Recent reviews by smlak

First of all it was a positive experience to encounter a game created to advance the spiritual development of its players. The music is calm and relaxing. The quotes, inspirations and teachings are well chosen. The overall visual scheme is simplistic and supports the main theme.

However.

Considering the game is supposed to be a spiritual experience, it activates the mind quite a bit. The puzzles and the overarching goal of achieving and collecting everything available is in contrast with the teachings and quotes about surrendering to the ever-present, natural flow of life. They align with the controlling mind instead of the all-embracing heart.

Furthermore, as spirituality is usually about going deeper and deeper and finding new aspects to life and reality, the game, in contrast, remains throughout its lifespan quite one dimensional. The "spirit"-sphere-thing never grows in size nor depth. It stays throughout the game a dot of life, a nature servant, so to speak. It never evolves into anything greater, with more depth, more understanding, more scope of vision, more responsibility etc.

However.

The game as it is inspires a lot of idealization about how a deeper spiritual game would look like. This 2D platform would quite naturally evolve into a more complex one, and eventually into a 3D one, which in turn would evolve into multidimensional game spanning galaxies and responsibilities involving civilizations and different forms of life across the multitude of the Oneness of All That Is.

Also, it evokes an idea of a truly different approach to the game mechanic itself. Usually the player is rewarded the more they achieve, but imagine a game where not the quantity but the quality matters. The player would truly have to undergo some development of the psyche to advance into further stages of the game. Now that would be something.

But all in all, I salute the maker of this game for attempting to differentiate itself from the majority of the gaming industry today, and for focusing on the spiritual aspect of nature and of life. In that regard it is truly the first of it's kind (to my knowledge at least) and deserving of more attention.

I was sceptical about trying WRC 6 at first, but after reading a few positive reviews from fellow DiRT Rally veterans, I decided to give it a go. And I'm so glad I did. I was hooked from the first stage.

The physics and FFB are first class: realistic and intuitive. It's how a car should behave in both low and high speeds. You can feel the weight of the car through the steering wheel and know what to do to make the car behave.

The second really impressive aspect of the game is the stages. There are only five per country, but all official countries being represented it's quite enough. And the different rallies are very well portrayed atmospherically and through the surfaces. It's clear that a lot of effort went into stage design, especially the super special stages which are modeled accurately after real life ones.

The career mode is great. I was highly motivated to finish the whole thing. With hard difficulty it required absolute focus without much practice, so I'm guessing the expert difficulty requires both. Which is how it should be.

I still haven't encountered a single bug. It seems to me a very well polished product.

Other positive things to be mentioned: the damage model, online multiplayer mode (simultaneous racing with others showing up as coloured shadow cars), sounds, tire model and achievements.

Things to work on: camera modes, more detailed car setups and maybe some proofreading of the pacenotes.

Overall it's a fantastic rally game which captures the spirit of WRC well. I have high hopes for future games of the series, which I hope will feature even more real life stages and maybe a wider range of cars and classes. I'm won't go into comparisons between this and DiRT Rally as they are both great games, and deserve to be enjoyed individually.

I haven't played R3E from the beginning. So I don't know what these people are saying, when they are implying that this wasn't always such a great sim.

I've got 200 hours on Assetto Corsa. That was the sim that first got me hooked on the scene. Since then I've tried every sim out there. Nowadays I find myself only enjoying R3E. Why? Because of the quality of everything. I think it's probably the FFB that I'm most impressed with. It's the most predictable and sensitive I've seen yet. I instantly see and understand why I mess up my laps. I know that if I were more attentive to the wheel I could've driven better.

And so, when I return to other sims after driving around R3E I feel frustrated. The FFB feels so inaccurate I almost feel like deleting every other sim but R3E from Steam. Probably the only other one that comes close is Automobilista. But it's weird that even in that game what feels like a punishment appears as a learning opportunity in R3E, as it should in real life.

I think I'm beginning to sound a little crazy, but I actually feel guilty for not playing R3E more. I feel like this game deserves thousands of hours of enjoyment, which I'm unable to provide since my life situation. Other people complain about Sector3 milking cash. I, on the other hand, think that I'm not appreciating the work they have put in this game enough. I feel like the money I've given them isn't enough to show my appreciation for this game.

Do I recommend RaceRoom Racing Experience? If you're into serious racing, it's the only game you'll ever need. It's everything one could hope from a sim. So yes, I do recommend it.