusiast. Serious fans of European
open wheel racing might buy a C-64 just to run this one program.
Let's make this clear right from the start. This isn't another arcade game
like Pole Position or Turbo. Revs+ is a driving simulator -- a race driving
simulator based on Formula 3 racing. It's not nearly as hard to master as
SubLogic's Flight Simulator II, but you'll still be spending many hours doing
practice laps before you're really ready to enter a race.
Learning to steer the car (a 140 mph Ralt RT3) is not easy. The steering is
very quick, making it hard to track a straight line. Trying to go straight
isn't made any easier by how low you sit; it takes some experience to figure
out which direction "straight down the track" *is*. In the meantime you're
careering wildly from one side of the track to the other, and frequently
ending up off the track into the grass.
Getting used to the throttle, brake, and 5-speed gearbox is another problem,
but that's mostly because the controls aren't foot-pedals. After about 6
hours of practice, I *still* can't find the brake with my fingers, so I just
drive without it. :-)
But the most enjoyable part is learning the track. There are six tracks to
race on, each an amazingly faithful simulation of the real thing. Five are
British tracks: Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Donnington Park, Snetterton, and
Oulton Park. The sixth track is the old circuit (I'm pretty sure) at
Nuerburgring.
The shapes of the tracks are fully recreated, everything to scale, complete
with curbs, apexes, wide and narrow spots, and (the most impressive part)
uphill and downhill. Taking a tour around Brands Hatch is absolutely
incredible.
Getting to know the track is quite a challenge -- finding the racing line
through each corner, determining the optimum braking point, finding the
best entry speed, and learning where to jump back on the throttle. The
documentation does include some suggestions for the five British tracks
(you're on your own at Nuerburgring). But don't think that you can just
follow their directions and get by. It's nowhere near that easy...
Once you get to where you can usually get around the track without crashing,
you can start "sorting out" the car. You've got settings for both the front
and rear wings; use a lot of wing and the car will stick better in the fast
corners, but at the cost of aerodynamic drag on the high speed straights.
The balance between front and rear is important too; too light in front and
you'll plow through the corners, too heavy in front and it'll try to spin.
When you're tired of practice sessions, go racing. The qualification session
is a fixed amount of time (5, 10, or 20 minutes), and your fastest lap in
that time determines your position on the starting grid. The lower time
limits are mainly useful in the multi-player mode (see below) because then
the qualification times are critical. If you're playing alone, just select
20 minutes and you can always terminate qualification early when you get a
good lap. There are other cars on the track during qualifying; be careful.
Multi-player mode: as many as 20 different players can qualify, although
that many would take most of the day. After qualification, players race one
at a time, with the computer simulating the other players' performance based
on their qualifying times. After all races are over, the composite results
are posted on a "scoreboard". Championship points are awarded 50% on the
player's actual race and 50% on his simulated results in the other races.
There are three classes you can race in: Novice, Amateur, and Professional.
If you fail to qualify for your chosen class, you will still be allowed to
race in Novice class, from the very back of the field (20th position).
In Novice class, your competitors are driving cars which are significantly
slower than yours. Passing is quite easy. The only trick to winning is to
not mess up and end up in the weeds. Easily said, much harder to accomplish.
If you do slide off course, it really helps if you can keep enough control
that you don't crash and don't kill the engine; you might lose only a few
places before you get back onto the track. If you do crash while racing in
Novice class, your car will be put back onto the track, but not very quickly;
you'll lose many positions, often ending up in last place. In Amateur and
Professional classes, recovering from slides and spins without crashing is
doubly important because a crash will put you out of the race for good.
You can choose to race either 5, 10, or 20 laps. A good lap time at
Silverstone (the easiest course to learn because it's on an old RAF airfield
and is relatively flat) is 1:35, so five laps takes 8 minutes even if you
don't crash or go off course.
Championship points are awarded (9/6/4/3/2/1 for 1st through 6th positions
plus 1 point for the fastest lap). Points are accumulated over a series of
races, but unfortunately can't be saved on disk for another day.
Enough about the concept, now on to the implementation.
The simulation seems to be fairly complex and accurate (I've never been in a
real race car, so what do I know?) The more experience I get "driving" it,
the more I notice. I must've still been expecting an arcade game when I was
taken by surprise that by applying opposite lock I really could recover when
I started into a spin. Another time, I thought I was seriously mishandling
the steering, when it dawned on me that I was fish-tailing all over the place
and working like a wild-man trying to keep it pointed down the track; I let
off on the throttle for an instant and it straightened right up.
I've noticed that the cornering is affected by the weight transfer caused by
acceleration and deceleration. I think it's also affected by crests and dips
in the track. And I *know* the aerodynamics are simulated; it's strange to
be able to take a particular corner at 125 mph but not at 80.
Car-to-car contact is simulated, but no damage occurs (you can't lose a
front wing, for instance). The result can be anything from a mere "thump"
to being sent spinning off the course, depending on the particular contact.
Sometimes the other car involved is disabled, and will remain on the track
as an obstacle for the duration of the race; this is probably the least
realistic aspect of the program.
In the interests of playability, the engine has been made indestructible.
Neither lugging nor over-revving will harm the engine (although of course it
won't give much acceleration). In fact, the recommended method of returning
to the track from a spin into the grass is to start out in 3rd or 4th gear.
The graphics are accurate but not very detailed (although the title screen is
pretty fancy). The basic view is a black track, green grass, and blue sky.
There are black-and-white striped borders on the track, and the curbs (or
kerbs as the British authors insist) are red-and-white striped. Each curve
is marked with a sign showing the direction of the curve, white markers at
300 meters and 200 meters, and a red marker at 100 meters, all on the outside
of the curve, plus a red marker on the inside of the curve right at the apex.
There is a simple flag-marker beside the track at the start/finish point.
The other cars on the track are basically black and white, again not very
detailed. If seen from the side, the body of the car has color; but you
don't see 'em from the side very much unless you've spun off course.
Your car has a tachometer (moving needle, not digital) as the only working
instrument; there are two dummy instruments that half appear in the picture.
There is also a gear selector indicator, with oversize letters. A mark on
the steering wheel moves to provide feedback on the wheel's position. I'd
rather have had the dummy front wheels turn back and forth but they don't
move. Rear-view mirrors on both sides show any cars close behind you.
A big plus is that everything moves smoothly. There's no feeling of a lag
between the time you move a control and the time the control takes effect.
There's no jerkiness to the graphics. Everything's nice and continuous.
The top of the screen contains a couple lines of text which substitute for
your pit board. During practice and qualifying these lines give you your
current lap time and fastest lap time. During the race they give the number
of laps to go, your position in the race, who's immediately ahead and who's
immediately behind you on the track (track position, not race position).
I have to confess a guilty pleasure. Even though I have a chronic allergy to
silly made-up names, I actually *like* most of the names of the computer
generated competitors. Max Throttle is one of the top drivers. So is Gloria
Slap. On the other hand, Slim Chance and Roland Slide usually end up at the
back of the field. Some of the names you have to say out loud to figure out.
The sound effects are pretty standard. Race car engine, squealing tires.
There are a lot of options for what to use for controls. You can use a
joystick or the keyboard as in most games, or you can use an analog joystick
if you have one. Or my personal favorite, a game paddle for the steering
wheel with either the keyboard or a regular joystick for the throttle, brake,
and gearshift. I use an Atari 2600 (video game) paddle; it's a lot more
twitchy than if I had a real C-64 paddle but it gets the job done.
If you use an analog joystick or a game paddle for steering, you can choose
to have variable-ratio steering which makes the steering a bit less touchy.
When using keyboard steering, you have the option of turning on the "Computer
Assisted Steering" which the regular switch-type joystick always uses.
When you load the game you have to select 2 of the 6 tracks; if you later
want to race on any of the other 4 you'll have to reload the program. This
isn't a big deal because you'll probably concentrate on just one track
anyway. I wish this had the fast-loader that Firebird used for Elite --
Revs+ takes a very long time to load.
There is a "Pause Game" feature, but things happen so fast that I always end
up crashing when I try to use it. Especially after un-pausing, when I'm not
in the rhythm of the course any more.
The documentation is complete, but is in dire need of "proffredding". In
some places the typographical errors are so bad that the only way to figure
out what is meant is to try it and see. Fortunately they've included a
keyboard summary which has only one typo: it shows the "sensistivity switch"
[sic] as the "C=" key when it really is the SHIFT LOCK key.
The documentation includes a small poster showing the layout of all 6 tracks.
This is both interesting and very useful.
By the way, there apparently was an earlier version called simply "Revs". I
don't know if it was sold in the U.S., but it doesn't have joystick control
and it only has two tracks -- Silverstone and Brands Hatch. Be sure you get
the "+" version (the typeface used on the package is abominable, the "+"
looks more like an "I" with a hyphen crossing through it).
--
Doug Pardee -- Edge Computer Corp., Scottsdale, AZ -- ihnp4!oliveb!edge!doug