Ride 2 (2016)

[Dweller_Benthos]

I'll have to watch that later when I have more time, but a crash in the first minute? Gonna be a good one.

[Art Blade]

yeah, it was a drama with a funny end.. you definitely should watch it entirely

[fragger]

Nice, Art Shame about that get-off at 7:58, you were going great just before that

They've done well with capturing the sensation of riding in that game, it's just like - well, riding a motorcycle. I was doing some involuntary head-tilting there Not that I've ever ridden at that sort of speed, mind you...

A while ago I posted about an Isle Of Man TT game that was being developed. Don't know whatever happened with that, maybe it fell by the wayside.

[Art Blade]

cheers

Usually I ride better than this but after all the chaos before producing this run, I had lost quite a bit of my ability to focus. I keep chuckling when I watch it over and over again, when I smack my head into the walls and such, hehe

I kept my low-level team mates, I had pushed them so far that I thought, hmm.. shall I or shan't I invest those tokens in a high-level rider? But decided not to, instead giving my old team another chance and despite the crazy stuff (the one guy who kept ramming me, my own team mate lol) we actually won. 36:36 but we had more riders farther up the grid when crossing the finish, I guess that's why they lost despite equal scores.

[Art Blade]

actually.. I have to add that the bike's setup is my own. Like, dampers, gear ratio, handle bar.. I got the bike to fit my riding style perfectly well which is what makes the game so much better than just racing bikes.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah I was leaning in my chair as I mentioned in the comments, very immersive. So that guy who kept bumping you was on your team? Needs a talking to, I think.

[Art Blade]

no.. I had him replaced instead.

You may have noticed top right of the screen that blue tab with "tokens" which meanwhile I had increased to 40. If you check the end of the vid, the riders list, I "bought" the most expensive guy for 40 tokens, a level 8 rider (highest level) and made him my so-called right hand. The right hand is always around, is needed for pairs races during which pairs of two form a team and the best team wins, and is (no longer) needed during team vs team races.

It makes me smile reading you guys' comments about leaning and tilting in your chairs, haha, thank you for that

[Art Blade]

Nice, Art Shame about that get-off at 7:58, you were going great just before that

I have to point out that this accident took out a red team guy and allowed my team guys to advance. After the crash, I was sandwiched between two reds and overtook the one in front before hitting the finish and that sealed it for us. So.. after all, a lucky mishap

[Art Blade]

OK so here we go again. Best video quality this time (file size 4.39GB, upload time 01:11:00, processing time at YouTube 00:07:35) and NO CRASHING into walls and team mates and the likes, just full speed

Videos that big usually take a little time after uploading to finish what I call "post processing" so right now it will be blurry and pixelated but that should settle within, well, minutes. Or hours.

Edit: Now it seems to have cooled down and reached its normal quality. However, here at home, my original is of far better quality. YouTube seems to have problems with very fast races, many of the fast passages are blurry and pixelated, also other parts are not what I expected and what they should have looked like. I think it's casting pearls before swine recording at such a high quality and all that if it gets mashed to pulp by YouTube. I might as well use lower settings as in the vid before.

After my last vid, becoming team #1, this amendment is for you so you can watch a faster and crash-free race lol I changed the gear ratio a bit to get more acceleration and could actually make use of the 6th gear. Also, I had the team mate replaced who kept ramming me and the new guy is doing a good job. We won 39 : 33 this time Have fun. The bike I was riding during the race is a Kawasaki "Ninja ZX10R BSB Team: JG Speedfit Kawasaki" which was a prize for winning the Invitational Event 13. I think it's the best racing super bike.

[Art Blade]

wow.. you know what.. check the speedo in the first vid for mileage, and then the second vid.. the bike actually keeps racking up mileage!

[fragger]

Very cool mate Nice ride!

I was having a look at stuff in the background as well. You don't get to rubberneck at the view when you're racing They've done a pretty good job with the surrounding environment.

I presume you can turn off those race-line indicators/arrowhead things if you want?

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah Youtube really puts some heavy compression on, makes some parts look pretty bad. But the race was cool, and nice to see you in first place for most of it, and so far ahead at the end that the other racers weren't even on the minimap.

[Art Blade]

thank you, guys

fragger, yes, you can use that line all the way, only for corners (which I used) or none at all. It's better to keep it for corners if you're not completely familiar with a track which was the case here. Otherwise you might not slow down early enough to catch the corner, or even slam straight into a wall not expecting there to be a turn just then And that's quite annoying during comparably lengthy races like this one. "Comparably" meaning it took about 8 minutes for 3 laps of some 6km/3.7mi each but there are racetracks like the Nürburgring full circuit of about 22km/14mi per lap which is very long and some that are only like 1/10 of that. And races by default are 3 laps but may be set anywhere between 1 to 40 laps.. you really don't want to fail only because you missed a corner or were racing towards one at too high a speed. And I do notice the background and trees and signs, especially when crashing into them.. it's not as if I had eyes only for the road ahead

Dweller, it is nice to pull away and stay away from the pack but truth be told, this was a race against very easy AI. That, however, doesn't make "realistic AI" (highest difficulty) any smarter or very easy AI a lot slower. I've got a favourite small race track in Greece I know by heart and there I don't use the guiding line at all, and I raced and won against "realistic AI" almost as comfortably as here in Macau against very easy AI. But if you don't know the track by heart, even very easy AI is capable of beating you, see the first vid which I only won thanks to crazy circumstances and my team mates scoring just enough to get away with a 36:36 win

Well, your comment on YouTube, trying to help me by rocking in your chair, hehe, but not always being successful, also telling fragger that I usually ride better, made me consider and finally do what I did: a race without crashes just to show you guys that I actually know how to win that damn race properly

[fragger]

I only asked about the guides because that is how I would approach it too - I'd have them on until I became familiar enough with the track to feel confident enough to turn them off.

Just on the subject of bike racing games, I looked into that Isle of Man one and it did in fact get completed and released. The real event is not a race per se, but a time-trial where the riders are released one at a time, one every ten seconds. Whoever gets around the long circuit (67 km, or 38 miles) in the shortest time wins. It's an absolutely insane event which has seen over 250 fatalities during its long history. I'm surprised they still allow it, actually.

For the game, the entire circuit was meticulously laser-scanned, and every house, tree, bush and mark on the road is authentic. I've watched a few real on-board laps of the circuit over the years and from what I can remember, it looks spot-on. I recognize quite a number of places along the route. There's a building on the right at 8:29 in the gameplay video below (I think it's a pub) which was the scene of a horrific accident in 2014 when a rider named Bob Price went in a little too fast and wide, got airborne, left the road and hurtled straight into that wall. The footage is on YT somewhere, if you're ghoulish enough to look for it.

Here's a complete lap from the game. It looks incredible, near photorealistic, down to the way the sunlight shines on the bug-splats on the fairing. This player makes a couple of boo-boos, but does pretty well overall. There are other clips (didn't want to watch all of them) and I saw one where the player did a much better job, but the video quality wasn't as good. If you were to watch this without having ever seen or heard of the real event, you'd be like, "Yeah, right, as if something like this would actually exist". Props to the player, he must have spent some time getting to know the course to get around it without aids (if the game has any) even if he does have a couple of hiccups.

Real riders spend at least a year getting to know this circuit. They have to - making a mistake can mean kissing a stone wall - or the corner of a pub - at over 200 kph.

[Art Blade]

How did he get that quality???

I remember it from back in the day, also having watched quite a few real on-board recordings and some reports about crashes. Impressive indeed.

One comment on YouTube: "this would be mental in VR" -- oh yes..

As to your thoughts on assists,
"Props to the player, he must have spent some time getting to know the course to get around it without aids (if the game has any)"

He actually wrote about it in the description:
"All assists are on for now except for racing line. I tried it without any assists and I literally couldn't stay on the thing, so I would definitely start with them on, especially anti-wheelie and anti-stoppie."

That makes me realise I never mentioned that in my vids all assists are switched off, like anti-wheelie, brake assists, automatic gear shifts.. all that and more, but two or three: the obvious one is the racing line which I switch on and off depending on my progress, the second one is only due to the controller design and is called "auto tuck in." That is a feature which makes the rider duck behind the windscreen at higher speeds and get up when braking, simply put, and you can tell from my vids how good you can or can't see the dashboard. It would require me to use my thumb to keep the (Y) button pressed which is positioned on top of an imaginary cross like the D-Pad, the same thumb is used for shifting gears which would be left and right of the cross, also for rear brakes down on the cross. It is absolute nonsense to raise your body at top speeds only because you're shifting gears. It would tear me right off the bike I suppose I also mostly (for high powered high speed races) use an aid that when I use the front brake, it automatically applies the rear brake. But that is again due more to the fact that it is very inconveniently placed on the controller. I like to shift gears down while braking into a corner which would be impossible for the rear brake as I'd have to release that button in order to shift gears, and it really feels weird to use an index finger squeezing the trigger (which is okay) on your left and a thumb on your right pressing down a button and back up left and right to continue shifting gears.

In other words, the only actual aid I use is the racing line.