Rushy New Game Director at SMS (Slightly Mad Studios)

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This should be interesting with his and (team) excellent motor racing background (WRC/MotorStorm/DriveClub/OnRush) I wonder what new IP he is working on..Could it be..... Shift Unleashed 3?

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I'm more inclined to think Rushy would be sent to work on the new Fast & Furious title. It would make sense given the experience he has developing excellent arcade racers, and this is bound to fit in with that theme.

Whatever evolves from this project, I'm glad another AAA developer has given Rushy another shot! 👍
 
Damn,i wish he went to Ubisoft and worked on a new Driver game,but SMS is a good fit for him hope he does well there after the Onrush situation.
 
I don't think they have another choice but to work on their Fast & Furious project since they pretty much killed their last franchise with bugs, which has become synonymous with Slightly Mad Studios and their games during their 10 years in the gaming industry.
 
How disappointing. Great guy going to work for a 🤬 company.

Which gaming company you suggest???

Sony and Codemaster failed to use the talents of this guy properly.

PD had the chance to get them into the team but it fell on deaf ears. Codemasters got them and easily discarded them.

I hope SMS uses this guy properly rather than him going to waste thanks to Sony and Codemasters.
 
I don't think they have another choice but to work on their Fast & Furious project since they pretty much killed their last franchise with bugs, which has become synonymous with Slightly Mad Studios and their games during their 10 years in the gaming industry.

And ****** controller handling, don't forget that.

But tbh: PCARS is Bamco's premier racing franchise now. It's effectively replaced Ridge Racer, I think. Certainly doesn't seem like they're going to kill it now when they've conned people into believing SMS's spiel once more.
 
Uh what's wrong with Project Cars?I never played it but i thought it was a good franchise with a reputation of weird bugs
 
Which gaming company you suggest???

I mean, I can think of a studio that's releasing an arcade-oriented racer in just over a month. The studio's based in the UK, and the game will be too. It seems like a great fit! ;)

Glad to see Rushy land somewhere still very much about racing games. SMS is a better place for it — it will be interesting to see what impact he has.
 
But....but....they did test it. Ian told us. Or at least he plugged the controller into a PC....or something like that.
I laughed out loud when I read that in one of the pCARS2 threads where Ian said that. Glad I didn't buy into it. The demo was terrible with the controller. I previosuly couldn't truly enjoy pCARS1 in the long run beacuse of the very same issue and dropped it fairly quickly.
 
I play PCARS2 exclusively with a controller with little trouble. The settings that work best are not as dampened as the typical racing game, but with a little care it is relaxing and easy to play, and the superb physics are worth it. Also, the bugs are mostly fixed now. Not that I expect to change any minds.

Anyway, I'm happy if Paul can bring any game design expertise to the SMS team, because probably my top complaint about PCARS2 is the uninspired career mode and lack of balanced or engaging gameplay to go along with its simulator qualities.
 
I play PCARS2 exclusively with a controller with little trouble. The settings that work best are not as dampened as the typical racing game, but with a little care it is relaxing and easy to play, and the superb physics are worth it.

Sure, but if you are a racing game, you shouldn't need to have to fiddle around with settings just to make it a playable experience on controller, AKA what 85% of your player base will be on. And also, you're expecting the majority of the non-sim population who pick up PCARS 2 to know what half the settings even do, even with the descriptions. Especially considering other hardcore sims, most notably from this generation in DiRT Rally, and older sims in the GTR games, have pretty good pad support right out the box.

The fact that SMS has consistently provided nearly hostile, and in the case of PCARS 2, benign controller support in all of their games going back to NFS SHIFT is ghastly for the market, and I don't know why it isn't harped upon more in sim racing circles. The fact that you need to adjust the settings to get an even somewhat decent pad experience is not acceptable anymore.
 
Sure, but if you are a racing game, you shouldn't need to have to fiddle around with settings just to make it a playable experience on controller, AKA what 85% of your player base will be on. And also, you're expecting the majority of the non-sim population who pick up PCARS 2 to know what half the settings even do, even with the descriptions. Especially considering other hardcore sims, most notably from this generation in DiRT Rally, and older sims in the GTR games, have pretty good pad support right out the box.

The fact that SMS has consistently provided nearly hostile, and in the case of PCARS 2, benign controller support in all of their games going back to NFS SHIFT is ghastly for the market, and I don't know why it isn't harped upon more in sim racing circles. The fact that you need to adjust the settings to get an even somewhat decent pad experience is not acceptable anymore.
That's perfectly fair, and I've also been calling for SMS to do better. But poor default settings is not the same thing as outright "****** controller handling". The analog stick steering and the tire physics have also changed since the version from which the demo was built.

To SMS's credit, looking at the physics and analog stick steering from Shift 2 Unleashed, to PCARS1, to PCARS2 (and its updates) shows steady and very substantial improvements, which is why I don't feel conned and why I'm still interested in what SMS makes next (though maybe not the rumored FnF game). I don't think SMS are hopeless; I think they're basically hamstrung by their limited resources/funding...and probably some mismanagement too. But there's clearly talent in their ranks, IMO.
 
The fact that SMS has consistently provided nearly hostile, and in the case of PCARS 2, benign controller support in all of their games going back to NFS SHIFT is ghastly for the market, and I don't know why it isn't harped upon more in sim racing circles. The fact that you need to adjust the settings to get an even somewhat decent pad experience is not acceptable anymore.

Because in sim racing circles people have wheels. A pad is not a controller for a serious sim racer. It's the semi-casual racers that are playing with pads and have a bad time. And there's plenty of bad press about the controller support in the sorts of places those people speak out. Like GTP. ;)
 
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