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- Houston, Texas, USA
- JMarine25
Now that Spring Break has started for me, I decided I'd give out a game review, after my Chatting experience was shortlived for the night.
GTPlanet, I think it's time I reviewed a game that is a somewhat old, but has endured in my Gran Turismo posts, Le Mans 24 Hours.
Le Mans 24 Hours is by far one of the best sportscar games other than Gran Turismo. Of course, LM24 does not have the Gran Turismo style of racing and tuning, but this game provides a lot of bang for your buck. Unlike Test Drive Le Mans for PS1, you can race on more tracks (should I say, more real tracks). TDLM features Suzuka, Donnington Park, Bugatti, Brno (pronounced: "broon-oh"), Catalunya, Road Atlanta, and of course, Le Mans. When racing in Quick Race, you are given cars from older Le Mans races. These include the Audi R8C, the Panoz LMP Roadster, Chrsyler Viper GTS-R, and Porsche 911 GT3 to name a few. Then you can race with cars from Le Mans 2000 (meaning, there won't be a Toyota GT-One, sadly, I know TS020 would be p... ticked off). But there is a catch to the LM2000 cars, you can only race them in Le Mans 2000 mode. Other than that, you're stuck with the sportscars before 2000.
LM24H has chrome mapping, and it is done pretty well. You get a great shine from your cars, but then you realize that nothing reflects too well in the game. The action is heated. You can race up to 24 different competitors. For those who like big packs and lots of competition, come get your fill with this game. That does, however, come at the expense of long loading times. If you were to compare LM24 to a race and a six-car race in Gran Turismo, GT load times would be about... maybe 2x faster. The most impressive aspect of the game is, of course, the Le Mans endurance. And you can also race Road Atlanta's Petit Le Mans. With Petit Le Mans, you can take your old cars and compete anywhere from 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 100 minutes, or 10 hours. With Le Mans 2000, you can race anywhere from 10 minutes, 24 minutes, 240 minutes (4 hours), or 24 hours. The longer you race, and the ones you actually win, you get your hands on some shiny new exotic muscle. In the game, I am doing 10 hours at PLM and 24 hours at LM. Don't think you can play one game that long? That's why there are save points. All you have to do is make a pit stop and choose Save. Then you'll be able to resume your race from the pits. The cons of this game have to be the unrealistic lap times for Time Trial. For example, racing Suzuka East, I raced my Panoz LMP and acheived a time of "0.40.919." The goal time for this course was 40 seconds flat.
And now, let me say more about the Le Mans races. The endurance races have the sun actually do down, and the sunshine and mostly clear skies give way to sunset, the night, and the stars. Afterwards, the lights all come on in real time both on the track and on your car. For some cars, the little sparkle of light can get messed up and inaccurate (unlock the Audi R8 for Le Mans 2000 and go into night, and you'll see what I mean). There are also realistic weather changes. When you note that the skies look darker than usual, you begin to see some sprinkles, then some more rain, all the way to HEAVY RAIN. Once, I raced for a championship at Brno, and the skies were alright, then the skies darkened, and the rain came down in buckets! And of course, the rain drops get on to your camera in Chase View. Le Mans 24 Hours does a good job, but Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 kind of have more realistic drops of rain, and I'm talking about for a racing game. But MotoGP 2 has the worst case. If you're racing in the wet in that game, you will see very little, and the rain drops get to be insane (PD might want to look into this if they want to see this in GT5).
But for the most part, I talk about games like this for a reason. Le Mans 24 Hours is one of those games that you have to buy if you don't have it already. So out of a 10 score, I'll give it an 8.8.
GTPlanet, I think it's time I reviewed a game that is a somewhat old, but has endured in my Gran Turismo posts, Le Mans 24 Hours.
Le Mans 24 Hours is by far one of the best sportscar games other than Gran Turismo. Of course, LM24 does not have the Gran Turismo style of racing and tuning, but this game provides a lot of bang for your buck. Unlike Test Drive Le Mans for PS1, you can race on more tracks (should I say, more real tracks). TDLM features Suzuka, Donnington Park, Bugatti, Brno (pronounced: "broon-oh"), Catalunya, Road Atlanta, and of course, Le Mans. When racing in Quick Race, you are given cars from older Le Mans races. These include the Audi R8C, the Panoz LMP Roadster, Chrsyler Viper GTS-R, and Porsche 911 GT3 to name a few. Then you can race with cars from Le Mans 2000 (meaning, there won't be a Toyota GT-One, sadly, I know TS020 would be p... ticked off). But there is a catch to the LM2000 cars, you can only race them in Le Mans 2000 mode. Other than that, you're stuck with the sportscars before 2000.
LM24H has chrome mapping, and it is done pretty well. You get a great shine from your cars, but then you realize that nothing reflects too well in the game. The action is heated. You can race up to 24 different competitors. For those who like big packs and lots of competition, come get your fill with this game. That does, however, come at the expense of long loading times. If you were to compare LM24 to a race and a six-car race in Gran Turismo, GT load times would be about... maybe 2x faster. The most impressive aspect of the game is, of course, the Le Mans endurance. And you can also race Road Atlanta's Petit Le Mans. With Petit Le Mans, you can take your old cars and compete anywhere from 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 100 minutes, or 10 hours. With Le Mans 2000, you can race anywhere from 10 minutes, 24 minutes, 240 minutes (4 hours), or 24 hours. The longer you race, and the ones you actually win, you get your hands on some shiny new exotic muscle. In the game, I am doing 10 hours at PLM and 24 hours at LM. Don't think you can play one game that long? That's why there are save points. All you have to do is make a pit stop and choose Save. Then you'll be able to resume your race from the pits. The cons of this game have to be the unrealistic lap times for Time Trial. For example, racing Suzuka East, I raced my Panoz LMP and acheived a time of "0.40.919." The goal time for this course was 40 seconds flat.
And now, let me say more about the Le Mans races. The endurance races have the sun actually do down, and the sunshine and mostly clear skies give way to sunset, the night, and the stars. Afterwards, the lights all come on in real time both on the track and on your car. For some cars, the little sparkle of light can get messed up and inaccurate (unlock the Audi R8 for Le Mans 2000 and go into night, and you'll see what I mean). There are also realistic weather changes. When you note that the skies look darker than usual, you begin to see some sprinkles, then some more rain, all the way to HEAVY RAIN. Once, I raced for a championship at Brno, and the skies were alright, then the skies darkened, and the rain came down in buckets! And of course, the rain drops get on to your camera in Chase View. Le Mans 24 Hours does a good job, but Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 kind of have more realistic drops of rain, and I'm talking about for a racing game. But MotoGP 2 has the worst case. If you're racing in the wet in that game, you will see very little, and the rain drops get to be insane (PD might want to look into this if they want to see this in GT5).
But for the most part, I talk about games like this for a reason. Le Mans 24 Hours is one of those games that you have to buy if you don't have it already. So out of a 10 score, I'll give it an 8.8.
Im soo p... ticked off
....anyway you said you liked it so much...well there´s a thread somewhere at RSC where they where some guys reporting from a 24hr race they did(on PS2) with this game and it was "live"...can show it to you if you want!
