Enthusia hands on impressions

  • Thread starter Adam West
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Adam West

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I bought the new OPSM and it had the demo!!!

There are four tracks to choose from. Speediapolis, marco strada, and two more i think, but i can't remember the names. NO 'ring i'm afraid.

Depending on the track you choose they give you different cars for it. I picked a tracka nd chose the R32 volkswagen. On to the driving imrpessions then:

The demo, first of all, has a date of Dec'04. Since then at least one thing has changed, mainly the visual gravity indicator.

The default control option has a clutch on L1. The itneresting thing is that R analoge button is designated to 'camera', which is different from the button to change perspective. So you are forced to accelerate with the X button.

Physics-wise this feels like Gran Turismo...if gran turismo was 5x more realistic. That is, it's like GT but without all the holding of hands. It makes GT3 seem arcade as it actually is and it is more realistic than GT4. The R32 was hard to throw around. Later i tried the little Miata from teh movies of the game and it handled very much alike a totally different car from the R32.

Drifting seem easy enough althouh i can't look at the VGS and race at the same time. I also tried the Audi Race car. They only let you race it on the oval track. TI got up to about 200mph and the sense of speed was great. AS you go faster the peripheral view bcomes distorted and fades, giving you a great sense of speed.

My beef with the game that i noticed are the following:

Collission with walls seems GT-ish. That is, you kinda bounce off. Also i was not blown away by the engine sounds. I was playing on a crappy TV (19" WEGA) but the sounds didn't stand out. The best sounds for me still belong to Juiced.

As i was playing the game i coudln't help but to ask myself how the casual gamers will take to these physics. The game had aids turned on (TCS) and it was still very challenging to drive properly. I

Be back with more imrpessions as i play more.

ps., the game doth delivers if you're looking for a console SIM that's more SIM than GT4.
 
Thanks for the impressions, I hope you can come up with more info about the demo soon. Maybe some pics or videos. :)
 
GTR? Ha.

GTR doesn't have Skylines or stock Subaru's, so it's hard to say.

The game is more comparable to LFS. But i need to play it more and play it with teh DFP.
 
Hiya! :D :embarrassed: :lol: Meow! (='.'=)

Is the graphics better than GT4? (in your opinion)

Just from playing the demo as an impression, do you think its worth 49.99?

Thanks for the review! Come back and give us more! :embarrassed:
 
YES!! i want uber realistic physics!! screw mainstream if they dont like it. :) sux for the developers's and publishers pockets though if the mainstream audience doesnt like it.
 
Damn, my issue didn't come today. So I guess that means I'll have to wait until Monday, or even later. Sounds like the game is going to be harder than GT4. Does the wheel work with the demo? Or is Konami not going to use it?
 
Yeah, I seem to get it right after everyone else, too..

Sucks about the X button thing, though.. I've never used X for gas.. ever.

I'll be trying the wheel, but I'm not going to hold my breath.. in principle, it should work, but the fact that it's a multi-game demo disc seems to prevent the wheel from intializing, so it probably won't work.
 
evilgnome
Anychance for people outside the US to get a copy of the demo??
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Yes there is, it´s called internet. :P

And why are people getting OPM´s april issue already if we´re on the begining of march?
 
I'm guessing the game will be all hype to tell you the truth. I hate just about every other racing sim out there besides the GT series. Hopefully Forza will change my mind on that one. There has been other games that try to take on GT and fail. I hate games that have way to realistic or over realistic physics. I want to be entertained not frusturated.
 
well, for me realism is fun. the more realistic, the more fun. that is the mindset of a true simjunky. :) the average gamer will hate a game if it requires too much skill or is too hard. So.. wee shall see if Enthusia is really gonna put their balls to the wall when it comes to physics. I hope they do.. But if they do we probably wont see an Enthusia 2 sadly....


There's a chance it might sell well and be more realistic than gt4.. just a small chance.
 
I guess I will have to go pick up a copy of the magazine tomarrow just so I can give the demo a try.
 
does anyone have a link to the magazines website or anything? i want to know which magazine exactly has it.
 
Most magazines, videogames or otherwise, are always at least a month ahead of the time they come out, date wise.

I tested out the Astorn martin DB5 i think. Pretty nice car. All stock cars are very challenging to drive all out. The clutch feature really makes this game very deep, although i'm not used to having it so i haven't used it fully yet. But for instance, now you can keep your revs up whilst braking.

Collisions are the only thing that's a bit disappointing since nothing special happens - you sort of slow down. The game's TCS can't be disabled though so you can't do donuts because you can't do burnouts.

From the three tracks and cars they have, i would say that the game is much more demanding than GT4. It's a hell of a lot harder getting a good clean lap than it's on GT4. I haven't been able to try out the DFP but i someone else said that the DF works with the demo.
 
BlazinXtreme
I'm guessing the game will be all hype to tell you the truth. I hate just about every other racing sim out there besides the GT series. Hopefully Forza will change my mind on that one. There has been other games that try to take on GT and fail. I hate games that have way to realistic or over realistic physics. I want to be entertained not frusturated.
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can you please explain to me how a game can have "over realistic physics"? either they are realistic or they are not, there's no such thing as "overrealistic".
 
Many developers claim that their games have realistic physics.But they don't.By overrealistic he probably meant very real.And let me tell you something.In the world of racing games 10% is a SIM racer, the other 90% goes and buys GT4.So if Konami don't add some options to ease up the gameplay a bit,i doubt this game will be a hit.
 
arcade style games are more bought by a bigger public. Sim's are for the real hard core fans.

Most people want to have a race with a car they like and don't want to spend some time in the settings and tuning of a car.
 
an extra post with some questions. Does the demo has an offroad track? And do the car(s) get dirty like we see in the videoclips. And how about the skidmarks. Are they in the demo because on some screenshot I saw skidmarks
 
Liquid Li0n
arcade style games are more bought by a bigger public. Sim's are for the real hard core fans.

Most people want to have a race with a car they like and don't want to spend some time in the settings and tuning of a car.
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enthusia's focus is going to be on drivers skill more than tuning.

Its going to have offroad tracks an even a random offroad generator. :)
 
Well, got my OPM today and just took Enthusia for a whirl.

First off, the DFP DOES work with the demo. The wheel won't initialize until you actually go into the Enthusia demo, but it does work, and in 900 mode.

So, my impressions:

GRAPHICS: Quite nice-looking, but they don't look as realistic as GT4's. It's kind of like Forza, in a way.. they got all the ideas right, with decent detail, textures, lighting, etc, but it just doesn't quite look as polished as GT.

CONTROL/PHYSICS: Definitely different from GT. The wheel feels very different.. the "pull" back to center is smoother, but stronger than in GT, but it's also constant.. it doesn't get any stronger the further you turn the wheel. There is virtually no feedback at all unless you hit something.. in GT4, you can almost "feel" the road, and you can feel when you're about to lose traction.. Enthusia doesn't have any of that, or else I'm too attuned to GT4's wheel-feel to notice. The cars seem... I dunno... I don't want to say "floaty", but again, you just can't feel the road.. it doesn't have that same sense of "I'm driving a car" that GT has. The cars do have the same "thou shalt not turn under braking" understeer issue that a lot of people complained about in GT4.. so I'm guessing it's a legitimate phenomenon, since both games have it. Understeer AND oversteer in one small package... you've got to slow down a bit to go 'round the corners, and once you do, you nearly always overshoot.. it's like the car continues to turn a little even after you've straightened the wheel (so you end up having to countersteer after exiting almost every corner).

SOUND: Hard to tell.. they've got this cheesy Japanese elevator music playing during all the races, so it's hard to hear the engines. From what I did hear, though, they sound very similar to GT's engines. I also don't recall hearing much, if any, tire squeal, which is another pretty important indicator for traction.

The sense of speed isn't really there, either.. they've added some sort of wacky edge-blurring effect when you go fast, which makes the edges of the screen "streak" (most noticable on the first track, the speedway, when you're using LM race cars). But it's more distracting than anything else, and doesn't really make it feel any faster.

Overall... it DOES look like it's going to be a good racing game, I'll give it that. It's got all the right parts. But it's just not as... refined as GT. The non-interactive control, no real sense of speed, not-quite-realistic graphics.. A good attempt at making a GT Clone, but that's all it is... a GT clone. GT-killer it ain't. Not entirely sure I'm going to get this one.

However, I will NOT say "it sucks" or "don't buy it"... This is my opinion, and my opinion only. If you're thinking about getting it, pick up the OPM and give it a whirl, don't just listen to this crotchety old man. :)
 
Thanks for the impressions Jedi, but did you try it with the DS2? I would like to know if it´s the same feeling (or lack of it) that you have with the DFP.

And what about the frame rate. Is it 30 or 60?
 
FatAssBR
Thanks for the impressions Jedi, but did you try it with the DS2? I would like to know if it´s the same feeling (or lack of it) that you have with the DFP.

And what about the frame rate. Is it 30 or 60?
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I don't think I'd be able to drive it with the DS2.. I certainly wouldn't be able to compare it, since I've never driven GT4 with the controller. I also have never used "X" for gas... I've always used the right analog stick, all the way back to GT1, so it'd be all weird (the right stick is some sort of camera control now). I might give it a whirl a little later, see what happens. Find out what that right stick does, at any rate.

Although I can't fully remember, I believe the frame-rate was 60fps.. I actually wasn't looking for that, but I didn't get the "this don't look right" feeling when I switch from 60fps down to 30, so I think it's 60. Very smooth, at any rate. I'll check again next time I pop it in.
 
Okay, slight update:

Control actually seems a little easier with the DS2, except for the "X" button thing.. the right stick doesn't seem to do anything at all, I hope that control is adjustable in the final version.. put the gas/brake where it belongs.

Frame rate is a solid 60fps.

The cars do still seem a bit "off" in control.. I think the cause more noticable with the controller than with the wheel. What is is that there's a slight delay in the steering. When you turn the wheel or move the analog stick, the car doesn't do anything right away. It's like you have to wait for the tires to grip the road or something. This is also what's causing the oversteer problem coming out of corners.. you straighten out the wheel/stick at the right time, but the car's wheels don't turn back straight right away. It's like the game can't quite move the wheels as fast as you want them to move. Which definitely results in a somewhat "floaty" feel, since the car isn't responding right away when you steer it. Gas and brake are instantaneous, though.

One other graphical note I didn't mention before: One of the tracks takes place in the rain, which is a one-up on GT. In addition to the usual wet road surface look, there's also active raindrops falling, which are more plentiful and more realistic than those in NFSU2. And, icing on the cake, is raindrops on your "windshield". And as you go faster, those drops get pushed UP and off the screen (just like they would on any real car). Not really noticable (and thankfully not distracting), but a nice touch.

The demo also has no replays.. when you're done with the race, it shows you your lap analysis (when you were braking/accelerating, where you hit your top speed, where you overtook, or were overtaken by, your opponent), then it simply exits the demo entirely, so you've got to start the demo over again after every race.

There is tire squeal, but compared to the music and engine noise, it's very quiet, so you've really got to be listening for it. Pity you can't turn the music off in the demo.. it drowns out virtually everything else.
 
Hey, thanks for playing it with the DS2 so you could tell how does it feel.

Now if you could just post a few pics or videos.... :D
 
That I can't do, I'm afraid.. hehe. My PS2 is downstairs, on the precise opposite end of the house than my computer, and I have no hardware or software to capture anything.

I'm sure someone does, though. :)
 

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