Driving a road car on street tires, even in a spirited manor is very far removed from the type of driving one would do when pushing a car on a track to the limits of grip and adhesion. And I don't speak from a well of knowledge. I've done some autocrossing, some track time at a few different circuits (always in a road car) and attended a two day high performance driving school. It's not much. But I can tell you this. When you really push yourself and your vehicle to the limit under closed conditions, it's a very different experience than hustling around on a desolate mountain road. You begin to quickly realize just what your vehicle is truly capable of (or isn't) and cars that may feel just great and quite sporty on a tight, twisty road, can suddenly feel out of place and rather unsettled on a track.
So comparisons with our road cars are in many cases, largely academic. When one considers that we're often pushing to our limits in our racing sims, and from time to time, throwing our virtual cars off the road repeatedly in an effort to gain those precious few 10ths, those sensations of grip, loss of grip, oversteer, understeer, threshold braking, and extreme weight transfer are never felt in the same extreme way when we're driving our road cars (or mini van in Biggles' case
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And perhaps more importantly, even for wheel users, we will never be able to have the same sensory input one derives from driving a real car. The lateral forces on your body, the peripheral perspective, the sights, the smells, all of these and more contribute to the overall experience and help us drive our cars. For most people, it's much easier to find, let's say, the limit of cornering grip in a real car than it is in a racing sim. Because all of the additional stimuli that we experience in the real world, form together and help in this process. And as such, game designers purposely engineer certain aids into their games, whether that be the oversteer correction, exaggerated force feedback to feel oversteer or understeer, visually shaking the screen to exaggerate the sense of speed, etc, to help convey these things that are otherwise missing while sitting in front of your TV.
And each designer takes a different approach. And what we feel is realistic or not realistic is often times down to our own personal opinion. But when you strip ALL of that away and are left with how the car interacts and responds on the road, just the base physics modeling, you have what's really the heart and soul of any racing game. That's what REALLY matters. And in this, I think Shift simply falls short. And I can't get past it. And no matter how much I like and enjoy it's other fine attributes, I'm left wanting. And grumbling.
I wish SCC had the visual richness of Shift. And maybe a few additional tracks over Ferrari Challenge. But what is does, it does VERY well. And in my opinion the tweaks made to the physics modeling of this game compared to Ferrari Challenge, subtle though they may be, are well thought out and worth the price of admission. Even, dare I say it, the FULL price of admission. And I have no regrets about buying it.
Is it more 'realistic' than Shift? In how the cars react and respond, I think so, yes. In how it feels? I guess that's down to personal opinion.
First you praise it, then you dont, now you do again... sort of a love, hate thing you got going there 
I think the problem is its trying to be a jack of all trades as I readin one of the reviews and thats what bugs a lot of people I think.... You cant say its a Sim buts its not all arcade either....
it's second to none. I'm also very happy with some little things, the very effective clutch support on the G25, the sensation of reaching the limit of adhesion under braking, the great selection of tracks, etc. I could go on and on but I don't want to turn this thread into a SCC vs Shift debate. And I'm well aware of the pros and cons of both.
), while the other has a more convincing 150BHP (or so) from a straight 6 2.3 litre engine. The later one I droved it (and occasionally do...) on a "racing" drive stile "a gincana" type of thing.
). Why? Precisely because of what I say on my last post. I don't get that feedback I'd expected from the grip loss progressively to adjust the speed accordingly smoothly. So either I'm too cautious and slow entering the corners or, in opposition, too fast and end up checking the advertise boards... I have (I admit it can be just me) difficulty in getting communication from the car/track to fix a race line/braking points that I'm comfortable enough so I could draw consistent lap times. Not talking of fast ones (if so, the better) but at least consistent ones.
a thousand times I beg for your forgiveness...
