NSR Review By Randy Magruder

http://pc.ign.com/articles/588/588381p1.html

9.2 out of 10.
--
David G Fisher

Never heard of the guy. Does he own a wheel.
Or is he just an EA brown noser ?
In article >, says...
> http://pc.ign.com/articles/588/588381p1.html
>
> 9.2 out of 10.
>

PC24 wrote:
> Never heard of the guy. Does he own a wheel.
> Or is he just an EA brown noser ?

You've never heard of Randy Magruder!??! Must be 10 years or more he's
been involved in sims, reviewing, on this newsgroup etc.

I guess he owns a wheel....! Maybe someone more "recent" than I can
comment on the nasal shade?

ROFL Randy may have even worked for Papy. I certainly remember him in
beta testing
in the closed beta days before Hawaii. John you're showing your age take it
easy the newbies. :-)
Good to see you still around. Do you ever hear anything about Crammond?

Pete

"John Wallace" > wrote in message
...
>
> You've never heard of Randy Magruder!??! Must be 10 years or more he's
> been involved in sims, reviewing, on this newsgroup etc.
>
> I guess he owns a wheel....! Maybe someone more "recent" than I can
> comment on the nasal shade?

Pete wrote:
> ROFL Randy may have even worked for Papy. I certainly remember him in
> beta testing
> in the closed beta days before Hawaii. John you're showing your age take it
> easy the newbies. :-)
> Good to see you still around. Do you ever hear anything about Crammond?
>
> Pete

Hi Pete :-)

No, I've heard nothing of Crammond for some time now. With few companies
making games, enormous license costs and huge development budgets, it
must be tough to be in the right place to do what you want!

Sorry I don't type much - I broke my wrist in a mountain biking accident
last week, and it takes me AGES to type anything with one finger (and
I'm still anal enough to want correct punctuation and capitalisation!)

John

"John Wallace" > wrote in message
...
> Hi Pete :-)
>
> No, I've heard nothing of Crammond for some time now. With few companies
> making games, enormous license costs and huge development budgets, it
> must be tough to be in the right place to do what you want!

Often wondered whatever became of him. At one time he was one of the
best but
he sort of just fell off the face of the earth after his last effort. I
thought I had read he
was going to redo his Amiga stunt racing game but never heard any more.

> Sorry I don't type much - I broke my wrist in a mountain biking accident
> last week, and it takes me AGES to type anything with one finger (and
> I'm still anal enough to want correct punctuation and capitalisation!)
>
> John

Sorry, to hear that but I know where you're coming from. :-( Some days
my
health barely allows me to type coherently as well.
I've been invited by a cousin to go with him and his wife to
Tighnabruaich next year,
if I have to crawl on my hands and knees I'm going! :-)
Get well.

Pete

He's extremely knowledgable, has done some R/W racing, and has been a
respected reviewer @ Digital Sportspage since forever.

"John Wallace" > wrote in message
...
> PC24 wrote:
> > Never heard of the guy. Does he own a wheel.
> > Or is he just an EA brown noser ?
>
> You've never heard of Randy Magruder!??! Must be 10 years or more he's
> been involved in sims, reviewing, on this newsgroup etc.
>
> I guess he owns a wheel....! Maybe someone more "recent" than I can
> comment on the nasal shade?

"For multiplayer racing, EA has finally raised their game to the point where
you can theoretically race in a full 43-car grid online. I did some test
races with the folks at EA, as well as some members of the NASCAR gaming
community, and I have been pleased with the results. There's not too much
lag, and all the options Papyrus gave us for setting up and running race
servers are here in abundance, including a dedicated race server program if
you're running a league or just feel charitable."

Hmm, so its good but laggy and has all the admin features we need yet I have
read many posts already that states it has hardly any admin features at all.


"Unfortunately, even if you follow every audible and visual instruction, the
game can shaft you when it gets confused about where you are and what you
should be doing."

"In the course of a single caution, while accurately following the
computer's directions, I still managed to go a lap down and earn a stop and
go penalty. The in-game instructions in that situation were neither accurate
nor timely: I was told to slow down to get behind a certain car. When I
slowed down, I got a warning that I was going too slow and almost
immediately was told I'd lost my place in the line for going too slow, even
though I was just waiting for the other car to catch up to me."

"After pitting, I exited the pit lane as the pace car was going by, and
slowed to fall back to the end of the line, only to be told that I had
lapped the field under yellow and would be assessed a stop and go. Things
like this forced me to turn on the "auto-drive" feature during cautions. But
even that mode didn't work right. I was told that I was the "Lucky Dog" and
that I should proceed past the pace car to get my lap back. But the AI
driving my car refused to budge. And I could not override it! So, I didn't
feel like such a "Lucky Dog" after all.

That will be an issue if it cannot properly track car placements.


"Fortunately, you can turn off yellows and tweak other rules to minimize the
negative effects of these problems until a fix is available. For
multiplayer, it is a serious issue that will probably have many leagues
resorting to turning off yellow flags until it is fixed."

Thats nice, just turn off yellows for now for online.


And it got a 9.2

Maybe a patch will fix all these issues but it seems to have some glaring
bugs already


"PC24" > wrote in message
.. .
>
> Never heard of the guy. Does he own a wheel.
> Or is he just an EA brown noser ?
> In article >, says...
>> http://pc.ign.com/articles/588/588381p1.html
>>
>> 9.2 out of 10.
>>

Another quote...
It's been six years in coming, but EA has finally delivered the goods. They
rewrote their physics engine, spent extra long months tweaking and tuning
and testing after the console versions shipped. The extra time has paid off
handsomely...

Is this like saying "if you like raw food like say, sushi, you'll love our
undercooked hambergers...?

What the hell did they do in Beta Testing? I fking hat to think how bad it
was, back when they though "well it is done, lets see what they find wrong
with it" or do they actually just go through "beta-test" only to fullfill
accepted developement cycles?






Schooner enlightened us with:
> "For multiplayer racing, EA has finally raised their game to the
> point where you can theoretically race in a full 43-car grid online.
> I did some test races with the folks at EA, as well as some members
> of the NASCAR gaming community, and I have been pleased with the
> results. There's not too much lag, and all the options Papyrus gave
> us for setting up and running race servers are here in abundance,
> including a dedicated race server program if you're running a league
> or just feel charitable."
> Hmm, so its good but laggy and has all the admin features we need yet
> I have read many posts already that states it has hardly any admin
> features at all.
>
> "Unfortunately, even if you follow every audible and visual
> instruction, the game can shaft you when it gets confused about where
> you are and what you should be doing."
>
> "In the course of a single caution, while accurately following the
> computer's directions, I still managed to go a lap down and earn a
> stop and go penalty. The in-game instructions in that situation were
> neither accurate nor timely: I was told to slow down to get behind a
> certain car. When I slowed down, I got a warning that I was going too
> slow and almost immediately was told I'd lost my place in the line
> for going too slow, even though I was just waiting for the other car
> to catch up to me."
> "After pitting, I exited the pit lane as the pace car was going by,
> and slowed to fall back to the end of the line, only to be told that
> I had lapped the field under yellow and would be assessed a stop and
> go. Things like this forced me to turn on the "auto-drive" feature
> during cautions. But even that mode didn't work right. I was told
> that I was the "Lucky Dog" and that I should proceed past the pace
> car to get my lap back. But the AI driving my car refused to budge.
> And I could not override it! So, I didn't feel like such a "Lucky
> Dog" after all.
> That will be an issue if it cannot properly track car placements.
>
>
> "Fortunately, you can turn off yellows and tweak other rules to
> minimize the negative effects of these problems until a fix is
> available. For multiplayer, it is a serious issue that will probably
> have many leagues resorting to turning off yellow flags until it is
> fixed."
> Thats nice, just turn off yellows for now for online.
>
>
> And it got a 9.2
>
> Maybe a patch will fix all these issues but it seems to have some
> glaring bugs already
>
>
> "PC24" > wrote in message
> .. .
>>
>> Never heard of the guy. Does he own a wheel.
>> Or is he just an EA brown noser ?
>> In article >,
>> says...
>>> http://pc.ign.com/articles/588/588381p1.html
>>>
>>> 9.2 out of 10.

In article >, PC24 > wrote:
>
>Never heard of the guy. Does he own a wheel.
>Or is he just an EA brown noser ?

Randy has written most of the best racing sim reviews I've had the
pleasure of reading ... for years. Good to see he is still
around. Now off to that review ...