AMUSIX said:
OK, I'm honestly asking here, but can someone please explain the whole "Rewind is a cheat, not an assist" thing?
Near as I can figure, right now we have the following accepted assists:
Automatic Gearbox - game shifts for you
An automatic gearbox makes you slower, as you have less control over which gear and timing is optimal for a specific turn. For instance, I wouldn't want to down-shift to 2nd if I'm coming out of a turn and shifting into 3rd a second later.
It's a realistic feature found on many real cars.
ABS - game overrides player input to prevent locking up wheels
It's a realistic feature found on many real cars.
TCS - game limits physics to prevent lateral slippage (is this right? or does the game again override player input?)
It limits the power that goes to your wheels. But it also greatly restricts the amount of control an experienced driver who utilizes under/oversteer can have.
It's a realistic feature found on many real cars.
Driving Line - game shows the exact course and speed the driver should be taking
It's not actually the fastest line for every car. And it's just telling you where to drive and how much to brake, like an instructor would do. That instruction and knowledge is attainable for all real tracks.
Now, if those are assists, how is the ability to rewind a cheat? Seems to me that rewinding and having the player redo a section at speed is far less of a cheat than the game actively changing the rules to make it easier for the player. It's not like the player doesn't still have to navigate a tricky corner on their own. Heck, even the racing line, where the player doesn't have to understand or learn a course, seems more of a cheat.
Then you don't know what it's like to handle a powerful car at high speed. There's a lot more to it than just timing your braking where it's red and gas when it goes green- you'll also have to steer, brake and accelerate properly.
Am I missing something here? Because I'm having a difficult time understanding the 'rewind is a cheat' side of things, and I'd really like to get it. Or is it that those who consider rewinding a cheat consider all assists to be cheating? Because I think that would make sense to me.
Well, first of all, you can't rewind in real life, whereas you can use TC, ABS, automatic transmissions, and receive tips from a driving instructor on a general driving line. But you can't rewind mistakes in real life. Fans have endlessly touted damage as essential for any racing sim, and the key feature that was holding GT back. Now that it's in, you just want to be able to reverse any damage you take? That's just mind-boggling.
From the sim community's perspective, even the assists you mentioned are frowned upon. You can't use those assists and claim to know much more about driving than someone who plays Dirt 2.