So I've been watching sim racing on YouTube lately. Also F1 highlight reels and historical stuff. Since I'm a long-time F-Zero fan, this is all very interesting.
As a result, I'm starting to appreciate the long-form race, where it's more about maintaining a consistent pace rather than a desperate dash to the finish line (and if a spectator has to pee, it's "did I miss anything?" rather than "did I miss the race?"). The great thing about this is that F-Zero GX is hiding a game mode that actually allows you to race this way, sort of.
Practice mode, 20 laps, no recovery, 29 master-level opponents. Don't use boost for the first lap (the AI drivers will, but it's a decent handicap). Don't use momentum throttle, snaking, or any other cheesy physics-breaking technique; just try to go fast with normal driving techniques. Don't use attacks - I once decided to seize an opportunity to kill Mighty Gazelle in the midst of a tight battle on Sand Ocean: Surface Slide, and I sorely regretted it because now I'll never know if I could have beat him. For maximum immersion, go for cockpit view, and either pretend the actual cockpit is hidden by a holographic surround display or ignore the fact that you can't see it.
It's great - a lot of the courses range from a bit under a minute per lap to around a minute fifteen, so you can get 20-25 minutes of solid knife-edge concentration, and the results can range from an abject loss ([cough]Phantom Road[/cough]) to a super tight race to lapping the whole field, depending on the course and on your machine and setup (and how well you drive, obviously). It keeps track of your recent lap times on screen, highlighting your personal best, and the time delta to your rival that shows up at the start/finish line is way more useful than it is in the actual Grand Prix mode.
This would probably not work as well in X with its blatant rubber-band AI, but the AI in GX is believable enough that it feels like a race - it feels like if you gain a second per lap, you're doing that much better against your rival, and if he keeps up it means he's pushing harder. I've had tight battles where my rival actually pushed too hard and DNFed, and I finished several seconds ahead of the guy behind him. I've had a race where after 20 minutes of intense battling I won by less than a third of a second, and I've had a race where I lapped my rival and came in nearly a minute ahead. It's a far cry from X Cup, where during lap 3 you literally can't catch your three designated rivals until right near the finish line where they slow way down for no reason...
...
There needs to be a VR F-Zero kiosk game, with real physics and a consistent, detailed technology concept and ruleset. Force feedback wheel and brake pedal, motion rig, tracking gloves, retinal resolution, the works. Maybe a disposable barf bag attached to the headset... Multiplayer Grands Prix (the big thing missing from all F-Zero games to date). Home version too, AX/GX style, with support for VR and sim racing equipment. Unfortunately Switch is probably not up to this in its current form, but who knows what Nintendo's partnership with Nvidia could produce in future?
In addition to the futuristic hovering courses, there could be a few classic courses, like Monza (including the oval) and the Nürburgring (the real Nürburgring, not the GP course). Can you imagine the hilarity of F-Zero at Monte Carlo? Obviously these would be the 26th-century versions of these courses...
I'm still working on the technology concept for a real-physics F-Zero machine. The new hotness is floor suction, which looks like it may make it easier to design a fun game that's recognizably F-Zero, but could actually justify momentum throttle and even blast turns if I'm not careful...
Sadly, the market probably isn't there for this. F-Zero is not Gran Turismo, which has esports events at famous race venues around the world with live commentary in several languages and guest appearances by people like Lewis Hamilton. But I do kinda wonder if, properly handled, it could grow a niche. Smash certainly has...
...then again, Smash has the advantage Gran Turismo does, which is that it has ready-made fans because the content is from other stuff that people are already fans of. F-Zero is its own thing, and you have to be sold on F-Zero specifically to become a fan of it.
Also, perhaps even more importantly, Smash and Gran Turismo have full-fat multiplayer. F-Zero does not. This seems like an easier thing to fix, but it may be necessary to dial back the built-in bloodthirstiness because nobody is going to join an hour-long 50-lap Grand Prix (or a 3-lap sprint race for that matter) if there's a 90% chance they'll be deliberately wrecked before finishing the second lap. Removing the dedicated attack moves seems like a reasonable approach to me; the machines have shields, which means they're much better suited to surviving accidental punts from bad drivers (or "accidental" punts from dirty drivers) than anything in iRacing.
As a result, I'm starting to appreciate the long-form race, where it's more about maintaining a consistent pace rather than a desperate dash to the finish line (and if a spectator has to pee, it's "did I miss anything?" rather than "did I miss the race?"). The great thing about this is that F-Zero GX is hiding a game mode that actually allows you to race this way, sort of.
Practice mode, 20 laps, no recovery, 29 master-level opponents. Don't use boost for the first lap (the AI drivers will, but it's a decent handicap). Don't use momentum throttle, snaking, or any other cheesy physics-breaking technique; just try to go fast with normal driving techniques. Don't use attacks - I once decided to seize an opportunity to kill Mighty Gazelle in the midst of a tight battle on Sand Ocean: Surface Slide, and I sorely regretted it because now I'll never know if I could have beat him. For maximum immersion, go for cockpit view, and either pretend the actual cockpit is hidden by a holographic surround display or ignore the fact that you can't see it.
It's great - a lot of the courses range from a bit under a minute per lap to around a minute fifteen, so you can get 20-25 minutes of solid knife-edge concentration, and the results can range from an abject loss ([cough]Phantom Road[/cough]) to a super tight race to lapping the whole field, depending on the course and on your machine and setup (and how well you drive, obviously). It keeps track of your recent lap times on screen, highlighting your personal best, and the time delta to your rival that shows up at the start/finish line is way more useful than it is in the actual Grand Prix mode.
This would probably not work as well in X with its blatant rubber-band AI, but the AI in GX is believable enough that it feels like a race - it feels like if you gain a second per lap, you're doing that much better against your rival, and if he keeps up it means he's pushing harder. I've had tight battles where my rival actually pushed too hard and DNFed, and I finished several seconds ahead of the guy behind him. I've had a race where after 20 minutes of intense battling I won by less than a third of a second, and I've had a race where I lapped my rival and came in nearly a minute ahead. It's a far cry from X Cup, where during lap 3 you literally can't catch your three designated rivals until right near the finish line where they slow way down for no reason...
...
There needs to be a VR F-Zero kiosk game, with real physics and a consistent, detailed technology concept and ruleset. Force feedback wheel and brake pedal, motion rig, tracking gloves, retinal resolution, the works. Maybe a disposable barf bag attached to the headset... Multiplayer Grands Prix (the big thing missing from all F-Zero games to date). Home version too, AX/GX style, with support for VR and sim racing equipment. Unfortunately Switch is probably not up to this in its current form, but who knows what Nintendo's partnership with Nvidia could produce in future?
In addition to the futuristic hovering courses, there could be a few classic courses, like Monza (including the oval) and the Nürburgring (the real Nürburgring, not the GP course). Can you imagine the hilarity of F-Zero at Monte Carlo? Obviously these would be the 26th-century versions of these courses...
I'm still working on the technology concept for a real-physics F-Zero machine. The new hotness is floor suction, which looks like it may make it easier to design a fun game that's recognizably F-Zero, but could actually justify momentum throttle and even blast turns if I'm not careful...
Sadly, the market probably isn't there for this. F-Zero is not Gran Turismo, which has esports events at famous race venues around the world with live commentary in several languages and guest appearances by people like Lewis Hamilton. But I do kinda wonder if, properly handled, it could grow a niche. Smash certainly has...
...then again, Smash has the advantage Gran Turismo does, which is that it has ready-made fans because the content is from other stuff that people are already fans of. F-Zero is its own thing, and you have to be sold on F-Zero specifically to become a fan of it.
Also, perhaps even more importantly, Smash and Gran Turismo have full-fat multiplayer. F-Zero does not. This seems like an easier thing to fix, but it may be necessary to dial back the built-in bloodthirstiness because nobody is going to join an hour-long 50-lap Grand Prix (or a 3-lap sprint race for that matter) if there's a 90% chance they'll be deliberately wrecked before finishing the second lap. Removing the dedicated attack moves seems like a reasonable approach to me; the machines have shields, which means they're much better suited to surviving accidental punts from bad drivers (or "accidental" punts from dirty drivers) than anything in iRacing.