So I finally find myself a used black Honda del Sol, so I can start upgrading it just like my faved Mugen del Sol from GT1. First thing I do is take it to Test Course to give it a run around the track once. I pull out of the stop, get passed by 1 car, and notice the other 4 are all pretty steady in behind me. I'm not thinking much of it, I notice my oil light is on, and I'm just giving her steady around the track as I ponder what sort of gameplay effect that may have.
However, by the end of the first lap, I notice the other 4 cars. Something rare in racing games is perfect balance. Usually the cars start to spread out after a while. However, all 4 cars are extremely tight in behind me.
So we're coming into the first long corner. Now it's an extremely delicate job to keep your car drawing a perfect line around those corners on an analog since the very minimum movement you make is oversteering. So it requires an extreme feather touch to keep pushing it ever so lightly to keep that perfect line. The most sensitive and precise control I can think of in a game in a long time.
This time though, around the long bend, I have 4 other cars all right up behind me. The first hugs my back to use me as a shield and then pulls out and slowly passes me. The next car follows, and I quickly pull in behind him. Now I'm slightly gaining on the 2 cars in front of me, and I notice the old RX7 behind me is doing the same. I pull out left and at the same time, the damn RX7 pulls out right and we both push for a pass on the 2 cars ahead of us! We come out side by side and we're locked side by side.
By this point I'm -in- the game. All I see is the road and my mirror, and I'm lost in the intensity of how tight the 5 of us are. We're both going full out fighting to keep a steady line around there, side by side, and the other 3 cars start going for their pass. I think the Celica went around my side first and the last 2 were still tight on our ass. Now the Celica is ahead and he's slowly veering right up against the slope, so while keeping my line tight, I try to inch myself up against the RX7 to keep myself behind the Celica. I can't up the slope anymore with banging doors with the RX7 so he locks in behind it and he slowly starts to pull ahead thanks to his shield.
Still watching as the two cars right behind us start to make their move, I quickly squeeze right behind the RX7 with the Celica in front of him, the three of us almost tight like a train, at max speed, around the Test Course bend. I get a bit of speed on both of them and with barely enough room for my damn car, I somehow squeeze in between the RX7 and the side of the road. Making that fit at max speed alone was tight but around the corner? Hard to describe the intensity and excitement I was feeling.
That was just 1 single corner. It lasted for atleast another 10 laps. Most likely more. A while into the track meet, I looked at the clock and it said 2:47 or something around there and I thought to myself, "damn this much be crazy" as I thought I had been racing for much longer. But I believed it and assumed the intensity of the race simply made it feel like much longer. The next lap though I noticed it reset. So who knows what lap I was already on by then. I spent a solid 18 minutes after that, doing the exact same thing. However in hindsight I should of known I'd be racing for a while by then so the fact that at that time I just passed it off based in the intensity is credit to how tight we were.
The 5 of us just never broke pace. We must of all had the exact same ~150 max speed because it literally just never slowed up. For laps and laps to come, at max speed, hanging onto our dear life around those corners, with a feather touch, the dancing and dueling simply never let up one bit.
I have to say it was easily one of the most intense, desirable, and funnest racing experiences I've had in gaming. It was just a perfect duel between the 5 of us. I don't think it could of happened on any other course either. The fact it was so fast and so delicate and precise was half the reason it was so intense.
Great stuff. I'd of paid $50 to have a race that good by itself. Gaming moments like that are when you know a game really captures something.
RE: "your posts are always so big =p"
I could of just said it was crazy and intense but people exagerate a lot. We hear people quickly post about the "best" or most "intense" game every week. People start to look at those and think "who cares". The power of simply "the best" doesn't mean too much anymore. It's tossed around a lot.
I rather tell people -why- an experience was so good, instead of just saying it was good and expecting people to understand what I felt. And I don't think anything short of what I wrote would capture and get across the level of intensity and tightness that I just experienced in that race trackmeet.