- 26,911
- Houston, Texas, USA
- JMarine25
Hello, people. Happy forthcoming holidays!
As you noticed in Gran Turismo 2, street courses have become more apparent. Rome. Grindelwald. Seattle.
You look at GT3, there is Seattle, Rome, Tokyo, Monte Carlo (actual circuit, but I hope Tokyo would make a wonderful JGTC race, just add more pits), and so on.
With GT4 to add New York and Paris and all, I've opened this topic to discuss the popularity of street courses in the game. I'll begin, as my voice counts as a voice of opinion.
Adding real cities to ANY video game shows quality in how accurate a track looks in real life. The Monte Carlo street race run by F1 was designed beautifully by Polyphony Digital. But adding a new race track based on actual city streets is pretty authentic and wonderful. Here is a website where you can find a picture of Tokyo. The Tokyo R246 is a collection of 4 different map samples. If you know the configuration of R246, finding it in this map is almost very easy:
http://www.worldexecutive.com/cityguides/tokyo/maps.html
See if you can find the Tokyo R246 course. Anyhow, I think when it comes to selecting these courses, there are several considerations. One of them is challenge. The CHALLENGE of a track is based on what kind of track you want to present the racer with. Is the track going to be long and twisty, or short and slow, or what does the editor have in mind? The next element is PRACTICALITY. Don't just make up a track simply because you want to represent that city in a game. It is okay to represent, but you want to present a challenge that is good enough to keep anyone on their toes. Another element is ENVIRONMENT EFFECTIVENESS. Is the race held in a park, the suburbs, downtown, a combination of different streets, or what? The fantasy course Special Stage Route 11 looks to be starting from downtown, to the suburbs, to the port, and all the way back to downtown. The mix of environments is very effective since the course is dazzling from almost any aspect. Outside of the GT Series, the fantasy Ridge City in Ridge Racer V has one large city with several different environments. You can choose from the long-time traditional course "Sunny Beach" to the challenging "Bayside Line", and both of which combine different elements of the city, and it all looks exceptionally well, even since this game is pretty obsolete now. The final element would be in putting it all together to build a competitive race track. This would be the COMPILATION element.
As an observer, I once had an idea of a street course for my hometown of Houston, Texas, USA. The beautiful Galleria area here in Houston would serve as the site of the race track. I pictured a race track with the start/finish at the front doors to what was Neiman Marcus (I don't know if it is still there or not), and afterwards, I haven't planned the track concept very well. if GT4 takes advantage of day-to-night cycles, I'd like the event to be run in the evening, then go into nighttime. Why? Because I love nighttime. I can imagine that night race as a Saturday Night Street race in my favorite part of Houston, Texas. Care to discuss the street course popularity in GT? Want to add other tracks to the list (i.e. Sydney, London, Los Angeles, Toronto, Le Mans (the city), Moscow, etc.)? Post away!
As you noticed in Gran Turismo 2, street courses have become more apparent. Rome. Grindelwald. Seattle.
You look at GT3, there is Seattle, Rome, Tokyo, Monte Carlo (actual circuit, but I hope Tokyo would make a wonderful JGTC race, just add more pits), and so on.
With GT4 to add New York and Paris and all, I've opened this topic to discuss the popularity of street courses in the game. I'll begin, as my voice counts as a voice of opinion.
Adding real cities to ANY video game shows quality in how accurate a track looks in real life. The Monte Carlo street race run by F1 was designed beautifully by Polyphony Digital. But adding a new race track based on actual city streets is pretty authentic and wonderful. Here is a website where you can find a picture of Tokyo. The Tokyo R246 is a collection of 4 different map samples. If you know the configuration of R246, finding it in this map is almost very easy:
http://www.worldexecutive.com/cityguides/tokyo/maps.html
See if you can find the Tokyo R246 course. Anyhow, I think when it comes to selecting these courses, there are several considerations. One of them is challenge. The CHALLENGE of a track is based on what kind of track you want to present the racer with. Is the track going to be long and twisty, or short and slow, or what does the editor have in mind? The next element is PRACTICALITY. Don't just make up a track simply because you want to represent that city in a game. It is okay to represent, but you want to present a challenge that is good enough to keep anyone on their toes. Another element is ENVIRONMENT EFFECTIVENESS. Is the race held in a park, the suburbs, downtown, a combination of different streets, or what? The fantasy course Special Stage Route 11 looks to be starting from downtown, to the suburbs, to the port, and all the way back to downtown. The mix of environments is very effective since the course is dazzling from almost any aspect. Outside of the GT Series, the fantasy Ridge City in Ridge Racer V has one large city with several different environments. You can choose from the long-time traditional course "Sunny Beach" to the challenging "Bayside Line", and both of which combine different elements of the city, and it all looks exceptionally well, even since this game is pretty obsolete now. The final element would be in putting it all together to build a competitive race track. This would be the COMPILATION element.
As an observer, I once had an idea of a street course for my hometown of Houston, Texas, USA. The beautiful Galleria area here in Houston would serve as the site of the race track. I pictured a race track with the start/finish at the front doors to what was Neiman Marcus (I don't know if it is still there or not), and afterwards, I haven't planned the track concept very well. if GT4 takes advantage of day-to-night cycles, I'd like the event to be run in the evening, then go into nighttime. Why? Because I love nighttime. I can imagine that night race as a Saturday Night Street race in my favorite part of Houston, Texas. Care to discuss the street course popularity in GT? Want to add other tracks to the list (i.e. Sydney, London, Los Angeles, Toronto, Le Mans (the city), Moscow, etc.)? Post away!
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Must say I love all the "City Tracks" even though all but Cote are "Fantasies." Just so much more "Backround" & lots of details.👍 Before New York, Hong Kong, Paris etc. were announced for GT4 I thought of another format that "Might" be fun. How about "Regional" tracks with Famous Landmarks? 
