Two worlds collide - Car-games and the Smackdown! vs Raw character creation?

N

Nightwolf

Lurker
This occured to me when playing Midnight Club 3. You can get pretty much whatever car you want including bikes and choppers, and you can style them pretty much however you want. If you use a bike, you can even select which driver you want and have three outfits for each one.

But what if you could create your own driver? Instead of painting your window to disquise the driver, you have an actual driver? This would be better if you drive a convertible instead of being forced to put on a roof. (yes, Gran Turismo 3. Bad game, bad game!) :D Just drop the roof and watch your character. This would be even better on bikes. Maybe take the character creator from those smackdown games (the only good thing about them) and use it in a car-game? It could be sweet. Im not talking about leaving the car to play GTA, but watching your driver. That's about it.

And what when you win a race? You will watch your character when he or she receive the medal instead of a boring, grey screen that say "You won". We have great car-games, we have bikes included, we can customzie them in every way we want, and we have free roaming in the same game. Could this be the next big thing? Midnight Club 4 perhaps?
 
Sounds interesting, but I dont think it wont be more than a novelty.

"Im not talking about leaving the car to play GTA, but watching your driver. That's about it."

So you just watch the driver? Where's the fun in that. It would probably be better if the driver had some kind of stats that you can build up or something. But then whats the point if you're limited to the skills that your driver has instead of your own? I do agree with you about the convertible issue though. When I play GT 3 I like to choose the Shelby Cobra and naturally it is a convertible. It looks like crap when it has the top on. I just think they need to improve the AI on racing games.

"and we have free roaming in the same game."

I dont see why you would want this in a racing game. Maybe if this was some kind of RPG where you are a race car driver and you have adventures and races. Or else it just becomes another GTA clone.
 
I like the idea of being able to customize a driver. That way it's not only your but its also you driving it. Especially if you're driving a motorbike or something like that, its a lot more fun to watch something you created than something the game arbitrarily gave to you and everyone else who plays.
 
Honestly it doesnt do much for me. I can see why you would want to do it on someone who is driving a motorcycle, but I dont know about someone who is going to be stuck in a car. I would get tired of it too quickly unless they put massive amounts of options.
 
But what when you watch replays? You pretty much always see the car from the side, complete with a standard, faceless driver. If would be a lot better if you can have your own. And why is it more important to choose what color you want on the nitro gas than creating a driver? We can already customize the vehicle we want pretty much however we want, and we will get the next generation consoles quite soon. They will be able to do everything a normal game do plus have a rather large character creator as well.

As for stats, that could be... interesting, if done well. But wouldn't it make more sense to have the stats on the cars and bikes? If I'm not happy with my vehicle, I simply sell it and get a new one. I would rather have an adjustable difficulty like in MC3, SSX3 and those. The better I become, the better the AI become.

And by the way, isn't there car-games with a story? How many of you would want something like that? None? Thought so, and yet those games are quite well received.
 
First of all how can you speak for everybody like that. How do you know I dont want that kind of game? And if they are well recieved doesnt that mean that someone out there wants them? Second, when I play a racing game I only focus on the car. I could care less if there is somebody behind the wheel because Im the one who is controlling it. If a racing game is fun for me then I dont think about a driver being inside because I am the driver. Although I would like to see someone behind a convertible, it just doesn look right. As for customizing the color of a nitrous kit? I personally think thats too much. Whats the point if you cant see it? And I agree with you about the better AI. Thats what I want game developers to focus on more, rather then customizing human drivers.
 
What was your first thought when you heard "racing" and "story" in the same sentence? Exactly. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. No one have tried that before, and yet it worked.

GTA? You walk around in a big city doing whatever you want, whenever you want to whoever you want? It started a whole new genre of games, and everyone (well, me) thought "Why didn't I think of that?" The main reason why you don't want a custom driver is because you have never had one before. Correct me if I'm wrong. ;)

Oh, and you do see the nitro when you use it.
 
Nightwolf said:
What was your first thought when you heard "racing" and "story" in the same sentence? Exactly. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. No one have tried that before, and yet it worked.

GTA? You walk around in a big city doing whatever you want, whenever you want to whoever you want? It started a whole new genre of games, and everyone (well, me) thought "Why didn't I think of that?" The main reason why you don't want a custom driver is because you have never had one before. Correct me if I'm wrong. ;)

Oh, and you do see the nitro when you use it.
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Again you dont know what goes on in MY head so please dont speak for me. Let me get one thing straight, if the game worked then what is your problem with it? It doesnt matter if I had a customizable driver or not, what im saying is that I dont care for one because in the end im going to forget about him because im the one who is going to be controlling the car. As for the whole nitro customization and stuff, the only time I would care for such things is if it was going to be done on my actual real life car. If you guys want that then so be it.
 
Damn it, the Jedi mind trick didn't work? Oh, well, guess I'll have to do this the hard way. ;) I'm just saying that even if you avhe the perfect game, it could easily get better. You improve the game or get exactly the same game with better looks, and no one (excluding you) wants that. :)
 
Nightwolf said:
darn it, the Jedi mind trick didn't work? Oh, well, guess I'll have to do this the hard way. ;) I'm just saying that even if you avhe the perfect game, it could easily get better. You improve the game or get exactly the same game with better looks, and no one (excluding you) wants that. :)
Click to expand...

If its perfect then theres no point in trying to make it better. It would please everyone and sell lots of copies. Ha there you go again assuming what I want. But you're actually right about me not wanting the same game. Thats just a waste of money.
 
There is no such things as the "perfect" game because that would mean a game that updates itself over time with better looks, sound and gameplay. Just think about it. What was your favourite game ten years ago? What do you think of it today? Back then it was excellent, but now it's outdated. Right now I'm into Predator: Concrete Jungle and love it, but I do find room for improvements. Not many, but some. In two years I would most likely be playing something different, so a Concrete Jungle 2 by then would be great. I do hope you find some sort of point in this.
 
Yes I know there is no perfect game. Im just saying if there was then there would be no need to try to improve it. But since there isnt then developers should always strive to make a game better.
 
... and we're back to square 1. We want better games and don't accept playing the same game all over again. New looks, sounds, physics and gameplay are important, but that's not enough in the long run. We got tired of racing on closed tracks, so we got traffic. That wasn't enough, so we got city streets. We didn't want the same old cars, so we had hover cars and such. That wasn't enough in the long run, so we got to customize our cars. By now we have done everything including winning races by running over pedestrians, so what's next? What's the next big thing no one have thought about? Actually, that could be a lot of things, but one tip could be to focus more on the driver. As I mentioned we already have car games with a story based on a character, so why not a story based on a character you create? It's really not that big difference, but could improve the game.
 
Actually, there's someone trying to do that. I mean, a racing rpg with attention to the actual driver. I read about it in the X-Play book. I don't have it with me or I'd give you the details word for word. But maybe later this week I'll come back and post it. Personally, it does sound interesting to me.
 
And suddenly I'm not crazy. If I could only hear it more often... 8)
 
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