Thanks for the comments rapaleeman and H4nd0fg0d. On the question of whether the AI are actually programmed to be pushy, or are just stupidly staying on their line, I'm certain that in many cases they are definitely programmed to be pushy. There are some cases where an AI runs into my side in a corner, or tries to get back on their line if I've pushed them, where they may just be following their line and not going around me. But it's very common that I'm just passing an AI car on a straight, or they're passing me, and they swerve over half a track width just to bash me as they go by. So I'm 100% certain they're intentionally programmed to do that. As to whether it's fun to have the AI behave that way, that's obviously subjective. I find it fun some of the time, but especially as the races get tighter, I just end up wishing it was a more pure racing experience. I do like car combat games. I've spent many happy hours playing Split/Second and Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed on my Xbox, and Asphalt on iOS. However I tend to take those games more lightly. Sure they take skill, but I go into them knowing that they're going to be very chaotic, and luck will play a big factor, and I just have fun with them. In other racing games like Forza 4 or F1 2011, I get much more focused on refining my driving and racing skills, and I want the game to reward precision and finesse more. I guess I'm just saying I like my driving games to be either full-on combat/stunt silliness, or more focused racing, and Slipstream seems to occupy some in between point that bugs me sometimes. Overall though I enjoy it, and the driving itself is so fun that it keeps me coming back.
I have been using auto-throttle lately. I will go back and try manual throttle again to see how I like it.
@Bilbao, ya, I agree the AI is obviously programmed to behave erratically and trade paint. I can't go as far as to say tht it is car combat tho. Just adds a dynamic not seen in the precision race titles u made mention of. Btw, I'm proly one of the biggest fans and admirers of F1 racing in this forum. Absolutely love cutting some crisp, tite laps in the RB6 or Mclaren. Such a fan of the tech and precision of F1. Have attended 6 F1 Grand Prix in my time. God I can remember a race at Indy whn they had a choice to run 19k rpm v10s or detuned v12s. Nothing like seeing, feeling, and hearing the field scream down the front straight at over 200mph at nearly 20k rpm. A true spectacle to behold. Tht was in Ferarri and Schumacher's hey day. Anyhow, sorry for the ramble. I got a bit nastalgic.
@H4nd0fg0d I agree, calling RRS a car combat game is an exaggeration. I was only making the comparison to illustrate that I am capable of enjoying driving games where physically fighting with the other cars is a big part of the game. Lucky you getting to attend F1 races in person. I've only watched on TV, but would love to attend a race in person. I'm also a big MotoGP fan, and would like to make it to one of those at some point.
I don't know, maintaining their app just seems responsible to me, not pathetic. If they'd been hyping this update as something other than a maintenance update then I could see. I agree this update isn't anything to get excited about though unless it fixes a problem you've been running into.
Ya, a tad too harsh I was. Just let down more than anything. I just figured by now BN would have had something in the works. I am slowly convincing myself tht this is it, period. Whatev, I still love this game. No love lost. Oh ya, and as far as any positive amendments to the game, I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever . I'm playin on a 32G 5s and the game still faulters in all the same places- stuttering frame rates, 5 sec lock ups mid race. No out rite crashes ever, but all the same hiccups tht I may b presumptuous in thinking shld have easily been addressed by now. I'm no iphone rookie I even have my device primed for gaming, no backgrounding and fresh respring or reboot with almost 600MB of free ram. So it's most certainly the programming of the game at fault. Especially in lieu of other memory intensive games running flawlessly. The proof is in the pudding, per say.
That does sound pretty bad on your phone. It runs fine on my iPad 4, with at most an occasional fraction of a second pause, but never enough to affect the game play. My iPhone 4S struggles with the game, but I'm surprised your 5S does, because I thought the 5S was as powerful as the iPad 4. I agree there's no really good reason for it, since other racing games like Real Racing 3 and Asphalt perform fine. Edit: even weirder, I just searched around for iPad 4 vs iPhone 5S performance, and supposedly the 5S performs quite a bit better than an iPad 4, both its CPU and graphics chip. They most have done something weird to make the game perform worse on a 5S.
Well, I'm thankful for today's update because the game was pretty much unplayable for me during the last one on my iPod Touch 5G. It stuttered like crazy and hurt my eyes. Ended up deleting it. But since the update mentioned framerate improvements I decided to give it another shot. It's like night and day. Even with all cars on the screen at the same time, the framerate is pretty good and consistent throughout the race. Still can't hold a candle to that buttery smooth 60 fps from the consoles (sans the Vita version lol), but I'm definitely fine with the performance. I'm glad they are working the performance kinks out first before they add more content. Although I can definitely understand people's frustration in that area. Hopefully the next update will have some goodies in store for people who have exhausted the game's content.
Don't get me wrong, the game is still very playable. Just the lil irritating hiccups tht I assume shld have been sorted out via updates makes me wonder what's goin on at BN.
Actually, the update I finally installed last night actually seemed to add in online multiplayer. I haven't been next to a wi-fi hotspot long enough to try it out but the options are there in the menus and it seems a new tutorial has been added as well. I'll run through it either tonight or tomorrow. I've been too busy at work, life, and playing Titanfall to spend any real time playing iPhone games. I only typically play games on my phone is super short bursts and when not at home but at work we have nothing but secure wi-fi and I haven't had to wait anywhere for long enough time to play a full race. I personally haven't had any performance issues outside of a rare slowdown when all the racers are on track. I have a 16 GB iPhone 5 that I game on. I'm too cheap to buy a new iPod (still on my 4th gen from like 3 or 4 years ago). I feel for people that are having problems as that sucks to buy something and then not have it work. Much like not being able to sign into Xbox Live all of Tuesday to play the aforementioned Titanfall.
Oh yeah, there are now tabs for WiFi Race and Online Race! That's a pretty big new feature, actual live races instead of just time attack. I haven't had a chance to try it yet since I'm at work. Did anyone notice other functionality changes? The notes mentioned tweaking the car settings screens but I don't see what's changed. Also the update scared me for a moment. When I first started it, it asked me to go through the tutorial race again. I thought it might have lost all my progress and thought I was a new player, but no all my progress is still there.
Strangely, I lost some of most of my progress in the update. Only showed me playing the first two races. Not sure how that happened. I mean you'd think it would either keep it all or erase it all. Oh well, I actually won't mind going through it again.
For me the previous update gave me a super solid framerate on my iPad Air!!! This one gives me some framedrops (is still better than when the game first release but not as good as the previous version)... I don't know what is happening to other devices but for me is a downgrade in matter of framerate!
Based on yours and H4nd0fg0d's bad experience on iPad Air and iPhone 5S, and mine and Cecil's good experience on iPad 4 and Touch 5G, I'm going to guess they did something which made the game perform worse on A7 processors, but made it perform better on older processors. Maybe it has something to do with the A7 being a 64 bit CPU, and the game has some performance bug which is only triggered on 64 bit CPUs.
It seems to be the same to me but it is possible the sliders do different things now. The tutorial seemed to be a little more informational though. They actually explain drifting properly. Well properly relative to the Ridge Racer Universe.
Me too. And the people I was grouped with all had normal person names: not the expected internet handles (or whatever the kids call them these days) making me wonder if they are even real. /suspicion.
I noticed the real names too. It was working a few hours ago i played a couple of races but i don't remember if they were real or nicknames.
I just tried an online race and it stuck at the starting line for me too. Also the other cars had full first and last names, though I don't know how real they were because one of the last names was douche.
