This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet: This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on October 13th, 2020 in the DIRT 5 category.
I can't abide racing games that try to inject a "story" into the career mode, with different characters that you are supposed to find interesting. Just give me the next event please, lots of good vehicles, tracks and visuals etc, and let me earn credits or whatever to build up my garage. No interest in the lives and angsts of cardboard characters, and having to listen to their inane drivel, thank you very much. I don't like watching cornball soap operas on TV so please don't import them into racing games.
How do you stop the career becoming a checklist simulator in that scenario? I understand your point but one of the criticisms of games like GRID was that there was no life to the career. It's a tricky thing to get right unless you go deep into management features, like in WRC 8 or F1 2020's My Team mode.
The two greatest racing franchises are Gran Turismo and Forza. Neither do "storylines", thank God. Only a minority of racing games need to insert a story into the career mode. I don't accept that the absence of cornball stories makes the game into a check-list simulator. If you are interested in racing, then you are interested in doing races. If you like stories, OK, everyone's different, but I can't stand them. I still shudder at the recollection of Test Drive 2 and the constant reminders of what all the characters were doing.
Debatable, certainly in a modern context. At what point does someone grow tired of doing one off races or championships that only seem to exist in a vacuum? One doesn't need to do a full blown story in order to do something more - the original GRID and Ridge Racer Type 4 are good examples of using the world in order to advance a racing game, and last I heard, these games are incredibly well regarded. This sort of aversion to any sort of actual interesting elements in a racing game, story included, to instead to focus on MORE REALISM AND MAKE IT EVEN HARDER!!! is truly mind boggling for a genre that could probably use some loosening up. Granted, I am certainly weary for many reasons considering who makes this game, but considering they're the only ones who actually seem to get this concept of needing to push the racing game genre in a way that isn't simply realism and more realistic graphics, maybe one should listen to them in some regards. Really, it's the same sort of regressive behavior that comes from people quoting that John Carmack quote about story in an FPS being like story in a porno - things change. They absolutely should change, if the genre has any hope of actually evolving in any way that isn't what the rapidly shrinking market seems to think is evolution. GRID 2019 had a lot of problems to warrant that qualifier that aren't story related. Certainly, moronic AI that gave absolutely no fight, boring three lap affairs and weak racing overall contributes to a dead feeling career mode, compounded by the career mode being a literal checklist of events that aren't fun.
Dirt 5 "story" don't seem to impact the game much like the original GRID and I do think having a bit of narative that doesn't interupt the gameplay directly can be good. We don't find those as checklist simulator since we do enjoy racing games for its cars and track content, the casual audience or folks new to racing will need more progression and motivation to run through the game. One of my friend only bother to play Need for Speed for racing genre because of the sense of progression and the story helps even when it is done poorly, games like Forza just feels pointless to him but he could easily sink 300 hours into Diablo 3 for the grind.