Let me play: 7 issues with racing games

My weekly post is up at Nightmare Mode and only one day late this time. Here I go on about Gran Turismo 5 and Need for Speed: Shift. Neither game really grabbed me, in fact in the beginning they seem to do all they could to repel me. I understand both games are hardcore driving sims. Though I thought Need for Speed was a bit more arcadey. I just happened to pick up the only sim in the franchise.

But as they are hardcore sims and I’ve only started playing racing games a few months ago I didn’t want to flap my mouth off too much. Especially with sims that I have even less experience with and I could expect to be much harder to get into and handle. So I decided to limit myself to very specific design issues, some of which developers for other games could take heed of.

One thing I wanted to say, but couldn’t fit in otherwise was the circumstance of why I stopped playing, because they were the same for both games. I had finally fitted myself into each particular game’s groove. I had completed an especially challenging race, then I went and completed one more and found myself completely satiated. I found myself at that exact point of wanting no more and not regretting have done less. That doesn’t happen very often in anything. The thing is, in Need for Speed: Shift I had only completed the very lowest tier and a single challenge set in tier 2. There was at least 4 more levels to go and all these extra challenge modes that I had no interest in. I’m pretty sure I may have raced the exact same amount in Gran Turismo 5. Once I beat most of the race series in the lowest level from a single partition of races and one from the level right above it, I found I wanted to race no more. Both games had multiple hours of more content. I’m sure 30-80 hours at least and I couldn’t be bothered with it. In fact if much of the content was removed I might have been more willing to press forward with the game.

The feeling did not creep up on me. One second I was in the zone and the next I was done. Simply done with the game. I had no further interest and this happened twice in the exact same manner. I’m not sure if that says anything about the game or more about my tastes in video games. Still it is something to mention.

However, these 7 issues I can speak with much more confidence. Some of theme are just inexcusable.