It's true though... Pole Position was the first groundbreaking driving game. I have MAME emulator and went through all the phases. Outrun, San Fransisco Rush, etc. My older brother told that Pole Position looked mind blowingly amazing back in the day. It had a sequel too, Pole Position II which had "genuine" tracks like Suzuka and Fuji,
I'm 45 and I remember these games vaguely and my brother had a C64 and I've played all those games. I've seen the whole sim racing development from the day one (maybe not Night Rider and Sprint 2 though) but almost from the beginnings. I think there was a big leap in sim racing when those great Geoff Crammond games came... and the another big leap was RF1... and then around 2013-2014 when RF2 and AC came was the third big leap.
There has never been "fourth leap", really. They haven't managed to bring up anything revolutionary to the gameplay which is kinda surprising. Not dissing EVO as it's in the development stage but at the moment it doesn't drive as well as AC1. Not even close.
Even the AI is still quite poor in most sims. LMU ai is half-decent, ACC too... AMS2 is ok but like I said Codemasters F1 AI is absolutely SUPERIOR to any real sim. LMU is a good driving sim but it's RF2 in a drag... so nothing really revolutionary there, either.
The last 10 years there haven't been anything groundbreaking in sim racing (unless you count VR). That's quite strange. But it's not only driving games... FIFA series has gone backwards (it's pure arcade crap), NHL series is stagnant and I've heard new Madden is worse too.
Maybe we have reached the top. I'd say AC1 with AI fixes would be pretty much perfect sim. It has some blatant issues which probably never get addressed. We might never get another "open platform" to mod, either.
But when you look at the beginnings (Sprint 2, Grand Prix Circuit) it's quite amazing where we are now... and what kind of incredible sims we have. At least we are in much better position than say, football fans (with crap FIFA releases). The standard of driving sims is unbelievably high compared to other sports.
Let's hope Project Motor Racing is worth all the hype.
I had a soft spot for F1 2010, it just felt right for me, after they patched it.
Yeah it was ok. Unfortunately it doesn't work on Windows 11. F12020 is easily the best though. It drives almost the same as 2018, 2019 and 2021 but it has some unexplainable "quality feel" in the graphics and driving that the others don't have. Its position as the GOAT F1 game is well justified. Ironically it has a wrong race calendar (due to COVID) and the Vietnam track that never actualized.
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