In today's world, most if not every gamer played or heard of the Need for Speed franchise but it never was a game that was realistic in terms of physics. Sure it's a nice, arcade racer with which you can have a lot of fun but it is not everyone's cup of tea. Their is that special kind of gamers, the ones that know the difference between camber and toe, the guys that find Need for Speed too chav-ish, too boring, too annoying and I'm pretty sure you realized by now that I'm speaking about the racing simulator enthusiasts. Well this bunch likes the kind of games which require a steering wheel to be able to actually drive without crashing in the first turn. Not a lot of games in this niche since it targets a small category of players but the ones that deserve mentioning are: iRacing, rFactor and the game I'm going to review, Live for Speed.
You probably never heard of it, due to the fact it isn't advertised , but never the less it's one of the best car simulators out there. It's a game that strongly relies on it's online community without which, it wouldn't even be half as fun.
You start by going on their main page , www.lfs.net , and creating an account, after which you download a copy from any of the download mirrors , preferably the closest to you. Next you install the game, create a profile as you would in any game, set up your steering wheel or your mouse since using the keyboard is as pointless as killing a mule by insulting it to death. After completing the steps above you'll be "demo licensed". A "demo license" will give you limited content which will only consist of 3 cars: a front wheel drive hatchback, a rear wheel drive reasonably powered coupe, a Formula BMW and one track. That doesn't sound like much, does it? But you do get unlimited online gameplay in comparison to the trials of other similar games so it's a fair compromise.
Now as I mentioned above, you won't have the same experience without joining the community so I strongly recommend you to make an account on www.lfsforum.net. Quite a huge forum in which you can post your opinion, find out the latest news, join leagues and pretty much discuss anything with other members from around the world. Not to mentione that the lads will gladly help you out with anything regarding LFS.
An interesting fact is that this is ,in a bizarre way, similar to an MMORPG. This is quite a bold statement so let me explain myself a bit. MMORPGs claim that they offer realistic character development by pushing some buttons will decide your abilities which you'll improve while advancing trough the game. Calling it realistic is quite ironic, isn't it? In LFS your decisions will effect in real time at what you become good at and only by trial and error will you improve your abilities. Therefore, in a way, LFS offers a more true to reality character development. Especially when you think that the character is you.
It's quite clear that automotive tastes differ from one member to another thus in LFS you will find the appearance of different types of motorsport and with it, the appearance of groups or "factions" if you would like to keep my horrid MMORPG analogy. There are two main groups: the first one being obviously the racers, they form the majority of the community and the second one being the drifters, you can find their community at www.lfsdrift.net. There are plenty of other motorsport forms as well. Time attacks, autocross, drag racing, etc.
This groups also further divide into teams. Joining one presents you with numerous advantages: they can offer you better setups, they can help you improve your driving, give you support in leagues which require team mates such as 24h races and most importantly in my opinion, you gain new friends which share the same passions as you. Most of the time, it will feel like a second family.
Continuing with the MMORPG theme, in terms of abilities your main one will be your ability to drive in a particular way or a particular car thus as a racer and/or a drifter, you will be able to compete in different leagues and events. Of course, with time, you'll be accustomed to secondary abilities which will aid you on your path to glory and victory . You can be a setup gure, the guys that tweak every setting of a car specifically for a track (www.setupgrid.net) , a skinner, the artists that design the beautiful paint jobs for cars
skinnerz.proboards26.com/index.cgi), layout builder, Insim programmer, custom textures designer, sound files maker, etc.
I should add that as "demo licensed" you won't be able to do some of the things I specified above, plus you might even get mocked or get denied some requests by the "S2 license" gamers. So I suggest that you keep requests to a minimum until you get a "S2 license". I should clarify that after using the word "license" so much that it's a code you usually get e-mailed by the ishop ,which is usually one of the websites that also had a mirror download on the game's main web page, from where you bought it with your imoney thus now you will get access to it's full content consisting of 20 cars and 7 tracks which have a total of 60 different configurations , without mentioning the layout editor which rises the configurations to a virtually infinite number. Isn't that iFantastic?
After reading the entire text, I believe that you are wondering why I haven't actually spoke about the physics or about the graphics. Well first of all, speaking about the physics of a simulator is like mentioning that an ax murderer is dangerous. Well..eh...sort of. I mean what are you expecting? The cars react exact like their real counterparts in racing scenarios thus you will get to see and feel understeer and oversteer among other. You'll be pleased to know that unlike some of it's competitors, LFS has a thicker line between control and out of control. This means that when you over do it, you'll have a bigger chance of stabilizing the car back. Too give you an example let's say you negotiate a 60 degrees, right turn in a rear wheel driven coupe. You press too much on the gas pedal and what happens next? In most sims I've tried, at this point the car will loose traction and will spin you around no matter how valiantly you try to regain control. In LFS, the car will start to slide or drift ,if you prefer the term, which you can control, "catch" or stop by letting of the gas. Harder is more realistic seems like a logical statement but that's not always the case. From my experience, I can say that Live for Speed's physics are more true to real life. Unforgiving and unrewarding does not automatically mean it's better and more realistic.
Another thing that makes it stand out from the rest is it's superior car setup adjustment. You can literally adjust just about any part you would normally find in a real racing car. The way you set the anti-roll bars, camber, toe, gear ratios, suspension stiffness, dampers, differential, tire compound, tire pressure, downforce, etc. will severely change the way the car handles and responds. How understeery or how oversteery it is, how fast it wears the tires and so on. Now you might be wondering how you're going to tweak the car at a competitive level with having a diploma in engineering, aren't you? Well there is no need to go back to university again or take the time costly "trial and error" path either. There are websites that give you a wide variety of setups which you just need to simply download. I believe I mentioned such a site but just in case, here's one of them again: www.setupgrid.net
I will admit that the graphics are not the best in the world but yet again, it's a simulator so it doesn't need exaggerated visual or sound effects to pull you into the racing atmosphere, it does that properly with the help of the physics. Although I've seen a few visual mods on the main forum which make it look quite stunning if you really want better graphics. This equates to you not needing a powerful computer to play it at normal, decent frame rates per second.
As a sort of warning, I should add that you are racing against dedicated, experienced people from around the world. You WILL loose big time in the beginning but don't get demotivated, you'll get better given time, determination and social life loss.
The only problems you might find is that the racing etiquette on some demo servers usually lacks fair play and another quite big problem is that if you hit someone that suffers from lag or vice versa , you both will end up being pushed in different directions quite hard, the same thing also being said about hitting the red-white-red barriers and the sponsor banners but you won't have to worry too much about them since you will rarely find them on tracks. They become a pain in the neck only on custom layouts where you simply can't make a track without them.
To resume everything I said in one sentence, the game is worth buying if your into sims or cars in general and if you simply want a cheaper hobby then racing in real life.
You probably never heard of it, due to the fact it isn't advertised , but never the less it's one of the best car simulators out there. It's a game that strongly relies on it's online community without which, it wouldn't even be half as fun.
You start by going on their main page , www.lfs.net , and creating an account, after which you download a copy from any of the download mirrors , preferably the closest to you. Next you install the game, create a profile as you would in any game, set up your steering wheel or your mouse since using the keyboard is as pointless as killing a mule by insulting it to death. After completing the steps above you'll be "demo licensed". A "demo license" will give you limited content which will only consist of 3 cars: a front wheel drive hatchback, a rear wheel drive reasonably powered coupe, a Formula BMW and one track. That doesn't sound like much, does it? But you do get unlimited online gameplay in comparison to the trials of other similar games so it's a fair compromise.
Now as I mentioned above, you won't have the same experience without joining the community so I strongly recommend you to make an account on www.lfsforum.net. Quite a huge forum in which you can post your opinion, find out the latest news, join leagues and pretty much discuss anything with other members from around the world. Not to mentione that the lads will gladly help you out with anything regarding LFS.
An interesting fact is that this is ,in a bizarre way, similar to an MMORPG. This is quite a bold statement so let me explain myself a bit. MMORPGs claim that they offer realistic character development by pushing some buttons will decide your abilities which you'll improve while advancing trough the game. Calling it realistic is quite ironic, isn't it? In LFS your decisions will effect in real time at what you become good at and only by trial and error will you improve your abilities. Therefore, in a way, LFS offers a more true to reality character development. Especially when you think that the character is you.
It's quite clear that automotive tastes differ from one member to another thus in LFS you will find the appearance of different types of motorsport and with it, the appearance of groups or "factions" if you would like to keep my horrid MMORPG analogy. There are two main groups: the first one being obviously the racers, they form the majority of the community and the second one being the drifters, you can find their community at www.lfsdrift.net. There are plenty of other motorsport forms as well. Time attacks, autocross, drag racing, etc.
This groups also further divide into teams. Joining one presents you with numerous advantages: they can offer you better setups, they can help you improve your driving, give you support in leagues which require team mates such as 24h races and most importantly in my opinion, you gain new friends which share the same passions as you. Most of the time, it will feel like a second family.
Continuing with the MMORPG theme, in terms of abilities your main one will be your ability to drive in a particular way or a particular car thus as a racer and/or a drifter, you will be able to compete in different leagues and events. Of course, with time, you'll be accustomed to secondary abilities which will aid you on your path to glory and victory . You can be a setup gure, the guys that tweak every setting of a car specifically for a track (www.setupgrid.net) , a skinner, the artists that design the beautiful paint jobs for cars
skinnerz.proboards26.com/index.cgi), layout builder, Insim programmer, custom textures designer, sound files maker, etc.I should add that as "demo licensed" you won't be able to do some of the things I specified above, plus you might even get mocked or get denied some requests by the "S2 license" gamers. So I suggest that you keep requests to a minimum until you get a "S2 license". I should clarify that after using the word "license" so much that it's a code you usually get e-mailed by the ishop ,which is usually one of the websites that also had a mirror download on the game's main web page, from where you bought it with your imoney thus now you will get access to it's full content consisting of 20 cars and 7 tracks which have a total of 60 different configurations , without mentioning the layout editor which rises the configurations to a virtually infinite number. Isn't that iFantastic?
After reading the entire text, I believe that you are wondering why I haven't actually spoke about the physics or about the graphics. Well first of all, speaking about the physics of a simulator is like mentioning that an ax murderer is dangerous. Well..eh...sort of. I mean what are you expecting? The cars react exact like their real counterparts in racing scenarios thus you will get to see and feel understeer and oversteer among other. You'll be pleased to know that unlike some of it's competitors, LFS has a thicker line between control and out of control. This means that when you over do it, you'll have a bigger chance of stabilizing the car back. Too give you an example let's say you negotiate a 60 degrees, right turn in a rear wheel driven coupe. You press too much on the gas pedal and what happens next? In most sims I've tried, at this point the car will loose traction and will spin you around no matter how valiantly you try to regain control. In LFS, the car will start to slide or drift ,if you prefer the term, which you can control, "catch" or stop by letting of the gas. Harder is more realistic seems like a logical statement but that's not always the case. From my experience, I can say that Live for Speed's physics are more true to real life. Unforgiving and unrewarding does not automatically mean it's better and more realistic.
Another thing that makes it stand out from the rest is it's superior car setup adjustment. You can literally adjust just about any part you would normally find in a real racing car. The way you set the anti-roll bars, camber, toe, gear ratios, suspension stiffness, dampers, differential, tire compound, tire pressure, downforce, etc. will severely change the way the car handles and responds. How understeery or how oversteery it is, how fast it wears the tires and so on. Now you might be wondering how you're going to tweak the car at a competitive level with having a diploma in engineering, aren't you? Well there is no need to go back to university again or take the time costly "trial and error" path either. There are websites that give you a wide variety of setups which you just need to simply download. I believe I mentioned such a site but just in case, here's one of them again: www.setupgrid.net
I will admit that the graphics are not the best in the world but yet again, it's a simulator so it doesn't need exaggerated visual or sound effects to pull you into the racing atmosphere, it does that properly with the help of the physics. Although I've seen a few visual mods on the main forum which make it look quite stunning if you really want better graphics. This equates to you not needing a powerful computer to play it at normal, decent frame rates per second.
As a sort of warning, I should add that you are racing against dedicated, experienced people from around the world. You WILL loose big time in the beginning but don't get demotivated, you'll get better given time, determination and social life loss.
The only problems you might find is that the racing etiquette on some demo servers usually lacks fair play and another quite big problem is that if you hit someone that suffers from lag or vice versa , you both will end up being pushed in different directions quite hard, the same thing also being said about hitting the red-white-red barriers and the sponsor banners but you won't have to worry too much about them since you will rarely find them on tracks. They become a pain in the neck only on custom layouts where you simply can't make a track without them.
To resume everything I said in one sentence, the game is worth buying if your into sims or cars in general and if you simply want a cheaper hobby then racing in real life.
