I love racing simulations, like arcade. Love playing gran Turismo and Forza. But damn, gta 5 is a mix of sa and 4. It makes sense. Tbh, i don't like the handling of gta 4. It's not because it's hard. I get the hang out of it. Played it good. The thing is, it's not realistic at all. That's not how cars and bikes react. It's very heavy, yes, but often to heavy. Yes gta 5 is to light, but in some ways even more realistic, atleast at alot newer cars, but also not optimal. First to heavy, now to light. But seriously, i loved the detail and damage system in gta 4.
One of the reasons car damage isn't fleshed out in most games is due to licensing, car manufacturers don't want their cars smashed up. Usually they draw the line at broken windshields and doors flying off. That being said, Driver San Francisco struck a good balance.
Exactly. That argument only works between games with unlicensed cars. That is still lacking in the industry but Forza wasn't the best example because they really can't do real crashes. But it really sucks car manufacturers do that.
Games like GTA don't suffer from licensing issues as the cars aren't real brand cars, they're fictionary so crash physics are purely down to the developer choosing not to model decent crash physics.
It's a more recent thing tho. Grid 1 and 2 and some of the older NFS games had brutal damage models. Bumpers, hoods, all panels. Nothing was off the table, even for supercars or licensed race cars.
One of the things that GTA IV did when creating that new driving was adding some layers of complexcity and difficulty. Driving in GTA was always really easy, but adding those two changes for IV's driving made the game super fun to me, you really need to learn how to handle the vehicles in order to play without unaliving yourself. Great video, I can agree with everything you said here.
Tbh it baffles me why modern gamers are so hostile towards a challenging gameplay mechanic. Like, isn’t overcoming challenges the essential core of gaming? Ofc there is a difference between challenging and frustrating, but Driving in GTA 4 wasn’t frustrating when you mastered it.
9:48 The reason realistic damage isnt included in most (if not all) racing games is thanks to corporate demand. No CEO wants to see the car of their brand get mangled or destroyed (which it on itself is stupid, its like the long drawn out argument of "videogames cause mass shootings") the reason Burnout 3 has better damage models than FH5 is because you arent driving a Dodge or a Ferrari, you are driving a "Compact Type 1" or a "Super Type 1" TLDR: no brand = better damage spectacle
@@Frosty_V0 Two things: 1.) A 25-second clip from a focused gameplay demo is a very different thing from seeing that in-action in a game that's released to the public. See: Watch_Dogs and its incredible disappointment between its E3 showing in 2012 and its release. 2.) Even in the footage they showed with an Audi R8 bodyslamming a Lambo straight into the outside wall, the front right of the R8 didn't crumple along the front right of the car like you would expect a car going at that speed directly into something else would. We didn't even get a chance to see the rear of the Lambo and how that would have been affected by it, they straight on flew past it. Don't get me wrong, I hope the damage model is as good as Turn 10 says it is-it would still be a step up on most of the licensed driving games we have on the market right now. But to say definitively how well cars can sustain damage in that game, based on a gameplay demo from 10 months ago on a game still a bit out from release that none of us have played yet, is just not something that we can do.
Wreckfest bills itself on the breaking of cars, but is actually a competent racing game underneath it all. It handles dirt really well, and rewards skilled driving, when you aren't on the dirty servers.
if you like crashing and handling do Beam NG Drive (btw not someone trying to sell a game to you its just that I really like the game and I feel like more people should play it) oof this is long
Totally with you, the cars feel all feel different and importantly, they feel weighty. You also get good tactile feedback from the controller and it's just the right amount of challenge with all assists off.
I loved the cars in GTA IV, but the biggest issue and the biggest thing most people dislike about it isn't that it has "realistic handling", it's the suspensions that are much too soft, which makes the cars feel bouncy.
No you didnt. Nobody liked GTA IV physics when it was out. Now suddenly everyone loves to act like they liked the physics, now suddenly according to everyone GTA IV physics are underrated. Why else would they change the car physics for V?
@@R9naldo literally stfu They changed it in GTA V because most people don't like realism, they like things that are fun like mario kart and NFS, not BeamNG.
@@TanitAkaviriusThe thing is, he isn't really wrong. Why else would they change the physics? While not everyone disliked GTA IVs car physics, a lot of them did, so R* responded by making them more like an arcade game than BeamNG. I think the main issue is that when you get into GTA, you expect a more arcade experience, not a simulation. People play GTA for the open world and story, not car physics. I find it funny that you say "most people don't like realism" since now there's an entire group of people saying why that they didn't keep GTA IVs car handling. If most people didn't like realism, I guess most simulators don't exist then! Again, the argument is that it doesn't fit GTA.
@@awii.neocities Yes i completely agree with you. Most people who play GTA games want more arcade driving. I'm more of an exception there and i liked the more realistic driving of IV. "If most people didn't like realism, I guess most simulators don't exist then!" Driving sims are vastly less popular than more arcade driving games like GTA and NFS and the likes, so yeah, most people don't like realism.
BeamNG drive is the best example of good driving physics and damage. These few german devs created the most realistic Driving Physics in a game ever. The other games do not have to be THIS good but a least be standart. Good Video.
Beam ng would not make for a great gta nor driving game, it is just too realistic. A good balance between beamng and bumper carts is needed for fun gameplay.
@@husemann0770beamng is a great driving game, crashing actually has consequences. Gives you an incentive to drive well if that matters to you The rush of driving at high speeds trying not to crash is unmatched
@@rashadvqAs a player of beamng, I agree with your first statement. It's like a crash that would scrape off a body panel on a car in real life takes up the entire side of the crumple zone in beamng. As for the second thing you said, the odd handling is mostly a result of playing with a keyboard instead of a steering wheel. The beamng physics engine uses math to calculate the velocity, centrifugal force, and a whole lot of other things. This is what makes the handling so similar to a real car. Playing with a keyboard in beamng is like using a keyboard to control a real car, it all of a sudden becomes so much harder to drive. I've been playing beamng on a keyboard for a while so I've gotten good at dealing with it. The worst thing about it however is the steering. If you want to make a really small input, you basically can't. The only way to do it is by playing in slow motion, which gets boring quickly. This is a problem present in almost every racing game you play on PC. Overall I think your 2nd statement is true, but only applies to new racing game players as people that have played for a while have acknowledged these problems and have gotten a proper setup for these games.
@@not360kaii yeah not really "crash phisics" since what they are is just pre damaged models swapped out during a crash, beamng on the other hand simulates it. Even AC doesn't have popper crash phisics just a couple prenade crashed cars, shows how big game studios sometimes honestly don't give a single frick
@@not360kaii it's honestly really cheap rn to get a pc like you can get a used lenovo thinkcentre with an i5 6500 or something and get a cheap gtx 1650 and kaboom like 200 dollar gaming pc that's crazily capable
Or, in other words, they give the masses what they enjoy. Not that I like that and I agree that clipping through objects must not happen in today's games. But let's face it, nobody wants realistic driving physics. Realistically, you would have a broken axle as soon as you drove up a kerb at speed with anything but a truck. You can't drive over lampposts. You'd total your car (and die!) all the time.
While I share your frustration with regards to damage in driving games, I feel that we might be being too harsh here. Isn't it odd that all the games with great damage (burnout, GTA) use fictional vehicels? This isn't a coincedence, It's actually the result of racing games' licenses with the car manufacturers they feature in their games. No brand wants their cars to seem dangerous, so they all agree that their cars won't be depicted getting destroyed or experiencing a fatal accident. Take Driver: San Francisco for example, that's got to be one of my favourite racers out there. 90+ percent of the cars in that game are licensed, real vehicles. the other ~10% of cars are fictional, these are the ones they use in cutscenes where a car explodes or kills / injures somebody. Gets around legal trouble and keeps the car brands happy.
Hi :) i'm sorry, but the "licencing" excuse is BS .. Why ? because in midnight club 3 (2005) you could blow up your car at service stations. roof, glass, completly deformed, Midnight club L.A 2008, you can lose parts like bumpers and blow up you cars too.. and no.. Driver SF (Ubisoft) and Rockstar games never had issues with this
@@richoumiaou It is actually not a BS excuse. In GTA games they go out of there way to avoid car manufactures. And most modern games with super cars or just basically any Toyota/BMW/whatever trash? Good luck getting to even damage a bumper. Your lucky to be allowed to scratch or crack a windscreen.
@@richoumiaou this isn't a theory, this is confirmed by industry developers. Car manufacturers nowadays doesn't want their cars to look destroyed or dangerous. Also, I tested the damage in Midnight Club LA, it's minor, no chassis deformation.
@@bur_s It would be our money in the end, going into pockets of car manufacturers which I grow to despise over time as a petrolhead (seeing how they degrade various lines of cars into heavy, useless and dangerous SUVs designed and marketed to flatter inflated egos). Actually looking at example of BeamNG I think that I could live without branded cars: it is a matter of designing interesting and good looking equivalents - this is what BeamNG authors absolutely nailed.
As a kid I always loved Midtown Madness, where destroying the car was basically a mini game. It was great how the cars limped along after breaking something important, like in a demolition derby. Old game, primitive by today, but a good game.
Wait....is that the game that had London and San Francisco as the map? There was an old open world driving game on my computer that I can't remember the name of...but that rings a bell.
VR Support is not as easy as simply moving the camera inside the car and enabling motion input. You have to do a TON of extra work to make sure everything is intractable from inside VR, intuitive, and you have to put WAY more detail into areas like the rear interior of a car because the player can turn their head and see it, where they normally couldn't with a regular game camera. That's a lot of work for a feature 99.9% of players will NEVER use!
Yup. VR is just something that simply never be a standard due to the amount of work required to get it done properly. Plus even some games with VR support have a limited number of cars that can be used in VR for this very reason. With how many cars some have like Forza have it's unreasonable. Arcade style games also just don't have a number of people wanting VR since the vast majority of people play in 3rd person and won't use a 1st person mode, even if it was available.
This dude makes a lot of good points but he is wildly underestimating a lot of work that goes into these games. A lot of physics are due to the engine, which simulates the driving physics. It's not as simple as "not wanting to be as good as Rockstar" in 99% of the cases.
I remember in midnight club los angeles you could fully damage a car during a race but if you start the race afterwards the game will replace the parts you lost with Grey parts which is kinda unique.
Mafia 2 did it best, where in the settings you could choose between an arcade and simulation driving style. Missions were really difficult with simulation driving in the first few snowy chapters.
I’ve been amazed how even Driver 3 and Parallel Lines can dettach the wheels from a vehicle after crashing them for a long tome just like in Mafia 2. If a open world game have bad driving physics that’s is a big down for me
@@fenn_fren Mafia: Definition Edition lets you choose between Automatic and Manual (stick shift) too, which is cool. I forget if the original Mafia or Mafia II does that.
12:35 What I feel is not often talked about, and unfortunately it isn't mentioned here as well, is the fact that when you use the cockpit view in racing games, it is ALWAYS stiff facing forward. When I am driving, I want to look AHEAD of the curve; not turning blindly into it. That could be solved with an invisible dot in front of the car, that follows the track of the game ahead of you, which your camera always automatically focus at. And depending on speed, it will either be far ahead or close up front of your car. It's a very simple solution to a very common problem.
Even in third person some games are always snapping the camera back to straight ahead. Annoys me because I'm constantly moving the camera to lookin5o the corner
there are games that turn your vision by yours steering wheel turning. I use it. However it also makes a little harder to judge where exactly the car is going. Especially when you are corrrecting for sliding.
I'm glad you mentioned the weightiness of GTAIV's driving, something I feel has always lacked in most driving games is the sheer sense of speed and screen shake, if you ever see irl footage of time attacks, the driver is bouncing and swinging around inside the car, but in video games, the 1st person camera is static like a mounted camera, theres no simulated inertia.
As a developer the biggest most important thing to make a vehicle system feel good is how the camera is scripted. Honestly good camera scripting can easily make up for some sub par physics. A good example of this would be need for speed most wanted.
There's obviously tons of good and bad examples of this out there, but something I recently played was Pico World Race for the Pico-8 fantasy console. For as basic and simple as the game is, it has a genuinely better sense of speed than most modern AAA racers.
As a game developer I got to say the camera blur and pan of the field of view ara awesome yes But the light trails and the music makes it fell faster than the camera for me
i mean the most important thing is pretty obviously the actual system not the camera since a simple orbital camera is definitely enough though not perfect. doing tricks with the camera to mask bad work is just laziness
Gta iv still holds up very well as an in between of arcade and realistic being just controllable enough to be worth using and just fragile enough to still be a challenge.
No.Its one of the worst driving physics in any game I have ever seen.Driving feels like driving in the ice and handling is so worse and the break takes like 5-7 seconds to work even in slower speed.Dont know how you guys even liked that for its driving physics when its not even close to realistic and Gta-5 does have good destruction physics for cars but it takes a bit more hit to do more damage and physics of it is decent, not too much over the top like gta-4.
its not arcady its realistic and the reason is not arcady because the cars get damage from bumping into things and this might be a punishment cause doing this like 2 times might cause the car to start smoking and not only that but the car getting flipped is a punishment for not focusing on your drive, i wish if open world third person games had the same idea of car collusion and the punishment of doing something to the car
I feel like beamng drive is the best driving game released honestly, from the car's reaction to steering, the bumps damaging your axyl, the speed management, reaction to the roads and the over all physics especially the crash physics it honestly makes me always go back to it to have a drive. If there is any game worth your money its beamng drive, there is no objectives exept for the missions but the physics alone are the selling point. And with modding support its literally perfect
A game not mentioned in the video is Wreckfest, it has good physics, interaction with the environment, very good damage and you can feel the weight of the vehicles. A game that can be played perfectly with keyboard, controller or steering wheel and feels great in all.
Yeah Wreckfest really has it done properly, it's probably the only game besides the original Flatout that I'll enjoy playing with a keyboard and also has an awesome destruction system
i can't play wreckfest, the lack of an orbital camera is insane. you can't even properly look at the damage on your car because your camera is locked to 4 sides. i don't know why an orbital camera isn't standard for these games, its super useful to help line up the direction you wanna send your car towards
Watch Dogs physics remind me a lot of Most Wanted 2012 physics. The cars are hard to steer and slide easily at high speeds making them hard to control especially in a crowded city setting, but honestly I like that. Makes it so driving fast feels actually dangerous.
WD1 physics weren't bad. I liked the way the older cars had a softer suspension and would bounce more over bumps whereas the sports cars would have a stiffer suspensions. Also the cars in WD1 felt like it had weight. WD1 in my opinion is an amazing game and is easily on the same boat as GTA 5 even though I do prefer GTA 5 over WD1, WD1 definitely had it flaws but I prefer some aspects of that game over GTA 5
I do expect you to talk about Mafia 2's handling. Just like GTA 4, it strikes a perfect balance between realism and arcadey/easy controls (and it also featured a simulation mode which also makes the handling way more realistic). And cars do feel fast and dangerous (as hitting could kill you as cars back then didn't have safety belts (some cars have them as an option which barely anyone wanted) And Mafia 1 also implemented a proper steering wheel support with actual force feedback. And driving physics feel pretty good too at its time
Driving those hotrods at max speed on the highway felt like 1 small mistake could kill you instantly (which it could) Also the way tires deform in that game is amazing
@@IskenderCaglarM41B441 -Mafia series is pretty much falling apart- One thing for sure is that Mafia DE is a massive improvement over III's questionable quality (thanks a lot crowb) even though the game was made out of a tight budget (thanks to that one cancelled game), so yeah I basically have a bit of hope that Mafia 4's actually gonna be fine, even though Blackmen left and replaced by some guy who was in charge of II and III's remasters or something (Dunno if it's true or it's just MGV doing some trolling)
I love the sense of speed in beamNG, the fear of crashing the car and the grip levels all add to the lightning fast reaction time you need to have to keep the car from turning into a fireball stuck to a tree which makes the game feel unique. Especially coming from a person who played forza games all his life.
@@cyberdemon6517 i mean yeah,using a keyboard in a game with realistic handling is not great,because you are either steering all the way,or not steering,that said,i still play on keyboard
Driver: San Francisco was such a good game, last of the franchise. It's what brings creativity into light. The story, the mechanics, and the damage models especially with licensed vehicles. It's sad to see a franchise like that end.
I do think that vr isn’t a priority for games like FH5, considering its simcade physics, weird in-game wheel rotation and the lack of people who are looking into using their vr headset for FH5. Instead if you are looking for immersion then it’s probably best to play something like iRacing, Assetto Corsa or rFactor 2 as they all offer a far supperior driving experience even if they don’t have any major crash phyics
Vehicle artist in the game industry here. I'd like to chime in and share a few things. Regarding being 'half assed' you always ALWAYS contextualize the driving/handling around the type of game being made. If its purely a 'car' game eg :Forza, NFS then they really don't have an excuse for the physics being boring and broken, it would be like if in GTA the character couldn't walk straight. However with open world games like GTA, watch dogs, saints row etc usually (not always) the vehicle interaction comes secondary to the rest of the game. In other words that part of the game is deemed not as important and receives far fewer resources. There are outliers to this of course but you can probably count on one hand how many open world games actually have really good driving physics. Point two : Physics programmers and people that understand the nuances of car physics are usually not the same person, so you now have to find two or more very specialized people, and once again if your game's primary focus isn't cars then the companies will probably cheap out as the priority is the 'bigger picture' (usually characters and shooting) and not the vehicle physics. Point three : If your system is underdeveloped the studios can keep using a broken foundation for several titles and never fix the fundamental problems. On the flipside for one reason or another, studios like to throw away perfectly good systems and star over. The anecdote I have is that the system developed for Driver San Franciso was amazing (as is the handling in that game ) but for some reason Ubisoft decided to put it into the garbage for The Crew and start over. Point four : Real world car manufacturers are all over the place when it comes to vehicle damage but for the most part they do not want any kind of realistic damage depicted in a game. Fictional vehicles are therefore the prime go-to for this kind of thing, however on that point, fictional cars are also really hard to design well, there are far too many examples of games with really terrible looking fictional cars.
You also missed the difficulty in adding in VR into a game because it's no where near simple to add in as well. It requires detailed interiors as well as many game engines not supporting it
One racing game I love is Wreckfest. It’s one of my favorite modern racing games, with great realistic car handling, a good sense of speed and weight, and awesome destruction. It feels great being in a big muscle car, smashing into a small subcompact, and still keeping most of your momentum while the other car gets wrecked!
frrr that game is pretty amazing. It is one of my most played games on Steam, and the driving physics are indeed super enjoyable. I can comfortably play on keyboard in that game!
@@thejonatan._ I have Wreckfest on my PS5, and it works really well with the Dual-Sense triggers and vibration! It feels awesome accelerating the trigger and the vibrations on impact. But I found out how well the game worked with my steering wheel a few weeks ago. I have a Thrustmaster T150 steering wheel, which is a mid-range overall really good wheel made for the PS4, PS3, and PC. I’ve tried it on a couple PS5 games, but usually doesn’t feel right, which makes sense because it wasn’t made for those games. Surprisingly it worked really well with Wreckfest, though. The driving felt responsive, though I did need to turn the force feedback setting down a bit first. It felt even more fun, drifting around corners and smashing into other cars. I also think the first person is really great, which adds to the immersion!
@wavecraft123 dam that's great that you are able to experience it with those setups! I have a Dualsense controller, but i don't get those triggee sensations while playing on pc :( i bet it would be fun I also want to get a wheel setup some time in the future, they look so great to use and I'm glad to hear about how great wreckfest worked for you with the wheel
Wreckfest is an underrated gem and no other racing game gave me more fun than this masterpiece. I really hope the next thing that Bugbear is cooking is equal or even better. Their long silence lately is a bit worrying..
I have to say I've loved watching BeamNG come along, especially in the physics department. Driving on dirt roads in particular feels incredibly satisfying.
GTA 5's damage was nerfed slightly after the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions came out because of the first person camera. In GTA 4 and original versions of GTA 5, cars can be completely caved in. Especially when hit with a heavy vehicle or of course, a tank.
Yes! I remember back on the Xbox 360 hitting random pedestrians cars and the wheels coming off super easy Now on the updated version it is very rare to get a wheel to pop off unless it's being ran over by a tank
You can crush cars completely even on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Although yes, they do take longer, but then again, considering how most GTA players, myself included, play the games, should you be surprised that the cars are practically indestructible?
@@linkskywalker5417 Fair point, but that just gives novice players an excuse to not drive well. Honestly should have made damage terminal in 2 or 3 hits so that the average GTA player would be forced to drive good. Just my opinion, though.
The driving was very weird in Watch Dogs 1, I agree. Once I couldn't find a unlocked car without stealing one, so I took the train, which was funnily enough very relaxing, knowing physics wouldn't screw with me. Glad you picked up on the missing steering wheel support. This is one of the reasons I have so many hours in ETS2 and a few in ATS now as well.
GTA IV had physics based driving and it was superb. Perhaps it took a bit to get used to but it was way more precise and predictable than anything else. I also agree that Most Wanted was awesome.
Something you forgot in my opinion is the sound design ! For me it completely break the immersion when cars in games have bad engine sounds, especially in GTA, GTA games always had fake and terrible engine sounds, for example a muscle car in a GTA game doesn't have a real V8 engine sound, it completely break the immersion and it feel like you're driving a fake chinese replica lol.
Thats my problem too with cars in GTA, handling and physics in GTA 4 is maybe great but the engine sound are so bad, an infernus(Lamborghini) sounds more like a racing bike than a car
Modern Need for Speed games, Unbound especially, are really bad with this. For some reason the faster you go, the more quiet your car gets. The old Blackbox games, MW05 especially, had it be really loud and you heard those woosh sounds driving past signs, other cars and lamp posts. MW2012 also had amazing sounds and sound design
As a person who's been riding motorcycles for many years now, I can safely say that GTA IV got the motorcycle riding physics very close an enjoyable experience with it still being a bit realistic.
@@AeiouCommander its bad. Somehow develpers of riding games clearly dont ride themselves. imo, it starts with what Dark Space said in the video, the stick being the primary single input device, makes it inherently inferior, because it needs to cover both the bike leaning and it coming back out of it, and the result is extremely sensitive controls and jerkyness, or so many assists that it gets rather boring and feeling stiff etc. The solution seems rather simple, but then again, most people dont care and just want the object to move around. I mean, lets be honest, do you enjoy ride 4 or do you think its lacking somewhere?
Not a big deal, but a pet peeve I've had for a while was tire smoke. After playing Driver: San Francisco and seeing how the rear half of a rwd car can be *completely* obscured by smoke when burning rubber, all other games kinda feel like a let down when I do burnouts.
I don't think gyro controls for bikes would be much of a good idea. They're good on paper and as a gimmick, but having to do that a lot with a controller that you hold in the air with your hands can get very tiring. The DualSense triggers were an interesting idea on paper, but in long term use it becomes annoying or outright uncomfortable. Same thing would be with gyro controlled bikes I feel.
This is a really touchy subject, realism is racing games isn't something that everyone wants, simulation games are there for it, games like NFS, Burnout, Midnight Club and etc. are more focused on the speed and fun, imagine a game like that with forza motorsport realism, it wouldn't be fun, forza horizon is the best example of an arcade game with realism in it, still has an arcade feeling to it with a decent touch of realism, some of the most realistic "racing" games aren't even built for racing, like BeaNG drive, it feels more like a tech demo than a racing game, there are people who actually use it for racing but it's a small portion of the fan base, realism isn't always the best choice.
This whole video is proof that you know nothing about how games actually work. Stop demanding developers to focus on such insignificant things that don't matter. Not every game is Grand Theft Auto, and they don't need to be.
In my book it is tied with Midnight Club 3 in that regard (and better then MC:LA). Only issues with Driver SF were the flipping physics (it got kinda wonky if you landed a jump upside down) and the super cars were a little overly drifty.
@@scottthewaterwarrior I liked how the drift physics were in DSF. If you eased on the throttle and didn't break traction, you could accelerate harder. But if you floored it from a standstill in a high-power RWD car (or pulled the parking brake), you were going to spin the wheels. The driving was great in the sense that anyone could pick it up, but players with racing sim experience could be much, much faster. It made setting times super fun.
This video seems to be lacking some basic fact checking. First of all, Kyloton is NOT a remotely well respected company, and they lost their WRC licence because the last 4 games they released under that licence were hot garbage. Secondly, and most importantly, it has been an open and easily researched fact that car companies have been the driving force (No pun intended) behind the "No Damage" in modern racing titles. It's why GTA does not feature ANY real life vehicles. If it did, you would have zero damage, just as you find in Forza Horizon games. I mean yes, games companies do need to do a hell of a lot better, and it absolutely is possible to persuade companies to relax their rules around showing their products getting damaged, but ultimately the final decision is not, and never has been, down to the developers. I'm a racing game addict, a sim racing enthusiast, and a lover of driving fast and smashing shit up, so I don't say any of this to cover for the game devs, just that facts are facts, and you seem to have missed some pretty bloody big ones.
I had to lol when you say, VR is easy to implement, whilst on the surface it might seem so, in reality it is not - lots of love from a race game dev :) Ps. It is largely the publishers and licences which constrain and hold back our industry, not the developers themselves.
Midnight Club 2 features the best motorcycle physics ive played. They're not perfect but it features the option to hold down L1 while turning to enable leaning, which feels great ingame.
This is not an issue of lazy devs or bad physics, it's a licensing issue with the manufacturers, they don't want their cars getting badly smashed up in the games they're being licensed for.
All that talk about damage but no mention of what is considered fun. That’s a big reason why you don’t total your car just for hitting 1 wall. They may have even had that feature but it was removed because play testers said it made the game boring to constantly have your car get destroyed. It’s not always low effort or rushed, just because it looks like that to you.
It’s licensing. Toyota started pulling their cars from video games because they didn’t believe people would be interested in buying their cars, but that’s changed. As far as damage, it’s licensing. Companies don’t want you to see their cars damaged because it might “put consumers off about safety” so games like gta have to resort to making their own parodies of cars so they can add damage. The difference between gta4 and 5 is the fact that players were complaining about loosing tires and totaling their cars. GTA5 had a somewhat minor soft body physics. But they removed some of it and they started realizing cars that took absolutely no damage. And I hear players boast about “gta’s impressive scratch physics” that I find super annoying. I aren’t hours crashing cars in gta4 because it was fun, and I was able to challenge myself when I tackled to see how little damage I can get on my car and see how long I could drive a car. But gta 5 I don’t want to damage them because it’s more annoying driving around with you hood popped open and there be a scratch on it after you just accidentally touched a light post. Gta6 will be just like the crew, or they will go back to vice city type damage. Take 2 doesn’t do physics, they do graphics. 😒
The reason motorcycles are steered with one input is that when you're riding a motorcycle, you mostly steer by leaning and the front wheel turns with you. I can actually ride and steer my Harley without using my hands. (After locking the throttle of course) Dirt bikes are much different, but street bikes, sport bikes & cruisers are this way.
burnout and gta 4 have great damage and forza doesn't is mainly due to licensing. A lot of car brands don't want damage to be shown on their cars in games. It's not the only reason but its one of the reasons why modern racing games like the recent forza and need for speed (Especially the ones that feature new real cars) lack damage.
"Many games don't have VR support despite it being easy to implement." Tell me you aren't a Software Engineer without telling me you aren't a Software Engineer.
i agree, but i'd hope he was referencing the actual core implementation of it being easy. not necessarily from a development process, but the fact that it's just a POV from inside the car instead of needing all these dedicated systems for reloading guns, interacting with items and the world environment, etc.
You did a fantastic job outlining a lot of quirks of driving games! I have some additional input of my own: Part of the issue is compromise between expectations and reality. You have lots of people (kids) who really don't know how cars work, and realistic physics are annoying for them. Even adults who have driven their whole lives have a surprisingly shallow understanding of how vehicles really behave in the extreme situations you see them in on screen. Most people won't understand that their offroad truck isn't "steering" properly because it has a locked rear differential, which works differently than an open one. They'll just go "ugh, I hate this truck" and pick a different one instead. So developers will almost exclusively choose to leave that behavior out--if they even have any idea what a differential is themselves. Take, for example, motorcycles. Anyone who's ridden knows about "countersteer," but normal people don't. Hence, video games always require you to steer in the direction you want to go. but in real life, motorcycles require you to turn *opposite* of the direction you want to go, once you reach a certain speed. If games worked that way, people would get annoyed and give up, because it doesn't make sense to them. But there are *lots* of complexities like this in real life--even with cars. Another example is aircraft. I had a friend who played a game where the airplane steers like a car: left to right (yaw). He swore up and down that "that's how planes work in real life." But he'd get frustrated if the controls were realistic, especially if he had to deal with realistic performance, stalling, turbulence and crosswind, ice accumulation, the impact of altitude on performance and behavior, etc. etc.--or even situations where there's loss of control, like flat-spins, overspeed, dives of death, etc. Not to mention that even small changes in design can lead to fatal situations if you aren't familiar with the aircraft. On top of that, programming the behavior of any system is much more complex than it seems, especially because it can't be solved in an intuitive way. You can't program a car by typing "if it hits a rock, the wheel bounces." If you try to program it in an intuitive way, you'll have all kinds of hair-pulling bugs and issues, and it won't behave correctly. That's because our modern-day physics engines aren't 1:1 compared to, well, *life's* physics engine. You need an exceptionally rare type of talent to take a complex physics system and "translate" it into a (relatively) simple equation that produces the desired result. All in all, it's not just darn hard to program these systems. Most people don't WANT vehicles to work realistically. Just realistically *enough* to immerse--not everyone, but specifically--the *target* audience. And when you throw in these expectations, coding a system that works *as expected* is incredibly difficult. You have to figure out what inputs someone is expecting to give, and what outputs they're expecting to see on the screen. And then you have to turn that into code. Both of those problems--figuring out what your audience wants and how to give it to them--are more difficult to solve than people think, especially if you're a massive company where getting anything done requires wading through a swamp of "red tape." People who have both the *inspiration* and especially the *ability* to execute a vision like yours are *exceedingly* rare. And that's the real problem.
For me this like engineering, You can imagine you have a linear force and easily use that to impulse certain machine... but vehicles in gaming are like take that linear force and develop a whole factory that fully works only from that linear force. This happens also the whole time with rigging, people dont get how hard is for example to pretend to move 40 muscles always realistically with barely a couple of imputs... at the end you dont really "control it" more like the rigging is a simulation that behaves correctly depending the situation/scrips and your imputs (like 90% of the movement are a simulation and only 10% of your imput are actually taken on count)
"VR is easy to implement!" As someone who has talked to devs from Codemasters/EA, I can call BS on that. There's a reason the VR for WRC 2023 is coming AFTER release. It's because it's NOT easy to implement, and takes time to do right.
The reason VR isn't in more games it's because it's still pretty niche, especially on console. Crew 2 (and arcade racers in general) isn't a game worthy of wheel and pedal support if it doesn't have the physics to back it up. Even if it's a racing game, it should have the physics to back it up if it has wheel and pedal support. As for WRC Generations, last I heard about that game is that when it launched, there wasn't accurate enough response from the throttle - the car basically crawled until the gas was about 80% pressed - so I don't know if that game series was the _best_ example. I'm surprised you didn't mention Dirt Rally 2.0 though! Even a classic of Richard Burns Rally is insanely fun today. I'm also surprised you quite quickly glossed over FOV. I remember trying NFS Heat during a free weekend on Steam, and going 125mph felt like I was going only 45-55mph.
Why did you call FH5 a simulator in this video? It's a Simcade, it was intentionally dumbed down from the FM handling model which only just brushed simulator territory to begin with. You had BeamNG footage at the ready if you wanted to use a simulator that wasn't track-only
man if every game was like beamng drive I would be so mad because its so annoying when youll be just chilling. your tire pops and you fall off a cliff killing your entire body system in seconds
2 things: Games like Forza horizon five and GTA 5 don't use crash physics because it makes the game more frustrating if ur car brakes every time u make a mistake. Considering ur in police chases a lot in GTA. And they want you to have freedom in forza, thats why u can smash through trees with only a scratch. U wanna be able to drive around without being stopped by damages. That being said, i can't believe you didn't talk about BeamNG Drive!!
It's crazy to think that indie games like BeamNG and Wreakfest have better car physics than pretty much all of the recent triple A titles with driving in them.
Beam ng would suck as a racing game BECAUSE of the realism. What would happen if you put Beam ng’s physics in a need for speed game? It would suck, because cars are fragile, and that just doesn’t work for a game like need for speed. They wouldn’t be able to even if they wanted to, because licensed car companies wouldn’t want their cars to be seen destroyed.
@@biponacci yeah, you're right. a game like need for speed where you are constantly bumping your car into things would suck with car physics like in beam ng. A sim racer would be much better for those types of physics because you are meant to have to watch your car's damage and other things. my problem in this video is that Dark Space tries to say that every racing game NEEDS these types of physics, when they don't and shouldn't.
For open world driving games, Burnout Paradise still remains my favourite in terms of the overall package. Fantastic feeling cars, damage models and a near perfection on the arcade style. Yes it had some jankiness to it, but even the bikes feel better than most others I've played.
I totally disagree with your solution of integrating leaning the control along with turning the handlebars on a motorcycle. If you've ever ridden a motorcycle, you know that's not how motorcycles work. Firstly, your body intuitively does this for you and the faster you go the more you lean and the less you turn the handlebars, separating this in a game would make controlling a motorbike in a game more difficult than controlling it in real life, unnecessarily difficult, you would have to learn and practice this intuition to be able to play the game. Second, if you turn more than normal without leaning the bike, you will simply fall, and vice versa. The amount of lean and steering depends on the speed, it makes no sense to give this control to the player rather than simply automating this in physics. In my GTA-game, IMPUNES, motorbikes and bicycles work by balancing on top of two colliding spheres that slide on the ground with real physics, and turning the handlebars causes the spheres to create friction with the ground in some direction, thus making the front turn. I liked the result because you feel like there is a physical balance happening.
"Why are game studios simply reselling the same content in new packages rather than offering true innovation with each new release?" Big game companies: Apple:
5:17 as much as I prefer IV's handling, I do like how I can flip my vehicle back up. It isn't exactly what I would call "handholding", more of a QoL feature.
I agree. But in combination with the arcade'y driving-physics in GTA V, and the ability to adjust the car in mid-air; the entire "flipping of the car" seems a bit too unrealistic and breaks the immersion - although it's a very convenient feature. If Rockstar Games instead would have combined the ability to flip the car, with realistic driving-physics, and an inability to adjust the car in mid-air; then the car-flipping wouldn't feel as unrealistic. It's simply easier to forgive only 1 unrealistic aspect, than it is to forgive 3 unrealistic aspects.
This is going to sound weird but I think there's a large market segment in which innovation in car driving mechanics is not desirable. For games that merely feature driving rather than being all about driving (e.g. stuff like Just Cause or Watch Dogs, not racing games), I think customers would be much happier if "good driving physics" was a drop-in middleware that games studios could just buy and configure. Similarly to how lots of games just drop in Havok or Bullet or Box2D rather than inventing rigid body physics simulation from scratch.
"We should experience mayhem" - no we shouldn't, because most modern videogames players are just casual gamers, who want to press X to win, that's why people hate GTA IV at most. And if studios would present more AAA titles with normal physics, videogames industry will go bankrupt.
The Forza damage question has been solves LONG ago, its for the same reason Gran Turismo didn't have "realistic" damage. LICENSING! Ferrari and Aston Martin & Bugatti don't want people to see their vehicles destroyed.
Regarding damage, I used to feel the same about how GTA5's damage was a complete downgrade over GTA4's... But I ended up realizing that it makes life a lot more convenient in most situations, especially given the Online component. Dying instantly in Story Mode because of an unfortunate lamp post hit is simply an instant fun killer. Having a stunt session ruined because your car flipped on its roof is an instant fun killer (before 5 at least - this turning the car around mechanic is, imho, an absolutely welcome addition). The older cars in GTA5 were more malleable, but that comes with so many downsides. In some stunt races, just racing cleanly and normally would absolutely destroy the suspension of my Entity XF after a few landed jumps, making it an absolute pain to drive. In freemode, more recent sports and supercars are designed and built in such a way that the front bumper sticks out enough to usually protect the headlights after head-on collisions. Is it unrealistic? Of course. Is it practical? Immensely and absolutely.
Mafia II has the best driving I've ever seen in a game. Piloting those land barges felt exactly as it should, the body roll, the sliding and traction, the everything was dead nuts on accurate. The only thing it didn't have was a great damage model. It was passable but if it had GTA IV's damage it'd be perfection.
You do know that the cars from the 40's and 50's era was made from solid metal and not light aluminium and plastic? That is why the cars in Mafia 2 don't deform as much after an collision as in Gta 4..
I read it somewhere, damage on car is limited nowadays because licensing issue, the license holder of that car dont like their product looks wrecked in game.
One of the best game with bike handling (well, bike-only) is in my opinion Motocross GP 2019. In that game, you would need both sticks to drive: the left stick is for steering, the right stick is for weight transfer. If you steer left and transfer weight to the right, you'd instantly fall off. What makes the handling even better: when setting the handling mode to simulation, accelerating in midair tilts the boke backwards, whereas letting go of the throttle leans the bike forward. Also: "it's so easy to implement VR in a racing game" - says who, exactly? Sorry if I seem entitled now, but do you have any programming experience? I really can't stand statements like these from backseat devs.
A lot of this is pretty short-sighted. Cars don't crumble to pieces because it's computationally expensive, and executives at VW and GM don't want to see their cars destroyed (this is why Forza has damage and GT does not -- GT has a very old set of contracts that prevent damage, and Forza has varying contracts so some cars are relegated to undamageable AI in Horizon while others can be completely shredded) Camera controls are limited because of the inherent limitations of consoles in that you only have so many buttons, no keyboard, and no console/scripting to set up cameras. VR compatibility is more complex than simply publishing to a second monitor and requires careful math, very finely adjustable player control models, and extensive modelling of car interiors (including all the controls) to work. And bad physics, other than weird bugs/unintended interactions, are often *on purpose* -- Watch Dogs is a game about being a hackerman with a gun, not a professional race car driver. Of course the cars are sloppy, they're there to create setpieces where you spike a cop car with deployable bollards, not to drift so hard you lose them at the turnpike. Of course GTA has wonky driving physics; it's a cinematic crime game, not Midnight Club. If you want to talk about bad driving physics in GTA5, have a look at how Franklin's special ability actually works; it literally functions by increasing how much steering you have before full lock and increases the mass of the car. Seriously. That's how the "improved handling" is achieved, it makes your car weigh more but dumps kinetic energy into it to maintain its speed, and the increased mass improves traction because of arcane scottish coding that was refactored 1000 times like a bad katana. (Interestingly, GTA5 has an infinite speed boost exploit with that ability because of this, and it's only limited by franklin's super meter) In general, if you want a game that satisfies what you want, play BeamNG and watch your CPU burst into flames. Or maybe pick up one of the earlier DiRT titles or DiRT Rally.
I'm not trying to defend anyone but here are few reasons behind damage, for forza its because of licensing, and for gta v they decreased physics for better graphics, which was a mistake imo because they should have just released the game on next gen, also there are gameplay reasons, just look at gta v damage of roof on old gen (ps3) and next gen (ps4 and up), they introduced first person and with that they tried to remove camera clipping
I get what you're saying in this video, but a lot of the comments you made honestly feel like the things Redditors who don't know much of anything about game design or development would say. Everything you brought up regarding Watch Dogs' driving physics was honestly pretty spot on, but then you brought up Forza Horizon 5 in the same segment. Contrary to what you said, no Forza Horizon game is a simulation racer, they're all arcade style racers built on the foundation of simulation racers. Basically, they have their physics tuned down so they're right in between feeling realistic and being fun for the average player. Forza Horizon (and Motorsport for that matter) are also both games where your car only goes airborne for very limited amounts of time and in specific scenarios, like for danger signs, specific areas on some rally tracks, and in a couple of Hot Wheels DLC races. The only scenario where that matters is during rally races where being airborne for even a short amount of time can completely mess up your racing line. With danger signs and Hot Wheels races, those jumps are clearly meant to feel arcade-like and cartoonish, as danger signs are just extra things around the maps for players to complete and Hot Wheels races are inherently ridiculous. For Just Cause 3, I'm not sure how the driving element alone can make the game feel cheap when like you said its main focus on transportation is the grappling hook and the wingsuit. There's also the fact that Just Cause is an extremely chaotic series where almost anything that can be destroyed, will be destroyed. This requires the physics engine to put an emphasis on how those objects interact with each other and the world around them, and that will mess up how cars feel in the game because if they're to keep their destructive properties, then they're gonna remain physics objects like anything else in the game. The closest comparison I know of here is how vehicles act in the Source engine. One of the main selling points of the Source engine and the games built on it was how physics worked in the game. They were so good for the time that an entire sandbox game was built with it; Garry's Mod. Now if you've ever driven a car in Gmod or Half-Life 2 then you'll know how weird they feel, and that's because the game's physics engine isn't based around just the car, but so many other things. That's the same case with Just Cause 3, so bringing it up in a video about driving games as the title implies doesn't really make sense. I think a similar thing can be argued with GTA V. There's *a lot* more driving in the GTA series than there is in a game like Just Cause, so of course there's a greater emphasis put into how the cars feel. That may be one of the reasons why racing events are so popular online. Like Just Cause though, GTA is a ridiculous sandbox game. I mean you go through the game pulling off increasingly ridiculous heists and jobs all as part of a fairly large story. And look at everything online, you've got flying motorcycles, private yachts and submarines, futuristic tanks, jetpacks, energy weapons, orbital strike satellites, etc. I think Rockstar wanted the driving in GTA V to be taken to more of an extreme with its arcade style feeling because it just fits better with the game's more ridiculous and faster gameplay. And again, it's not primarily a driving game, so many other factors have to be considered when talking about the car physics in games like this compared to how they work in dedicated driving and racing games. This applies not just to GTA, but to pretty much any game that isn't a driving game first, so I'll leave this point at that to avoid making this comment longer by repeating myself with Final Fantasy, more Watch Dogs, etc. As for damage, well as @user-xd4hb5lb2k already brought up, any game that uses licensed brands and manufacturers is very limited in what they can do with damage. Game series like Need 4 Speed, Forza, Dirt, The Crew, Gran Turismo, etc. would not in a million years have the extremely wide selection of real-life cars that they do if they were to implement detailed crash physics. There's absolutely no way that brands like Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota/Lexus, and Chrysler would allow their cars to be put in a game where they can be physically destroyed like that. I do agree a bit with your section on camera controls, but you also have to think about why they're like that in the first place. Most people like playing racing games in the third person perspective, and mirrors don't exactly work there. Rotating the camera to see your opponents is obviously the best option, and when you're in the middle of a high speed race it makes sense that the camera should first snap to where you want to look then adjust afterwards. This camera snapping method is actually being used by some controllers in FPS games now because it's faster than waiting for the camera to rotate to where you want to look. Of course players should always have the option to choose what they like best, and adding more camera settings could help out with that. Also, I'm sorry but saying VR is easy to implement is just plain wrong. On a side note, that little section about Forza not improving much over the course of nine years is just wrong, and especially so when you compared it to the early Mario Kart games when we were still in the process of experimenting a lot with both the development of games and new technologies. The physics have improved massively, engine sounds have gotten so much better, customizability is better than ever for both cars and tracks, the vehicle selection is absolutely massive, and the cars look better than ever (although the developers really need to update some of the older models). You can possibly get away with saying the difference between Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5 is just a new map as many players already have, but you can never get away with that when comparing it to the very first game in the franchise. Anyways sorry for the long comment, I just had a lot to say about this because I personally have a lot of experience with racing games, and I think you could have brought up some much better points or argued the ones you already had much better. Please don't take this as me just being mean or rude, because I can see what you're trying to say here, you're just not saying it in the best way, and I think that can be improved.
"It shoud be up to the player to finish a mission in style or... in pieces" - Driv3r Just remembering those days when Atari an Reflections were working so hard to get realistic car damage in 2004 for Driver 3. Anyway, leaving the licenses aside, this is a problem that applies to anything in video games, not just driving: Simulation >> realistic but unpractical // Arcade >> practical but unrealistic. Developers need to find a balance in between but sometimes can be difficult. Like, I know that drifting in a Ridge Racer game is as easy as tap the brakes and the car drifts on it's own but drifting in Gran Turismo means adapting the car like in real life or either you don't drift or you end up losing control. I guess here depends on player preferences for an easy but unrealistic drifting or a more complex but realistic drifting. The point is developers can not cover all players preferences unless they add an option to switch between arcade or simulation just like VR shooting games that allow you to choose manual reload of a gun or automatic.
Wow. You basically summarized my entire thoughts about this topic I had since the release of GTA V. Just like you, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with the physics in it and took me 2 - 3 years to get around it. You needed real skills to drive in IV, V held your hand all throughout. Every other game apart from GTA IV, the cars feel like an afterthought, where they don’t interact with the environment. No weight, no damage, no crumple zones, no suspension travel, and agile handling in EVERY vehicle weather it be a supercar or an SUV etc. it’s infuriating! Test Drive Unlimited 1 & 2 were great games BUT they also lacked the same issue with handling where cars felt like they drove on ice. Hopefully this issue doesn’t carry over onto the next one.
I still haven't gotten around to completing GTA V, mostly because of the boring driving physics. Hardly ever had to slow down for curves and even when I did, practically every vehicle could stop on a dime, so even if I misjudged my speed, I could correct mid-corner and be fine. The only challenge seemed to come from the police's rubber banding with their magic turbo boost ram ability that would force you to swerve. The swerve wasn't even a predictable thing based on impact angle most the time, felt random.
As far as bike physics go, gta iv on the ps3 had whats called "sixaxis". You would use the controller to tilt bikes, helicopters, and even reload. It was the only time ive seen any game use the software
Car companies don't license their brands to games if they will get damaged badly, or usually, at all. That's why every game that HAS good destruction physics use unbranded cars or "close but not close enough to trigger copyright law" cars. Flatout and Wreckfest are good examples.
I get where everyone is coming from on the whole GTA IV vs GTAV physics debate... They both appeal to different audiences and you can't be expected to love both styles. Niko is a certified badass with a troubled past and an even more troubling inability to drive. As Cousin comes to meet you at the port, you look back at the boat and realize "Things are going to be different...". You are now Niko, and you can't drive for shit. 10/10
Tourist Trophy on PS2 was the best motorbike racing game for almost a decade and the reason for that was because it was built upon the Gran Turismo 4 engine. It's outdated by today's standards but it's still a blast to play, even if it needs an update in its physics and other aspects. Kazunori Yamauchi has briefly mentioned that he wants to make a successor that incorporates proper racing sim setups and motion controls but it's still not possible with the current technology (or at least affordable to gamers). There's at least one UA-camr who has mentioned that VR could work as a possible workaround in lieu of expensive racing hardware that it's not streamline yet. I also think this is a viable option even though VR is still out of reach for most of gamers' pockets, especially on the PC side.
I struggled to finish wasting 15 minutes of my time, just so that I could maybe try to change opinions about games, instead of a random guy I started hearing about that doesn't seem to understand games properly, how much effort it takes to make them, yes big companies make mistakes, but the games I talk about in my comment are all games I've played, and enjoyed, while I don't think you played many of them. It seems you try constantly to make every game like reality, when the purpose of a game is to escape reality. Again I blame the big corporations for the bugs that are undeniably here because of hasty releases, and poor treatment for devs. But also, do you even know how making a game work? Like I used a few game engines to try and make games, I know I'm not good at it but it still is hard. Even to make a simple system for money, with saving your money, it takes a few lines of code, around 30 on Roblox studio, which has all the tools needed to make a proper game (don't just think it's bad because it's roblox, you can really make pretty much anything with it). VR support built from scratch, even with Unity, would require a few devs for maybe a day or two, which, if you look at the release dates is a lot, especially for smaller studios. No you can't just magicly put VR support in a racing game, because of so many technical reasons. And also performance. Most games have Steering wheel and pedals support anyway, since they're basically controllers in fancy casings, so most of your arguments in your video are worthless. I played The Crew 2 quite a bit and honestly love it, driving really fast, with different cars, and it, unlike you said, feels different, yes not as much as other games, but it still feels different; I really also like GTA V, and is, unlike what you said, quite good in terms of damage, but it looks like you used 100% body armor, which obviously doesn't let the car get damage too much; Forza Horizon 5 is definitly an arcade game; you showed a lot about BeamNG but it is a game that needs a monster PC to run at max graphics, my pc is worth I think around 1000$ and manages to run at 40 fps at min graphics no mods, so of course the map is immovable, and you don't even mention the game, just make allusions; NFS Heat is also an arcade game, you showed clips without mentioning it again, and it's a game I really like, of course "fans" will say it's trash, the story is boring etc, but who cares, you can basically finish it without doing like around 90% of missions, plus the degree of modification you have in it is one of the best I know. So stop trashing on games because you're mad at something unrealistic, it's like being mad at a desk because it's a desk, it doesn't make sense.
O right! Yea Mafia 1-3 had awesome car handling. I had wanted a manual transmission in Mafia 2 and 3!! (sequential no clutch just like NFS MW 2005/Mafia 1) I have had so much more fun driving around free roam in the Mafia games then trying to play them as a Grand Theft Auto like. Mafia 2 was such a waste of potential. And Mafia 3.... Nuff said. No but I do have somethings to say about Mafia 3. I do like Lincoln clay and the main story. The driving after patches and turning realistic driving on was really good too. Yet the buggy release and endless boooooring open world missions of repetitive garbage really makes you want to forget it even exist. Mafia 2 and 3 had some really grate truck/lorry driving. I do not know how many hours I drove around in Mafia 2 just being a truck driver. That gearbox shifting sounds and realistic physic and traffic was awesome! Agen what a waste not getting the Mafia 2 we where promised! Still feel cheated out of not being ticketed running red lights! Joe even scream at you for doing it! ARRRRRRG.
@@ididntmeantoshootthatvietn5012I don't remember that Mafia 2 has the driving options. It was introduced to Mafia 3 and also in Mafia 2 definitive edition.
One thing I can say about GTA V’s physics, even tho the ability to roll your car onto it’s wheels is very unrealistic and weird, it would be highly inconvenient to have to hop out of the car and find a new one, especially in GTA Online. So I can see why they added that. As for the damage physics, yes, they need to fix that in GTA VI. Some cars barely even deform, while others, such as the cop cars can literally be compressed into a toaster. The inconsistency is what bothers me so much.
The real "problem" is that no real car can take anywhere near the amount of abuse that a game car can, so where would the fun be? Real life flat jumping: impossible without folding the frame. Real life drifting: likely to break suspension unless you have the genuine skills. Hit a curb sideways in real life: bent rims = wobbly ride. The list goes on and on.
If you had any knowledge or even did a little research, you would know that licensing requirements of many manufacturers stipulate that their vehicles do not show crash damage.
My opinion of each game I've played. I'm breaking it down in two parts (GTA and Watch Dogs series') (Racing games) I'm sorry for this essay but some ppl might enjoy reading all this 💀💀💀💀 GTA HD Universe & WD 1, 2, Legion GTA5: Almost every car feels the same when you drive it. Whether it's an SUV, sedan, or sports car they have the same physics when it comes to body roll and suspension. The only notable difference is the speed. However in the recent Chop Shop update they seem to change this issue a little bit. For example, the Bravado Dorado (based on the older generation Dodge Durango) has a much softer suspension and actually has the weight and feeling of an old SUV as it bounces more and rolls more. I think GTA 6 will make each car feel different based on how old it is and the style of car. GTA4: Personally as a little kid I thought the physics in GTA 4 were funny and it was just funny to drive a car. I still look at it the same way. It definitely was not perfect; the body roll made sense for SUV's, not for a small little sedan. The wheels were always glued to the ground, if the cars wheels lifted off the ground while the car tilted at a high speed, I would've called it the perfect physics every open world game should have had. Also the vehicles need to incorporate a sense of speed since they all felt slow. I see a lot of people glazing GTA 4 physics, they were definitely above and beyond for a game made in 2008. However looking at it now, I'm glad we have GTA 5 physics rather than 4. Watch Dogs 1: Cars feel like they have weight. The steering feels too stiff and arcade like. The vehicle suspension physics are awesome in this game, older cars have a softer and more worn and bouncy suspension. Sports cars have a stiffer suspension. The speed is another issue where each car is capped out at a certain speed but they add motion blur to make it look like you're going fast. Another issue was that the wheels would clip if you go over a bump, the body of the car would react appropriately but not the wheels as they would just teleport up and down over a bump. Watch Dogs 2: Cars have less weight compared to the first. Sedans and sports have a much more responsive steering whereas SUV's and trucks feel weighty and delayed similar to real life. One thing I noticed was the suspension was toned down which I dislike however the feeling of driving a car was improved greatly. Watch Dogs Legion: Each car has their own physics. SUV's and older vehicles are much more springy and roll more whereas newer cars are much easier and lighter to control. This game is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of vehicle physics in Watch Dogs but sadly I think Ubisoft is done with that franchise. I hope they make a game that's similar or a new franchise which is branched off of Watch Dogs. For me the Watch Dogs storyline and game is second in place standing beside the GTA franchise. Racing games: Forza Horizon (2, 3, 4, 5), The Crew (2, Motorfest), Need for Speed (Rivals, Heat, Unbound), Asseto Corsa Forzo Horizon series: Each Horizon game felt the same. The cars have a much more arcade like feel if you drive with a controller. Driving with a steering wheel makes it feel much more immersive and with the beautiful graphics it can make it feel like you are driving a real car. Off-road driving in different cars can be felt, sports cars with a stiffer suspension made it a much more bumpier ride whereas an SUV or off-road vehicle was softer and smoother. The Crew 2: Each and every car felt the same and the vehicle had no weight at all. You're driving across the US but it felt very dull for 80% of the ride and wasn't the greatest experience (it shows that having a ridiculously big map can cause a lot of flaws). The Crew Motorfest: Much more improved physics for cars. Stock cars vs modified cars had a significant change in feeling. Large map yet they made it much more fun to explore (takes place in Hawaii). Even the sounds of the cars are realistic and have a good echo to them if you listen from afar. NFS Rivals: Though they have their own physics, each game feels like an arcade game. However NFS clearly established that it is an arcade racer and it makes it feel fun. Some may not agree with my take but I enjoyed Rivals more than Most Wanted. I've played both however I ended up purchasing Rivals as it gave a feeling of a proper racing game. Even though it's arcade like, it felt real and for it's time the graphics were phenomenal. For me that was probably my most favourite NFS game. NFS Heat & UB: Improved graphics, and vehicle physics still arcade like, yet still fun. I like the vibes of UB more however they are on the same boat. Asseto Corsa: This is a driving simulation game. This game is meant to be played with a wheel. The cars have weight, body roll, good suspension depending on what you drive. It's also a game that is meant to be modded so I add a lot of vehicle and map mods as well as aesthetic mods to make everything look more real. It's not an open world since you're just driving on a racetrack or down a highway with AI traffic but in terms of physics, it is easily the best. Graphics wise I would argue the other racing games mentioned above are better but easily way better in physics.
I decided to delete my comments to retype them as one giant comment up as more and more relevants stuff popped up: 3:50 The vehicle physics in JC3 and JC4 hurt with how "instant respons-y" they were. Every car either had all grip or no grip. Just Cause 2 had more "cartoony" vehicle physics (IE if you fell off a cliff you could trigger the car to barrel roll at violent speeds (there was also a whoosh sound effect to accommodate it as the game was built to be a cheesy action thriller)), but there was an actual sense of weight and momentum to every vehicle you drove. Your armored cars were slow and bulky. Your trucks slouched and sagged at corners. Your daily drivers had modest body roll to them and would break traction as if they were on all-seasons if you drove too fast. The sports cars were grip monsters that would send you into oblivion if you found the limit 7:02 So, we did try motion control motorcycles during the PS3 era and the general consensus was you had input delay with how far you needed to crank the controller over to get to max tilt, and it was difficult as can be to re-center your steering. The majority of us stopped using motion control steering almost instantly and went back to using the thumbstick. If we were to implement it as a weight shift mechanic instead, you need to learn the counter-intuitiveness that is "how to steer a motorcycle." We're about to get weird... When you're riding a motorcycle at low speeds, you want to turn the bike in the direction you want to go and lean away from the corner. Want to go left? Turn the handlebars left, and shift your butt over to the right. This will droop the bike in the direction you want to go while changing your center of gravity so you don't dump it. Takes some getting used to, but you can easily translate that into a gamepad input. When you're riding a motorcycle at traveling speeds, however, things get very... backwards. If you want to turn left, _you actually want to push your handlebars (or your thumbstick) right_ and then shift your weight to the left. The weight shift brings the bike down onto its left side, and by turning the wheel right it exposes the sidewall, which gets smaller and smaller the more you lean it. That's gonna be the hard one for people to get used to The Ride games that simulate this have handled this debacle by automating the whole counter-weighting and counter-steering process. You want to turn right at speed? Push the analog stick right and watch as your rider automatically shifts their weight and counter-steers into a right hander. The unfortunate drawback of this though is every single steering input has a 1 second delay, so you're stuck playing the games as if you're a mystic predicting the future and planning your inputs well in advanced. 10:49 A song as old as time itself, it's brand marketing fighting against (as well as exploiting) the low intelligence of society. Companies like to have their brands represented in their games. What they don't like is inaccurate representation of their brand. If you were to take that Dodge Viper there, and wrap it around a tree, Dodge might be unhappy that the damage model doesn't match how it would actually crumple in real life. It's considered "bad press" to see their models destroyed in an unrealistic and unsafe fashion. From the consumer's point of view, if you have some guy who knows nothing about NCAP or IIHS crash tests who takes a GT86 and crashes it in Forza to the point that it pancakes, they in their uneducated guise would believe that Forza, a game known to be an "accurate" simulator, is showing them that if they owned a GT86 IRL that that's what would happen should they be involved in a crash, and in turn be less inclined to buy it, which would tarnish Toyota's reputation. Yes, this actually happens. Just look at all the people who think a car will explode if crashed into thanks to movies. It's 2023 and people still believe that shit. The burnout games and GTA games could get away with it because they aren't tied to real brands. They can smash them however they want without the worry of setting false expectations on how a car were to fare in a crash. Toyota for a short time in the 2010s refused to be in any games that involved street racing for they feared their cars would be purchased by irresponsible young adults for irl street racing. Thankfully they rolled back on that and allowed their cars to be re-added to games like Forza Horizon when they came to their senses. Similarly this is why some brands such as Ferrari stay out of games with heavy emphasis on customization. The board still has this high and mighty idea that their cars are perfect from factory and shouldn't be allowed to be tweaked too extensively. See also: Deadmau5's Purrari lawsuit. 12:05 All I have to say here is NFS Shift is the only game I've played that really nailed that "you are in a fast car" feel with the exaggerated tunnel vision effect. That game made road course racing as fun as open world arcade games. 12:34 I miss the hill cam from the Midnight Club games. You're coming up over a blind hill or have a tall vehicle in front of you? Push the left analog stick forward to raise the camera up about 15 feet. Now the BS of accidentally dicking it into a car you didn't see is no longer an issue. God I feel old seeing how bass-ackwards we've gone. lol I'll die on the hill saying that we peaked during the Gamecube and PS2 era. Gabe Newell's "games as a product are becoming games as a service" E3 line from 2010 looks more like a warning than an announcement as the years go by. *Last note. I'm going to plug Night Runners. That game is taking inspiration from the PS2 era of racing games and it's the first time I've been genuinely excited for a racing game since Forza Horizon*
I'm sorry but IMO you made a ton of mistakes in your reasoning and arguments. 1: Forza Horizon 5 and the whole Horizon series in general are definitely not racing sims. They are arcade racers with more realistic oriented physics, akin to Need for Speed Underground 2 for example. Forza Motorsport is the Turn 10 franchise that actually focuses on sim racing, and it's not even close to being a fully fledged sim game like Assetto Corsa, to name the most popular. 2: GTA IV's driving physics are a lame wannabe realistic attempt. They fail so bad at what they're supposed to be doing that they look like a parody. The cars' weight transfer and suspension traveling are overexagerated to the point it looks like you're gonna flip over every time you take a corner. All the vehicles are too heavy and wiggly even the ones that are supposed to have firm suspensions and sharp handling like sports cars and supers. In fact, GTA V is much more realistic in that regard, though now the problem is the cars feel too light. 3: World objects being easily destroyable is actually the opposite of realistic. Try crashing your car into a lampost full speed, see what happens. Spoilers: the pole will likely barely budge while your car crumples on it. 4: Many games don't feature realistic levels of damage due to licencing. It's also very often not necessary as it's not the focus of the game. On semi-sims like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo for example, the main aspect of the games is the driving and racing, and tho more realistic, damages would hinder that experience on these large-audience franchises. Also you're comparing Burnout 3: Takedown, a full blown arcade game that had crashing as its core mechanic, to Forza Horizon 5, an "immersive"/real-ish arcade racer which focuses on the driving and freeroaming. Having crash physics the same type as Burnout or BeamNG in such a game would be terribly frustrating! 5: If you play racing games because you wanna go fast, you shouldn't be playing simulation oriented games, so this FoV problem is almost a non-issue. The fun in sim-racing comes the driving, not the speed in itself. Speed there is a reward for your driving skills. If you're good, you can handle the car at high speed and make quick laps. Sense of speed is good, but the car feeling a bit slow in a simulator is not too bothersome since you should know when to brake and at what speed you can take the corner, not guess it. Anyway, the FoV can often be tweaked, and sim games are mostly intended to be played in cockpit or hood cam, which usually solves both the FoV and camera angle issue. 6: Racing game doesn't necessarily mean sim racing game. Arcade racers don't really need to implement support for VR or wheel setup because the average player for these games is going to play using their controler or even keyboard. Heck, some arcade games have such wacky physics that they'd actually feel counterintuitive to play using a wheel.
GTA IV's motorcycle physics are still some of the best motorcycles I've ever seen, you can actually lean on them and the crotch rockets still work with body roll and traction, once you get the hang of them they're actually very dynamic
Apparently the deformation in gta 5 used to be better on last gen but it was somewhat disabled at the sides and roof I guess so the interiors wouldn't get messed up in first person. Don't quote me on that though, I never owned it on last gen and just read some forums. Still a huge shame :(
I mean, if the roof deformed and blocked my view I'd just switch to 3rd person, that's what I do in Wreckfest. Or if they really want to keep the immersion, design it so that your character ducks down some if the roof is in the way.
@@scottthewaterwarrior There's an interesting fact I learned from the video "A Look Behind GTA 5's Weird Gameplay Design" is that car roof deformation can be toggled in real time, so why they didn't just do that based on selected camera perspective is mind boggling.
I worked as a software tester for a large portion of my career. My first game was Need For Speed 3 for the PC. A great game for LAN multiplayer, but it lacked some elements that made the PS1 version more charming, such as the cops shouting at you on a bullhorn. The reason why Burnout and GTA are better at accurate destruction models is simply because they make their own cars that emulate real ones. Having licensed cars in your game or movie comes with a cost: Some manufacturers don't want their vehicle used by villains, and others may require that their vehicles not take realistic damage. The developers can do 3 things: 1. Make a simulation game that includes as many manufacturers as possible, sacrificing real physics and damage (and the cost of licensing the cars) to rely on brand recognition for big sales numbers 2. Include a handful of manufacturers that allow for damage, allowing for better realism while sacrificing depth 3. Make your own cars that sort of look and behave like the real thing, sacrificing brand recognition while potentially reinforcing a parody-esque narrative and allowing the player to explore what's available without specifically having to live up to the player's preconceived notions of what a specific real car would behave like. Players can do that over the course of multiple games. Designing your own vehicles keeps the costs internal (designers, modelers, artists, sound designers), preventing licensing costs and restrictions altogether. I prefer GTA IV's physics, BTW.
I think most users of the game would bale their car on the corner of a building at the first bend (did you see the 120 mph crash on fifth gear?), thus game cars are made out of 8 inches of plate steel and given thirty thousand horsepower engines to compensate. That way they can drive into anything like battering rams and just get a few scratches on the paintwork. The exception is beamng and Garry's mod
A game that did motorcycles really well and driving in general, was sleeping dogs. That game had arcadey physics, but driving in it was always a joy. Along with the ability to quickly switch to different vehicles from all types by jumping from one to another during driving. I wish they'd make a Sleeping Dogs 2.
Kinda sad that you didn't mention NFS ProStreet as one of the examples. It's that middle ground between arcade and sim, where cars feel realistic in both damage and physics, while still being arcadish enough to be enjoyable.
Or Porsche for that matter given the extra tuning which still seems unmatched in the series. Can you name another NFS game that lets you adjust gear ratios and toe-in ?
Forza Horizon isn't a simulation game! About GTA V physics and damage, everyone forgets that was a game lauched on Xbox 360 and PS3! The game is massive on an generation of consoles dying! They have to choose a big game or cut some features that we have in GTA IV!
There is a problem that stops game companies from making realistic physics, the people. Everyone wants realistic physics but not many people can deal with the aftermath of switching cars after every crash or being stuck flipped over or cars taking a long time to slow down.
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Vid is out for 20 secs and man already has a comment from 11 hours ago bruh
if you want some real destruction try wreckfest, one of the best driving games imo. Checks off all ur boxes
@@Hass2518 Time traveller
@@Hass2518 most likly a patrion situation where people get them early
I love racing simulations, like arcade. Love playing gran Turismo and Forza.
But damn, gta 5 is a mix of sa and 4. It makes sense. Tbh, i don't like the handling of gta 4. It's not because it's hard. I get the hang out of it. Played it good. The thing is, it's not realistic at all. That's not how cars and bikes react. It's very heavy, yes, but often to heavy. Yes gta 5 is to light, but in some ways even more realistic, atleast at alot newer cars, but also not optimal. First to heavy, now to light. But seriously, i loved the detail and damage system in gta 4.
One of the reasons car damage isn't fleshed out in most games is due to licensing, car manufacturers don't want their cars smashed up. Usually they draw the line at broken windshields and doors flying off. That being said, Driver San Francisco struck a good balance.
Exactly. That argument only works between games with unlicensed cars. That is still lacking in the industry but Forza wasn't the best example because they really can't do real crashes. But it really sucks car manufacturers do that.
None of the cars in GTA V are licensed, but collision physics are still trash
Games like GTA don't suffer from licensing issues as the cars aren't real brand cars, they're fictionary so crash physics are purely down to the developer choosing not to model decent crash physics.
It's a more recent thing tho. Grid 1 and 2 and some of the older NFS games had brutal damage models. Bumpers, hoods, all panels. Nothing was off the table, even for supercars or licensed race cars.
@@0uttaS1TE grid legends and unbound also have good damage model
One of the things that GTA IV did when creating that new driving was adding some layers of complexcity and difficulty. Driving in GTA was always really easy, but adding those two changes for IV's driving made the game super fun to me, you really need to learn how to handle the vehicles in order to play without unaliving yourself. Great video, I can agree with everything you said here.
exactly.
GTA IV and Mafia 2 did the handling right for their eras.
Tbh it baffles me why modern gamers are so hostile towards a challenging gameplay mechanic. Like, isn’t overcoming challenges the essential core of gaming?
Ofc there is a difference between challenging and frustrating, but Driving in GTA 4 wasn’t frustrating when you mastered it.
@@LegioXXI Biggest facts on earth.
@@LegioXXI simply because nowadays people are also lazy in a videogame and not only in real life anymore.
Chad
9:48
The reason realistic damage isnt included in most (if not all) racing games is thanks to corporate demand.
No CEO wants to see the car of their brand get mangled or destroyed (which it on itself is stupid, its like the long drawn out argument of "videogames cause mass shootings") the reason Burnout 3 has better damage models than FH5 is because you arent driving a Dodge or a Ferrari, you are driving a "Compact Type 1" or a "Super Type 1"
TLDR: no brand = better damage spectacle
False; FM8 has realistic damage.
@@Frosty_V0 Forza Motorsport 8? Dude, that game hasn't even come out yet, how do we know what its damage model looks like?
@@TheManWithThePlan360 official gameplay demo
@@Frosty_V0 Two things:
1.) A 25-second clip from a focused gameplay demo is a very different thing from seeing that in-action in a game that's released to the public. See: Watch_Dogs and its incredible disappointment between its E3 showing in 2012 and its release.
2.) Even in the footage they showed with an Audi R8 bodyslamming a Lambo straight into the outside wall, the front right of the R8 didn't crumple along the front right of the car like you would expect a car going at that speed directly into something else would. We didn't even get a chance to see the rear of the Lambo and how that would have been affected by it, they straight on flew past it.
Don't get me wrong, I hope the damage model is as good as Turn 10 says it is-it would still be a step up on most of the licensed driving games we have on the market right now. But to say definitively how well cars can sustain damage in that game, based on a gameplay demo from 10 months ago on a game still a bit out from release that none of us have played yet, is just not something that we can do.
@@TheManWithThePlan360 True, I didn't take most of that into consideration.
In my opinion "Wreckfest" has one of the most satisfying arcade style driving physics. It's butter... and crashing feels so good,
Wreckfest bills itself on the breaking of cars, but is actually a competent racing game underneath it all. It handles dirt really well, and rewards skilled driving, when you aren't on the dirty servers.
if you like crashing and handling do Beam NG Drive (btw not someone trying to sell a game to you its just that I really like the game and I feel like more people should play it) oof this is long
Totally with you, the cars feel all feel different and importantly, they feel weighty. You also get good tactile feedback from the controller and it's just the right amount of challenge with all assists off.
@tuckerc9778 You're a few years to late kind, sir. Of course, I have BeamNG! 😀
Or Burnout
I loved the cars in GTA IV, but the biggest issue and the biggest thing most people dislike about it isn't that it has "realistic handling", it's the suspensions that are much too soft, which makes the cars feel bouncy.
No you didnt. Nobody liked GTA IV physics when it was out. Now suddenly everyone loves to act like they liked the physics, now suddenly according to everyone GTA IV physics are underrated. Why else would they change the car physics for V?
@@R9naldo literally stfu
They changed it in GTA V because most people don't like realism, they like things that are fun like mario kart and NFS, not BeamNG.
@@R9naldomisread?
@@TanitAkaviriusThe thing is, he isn't really wrong. Why else would they change the physics? While not everyone disliked GTA IVs car physics, a lot of them did, so R* responded by making them more like an arcade game than BeamNG. I think the main issue is that when you get into GTA, you expect a more arcade experience, not a simulation. People play GTA for the open world and story, not car physics. I find it funny that you say "most people don't like realism" since now there's an entire group of people saying why that they didn't keep GTA IVs car handling. If most people didn't like realism, I guess most simulators don't exist then! Again, the argument is that it doesn't fit GTA.
@@awii.neocities Yes i completely agree with you. Most people who play GTA games want more arcade driving. I'm more of an exception there and i liked the more realistic driving of IV.
"If most people didn't like realism, I guess most simulators don't exist then!"
Driving sims are vastly less popular than more arcade driving games like GTA and NFS and the likes, so yeah, most people don't like realism.
BeamNG drive is the best example of good driving physics and damage. These few german devs created the most realistic Driving Physics in a game ever. The other games do not have to be THIS good but a least be standart. Good Video.
Beam ng would not make for a great gta nor driving game, it is just too realistic. A good balance between beamng and bumper carts is needed for fun gameplay.
@@husemann0770 yes. thats why i said "The other games do not have to be THIS good"
@@husemann0770beamng is a great driving game, crashing actually has consequences. Gives you an incentive to drive well if that matters to you
The rush of driving at high speeds trying not to crash is unmatched
@@husemann0770I think beam ng cars are way too fragile. It’s like paper. And the cars handles odd too
@@rashadvqAs a player of beamng, I agree with your first statement. It's like a crash that would scrape off a body panel on a car in real life takes up the entire side of the crumple zone in beamng.
As for the second thing you said, the odd handling is mostly a result of playing with a keyboard instead of a steering wheel. The beamng physics engine uses math to calculate the velocity, centrifugal force, and a whole lot of other things. This is what makes the handling so similar to a real car.
Playing with a keyboard in beamng is like using a keyboard to control a real car, it all of a sudden becomes so much harder to drive. I've been playing beamng on a keyboard for a while so I've gotten good at dealing with it.
The worst thing about it however is the steering. If you want to make a really small input, you basically can't. The only way to do it is by playing in slow motion, which gets boring quickly. This is a problem present in almost every racing game you play on PC.
Overall I think your 2nd statement is true, but only applies to new racing game players as people that have played for a while have acknowledged these problems and have gotten a proper setup for these games.
"Huge game studios, like Ubisoft, go above and beyond in underachieving." Holy shit this quote describes them perfectly!
While a team of a few people made beamng, the best publicly available real time car simulator. Like bro ubisoft can do better but they just wont
@@not360kaii yeah not really "crash phisics" since what they are is just pre damaged models swapped out during a crash, beamng on the other hand simulates it. Even AC doesn't have popper crash phisics just a couple prenade crashed cars, shows how big game studios sometimes honestly don't give a single frick
@@not360kaii it's honestly really cheap rn to get a pc like you can get a used lenovo thinkcentre with an i5 6500 or something and get a cheap gtx 1650 and kaboom like 200 dollar gaming pc that's crazily capable
Or, in other words, they give the masses what they enjoy. Not that I like that and I agree that clipping through objects must not happen in today's games. But let's face it, nobody wants realistic driving physics. Realistically, you would have a broken axle as soon as you drove up a kerb at speed with anything but a truck. You can't drive over lampposts. You'd total your car (and die!) all the time.
@@not360kaii no sadly not on UA-cam but I can help you on dc
While I share your frustration with regards to damage in driving games, I feel that we might be being too harsh here. Isn't it odd that all the games with great damage (burnout, GTA) use fictional vehicels? This isn't a coincedence, It's actually the result of racing games' licenses with the car manufacturers they feature in their games. No brand wants their cars to seem dangerous, so they all agree that their cars won't be depicted getting destroyed or experiencing a fatal accident. Take Driver: San Francisco for example, that's got to be one of my favourite racers out there. 90+ percent of the cars in that game are licensed, real vehicles. the other ~10% of cars are fictional, these are the ones they use in cutscenes where a car explodes or kills / injures somebody. Gets around legal trouble and keeps the car brands happy.
Hi :) i'm sorry, but the "licencing" excuse is BS .. Why ? because in midnight club 3 (2005) you could blow up your car at service stations. roof, glass, completly deformed,
Midnight club L.A 2008, you can lose parts like bumpers and blow up you cars too.. and no.. Driver SF (Ubisoft) and Rockstar games never had issues with this
@@richoumiaou It is actually not a BS excuse. In GTA games they go out of there way to avoid car manufactures. And most modern games with super cars or just basically any Toyota/BMW/whatever trash? Good luck getting to even damage a bumper. Your lucky to be allowed to scratch or crack a windscreen.
@@TheDiner50 Yh because it costs fucking money to use their brand and guess what rockstar hates, spending money
@@richoumiaou this isn't a theory, this is confirmed by industry developers. Car manufacturers nowadays doesn't want their cars to look destroyed or dangerous.
Also, I tested the damage in Midnight Club LA, it's minor, no chassis deformation.
@@bur_s It would be our money in the end, going into pockets of car manufacturers which I grow to despise over time as a petrolhead (seeing how they degrade various lines of cars into heavy, useless and dangerous SUVs designed and marketed to flatter inflated egos). Actually looking at example of BeamNG I think that I could live without branded cars: it is a matter of designing interesting and good looking equivalents - this is what BeamNG authors absolutely nailed.
As a kid I always loved Midtown Madness, where destroying the car was basically a mini game. It was great how the cars limped along after breaking something important, like in a demolition derby.
Old game, primitive by today, but a good game.
Holy shit i still have that game on my old laptop. Tend to just smash over cars in cruise mode every once in a while
You remembered me that joy of a game
Wait....is that the game that had London and San Francisco as the map? There was an old open world driving game on my computer that I can't remember the name of...but that rings a bell.
@@markvogel5872 yep that's exactly what ur thinking
@@slash_86 oh man I know what I'm going to try and find when I get home today! Thanks!
VR Support is not as easy as simply moving the camera inside the car and enabling motion input. You have to do a TON of extra work to make sure everything is intractable from inside VR, intuitive, and you have to put WAY more detail into areas like the rear interior of a car because the player can turn their head and see it, where they normally couldn't with a regular game camera. That's a lot of work for a feature 99.9% of players will NEVER use!
Yup. VR is just something that simply never be a standard due to the amount of work required to get it done properly. Plus even some games with VR support have a limited number of cars that can be used in VR for this very reason. With how many cars some have like Forza have it's unreasonable. Arcade style games also just don't have a number of people wanting VR since the vast majority of people play in 3rd person and won't use a 1st person mode, even if it was available.
This dude makes a lot of good points but he is wildly underestimating a lot of work that goes into these games. A lot of physics are due to the engine, which simulates the driving physics. It's not as simple as "not wanting to be as good as Rockstar" in 99% of the cases.
right, these poor indie studios like ubisoft or microsoft can't bear the costs and the complexities of such a thing.
I remember in midnight club los angeles you could fully damage a car during a race but if you start the race afterwards the game will replace the parts you lost with Grey parts which is kinda unique.
Unpainted temporary parts?
@@RedCobraQC Yes
3:26 FH5 isn’t a simulation racer, it’s still an arcade racer. That would go to iRacing or Assetto Corsa
I actually replied the exact same thing, happy to see more that noticed this
fh5 reason i bought ps5 to play gran turismo instead
It's more like a hybrid tbh
I think Driver: San Francisco, the first two Mafia games, and GTA IV had the best examples of not just car damage, but driving in general.
The driving in Driver: SF was impressively solid, Ubisoft really had no excuse for how bad the driving was in The Crew.
Mafia 2 did it best, where in the settings you could choose between an arcade and simulation driving style. Missions were really difficult with simulation driving in the first few snowy chapters.
I’ve been amazed how even Driver 3 and Parallel Lines can dettach the wheels from a vehicle after crashing them for a long tome just like in Mafia 2. If a open world game have bad driving physics that’s is a big down for me
@@fenn_fren Mafia: Definition Edition lets you choose between Automatic and Manual (stick shift) too, which is cool. I forget if the original Mafia or Mafia II does that.
Driving was terrible in GTA 4, lmao, every car drove like it was filled with bricks
12:35 What I feel is not often talked about, and unfortunately it isn't mentioned here as well, is the fact that when you use the cockpit view in racing games, it is ALWAYS stiff facing forward. When I am driving, I want to look AHEAD of the curve; not turning blindly into it.
That could be solved with an invisible dot in front of the car, that follows the track of the game ahead of you, which your camera always automatically focus at. And depending on speed, it will either be far ahead or close up front of your car. It's a very simple solution to a very common problem.
Test drive Unlimited had this feature (there are probably others too) and it was really helpful.
Assetto has a feature in CM for it and NFS SHIFT 2 did it too
Even in third person some games are always snapping the camera back to straight ahead. Annoys me because I'm constantly moving the camera to lookin5o the corner
Move right stick
there are games that turn your vision by yours steering wheel turning. I use it. However it also makes a little harder to judge where exactly the car is going. Especially when you are corrrecting for sliding.
I'm glad you mentioned the weightiness of GTAIV's driving, something I feel has always lacked in most driving games is the sheer sense of speed and screen shake, if you ever see irl footage of time attacks, the driver is bouncing and swinging around inside the car, but in video games, the 1st person camera is static like a mounted camera, theres no simulated inertia.
As a developer the biggest most important thing to make a vehicle system feel good is how the camera is scripted. Honestly good camera scripting can easily make up for some sub par physics. A good example of this would be need for speed most wanted.
To also mention: Bad camera movement can ruin the perspective of good physics to the player. Assetto Corsa's 3rd-person camera is horrendous.
There's obviously tons of good and bad examples of this out there, but something I recently played was Pico World Race for the Pico-8 fantasy console. For as basic and simple as the game is, it has a genuinely better sense of speed than most modern AAA racers.
As a game developer I got to say the camera blur and pan of the field of view ara awesome yes
But the light trails and the music makes it fell faster than the camera for me
@@turbochargedfilmsyou on drugs or something??
i mean the most important thing is pretty obviously the actual system not the camera since a simple orbital camera is definitely enough though not perfect. doing tricks with the camera to mask bad work is just laziness
Gta iv still holds up very well as an in between of arcade and realistic being just controllable enough to be worth using and just fragile enough to still be a challenge.
I loved GTA IV man, it was my favorite. The cars were so heavy
@@DarkSpaceStudios ikr I only got to try it for the first time recently but I still appreciate just how fantastic it is particularly for its time.
No.Its one of the worst driving physics in any game I have ever seen.Driving feels like driving in the ice and handling is so worse and the break takes like 5-7 seconds to work even in slower speed.Dont know how you guys even liked that for its driving physics when its not even close to realistic and Gta-5 does have good destruction physics for cars but it takes a bit more hit to do more damage and physics of it is decent, not too much over the top like gta-4.
its not arcady its realistic and the reason is not arcady because the cars get damage from bumping into things and this might be a punishment cause doing this like 2 times might cause the car to start smoking and not only that but the car getting flipped is a punishment for not focusing on your drive, i wish if open world third person games had the same idea of car collusion and the punishment of doing something to the car
LMFAOO "balance between arcade and realistic" there is not a GRAIN of realism lamoooo
I feel like beamng drive is the best driving game released honestly, from the car's reaction to steering, the bumps damaging your axyl, the speed management, reaction to the roads and the over all physics especially the crash physics it honestly makes me always go back to it to have a drive.
If there is any game worth your money its beamng drive, there is no objectives exept for the missions but the physics alone are the selling point.
And with modding support its literally perfect
a full on career mode is coming too...eventually
Easily, the base game is already amazing, and the excellent mods make it the best driving sim ever.
It's litterally the minecraft of cars,even though you can download boats and planes.
@@Damian-cilr2 and there was a leak where an official multiplayer would come out
Optional missions*.
And you missed the part in which its sole existence is LITERALLY only based on making it realistic.
A game not mentioned in the video is Wreckfest, it has good physics, interaction with the environment, very good damage and you can feel the weight of the vehicles. A game that can be played perfectly with keyboard, controller or steering wheel and feels great in all.
Yeah Wreckfest really has it done properly, it's probably the only game besides the original Flatout that I'll enjoy playing with a keyboard and also has an awesome destruction system
i can't play wreckfest, the lack of an orbital camera is insane. you can't even properly look at the damage on your car because your camera is locked to 4 sides. i don't know why an orbital camera isn't standard for these games, its super useful to help line up the direction you wanna send your car towards
I just bought for my iphone. I loved to play it on the xbox.
@@doggz2701yep.
Watch Dogs physics remind me a lot of Most Wanted 2012 physics. The cars are hard to steer and slide easily at high speeds making them hard to control especially in a crowded city setting, but honestly I like that. Makes it so driving fast feels actually dangerous.
I really really loved Watch Dogs 1 driving physics and i had the best time driving in this game, so i agree
WD1 physics weren't bad. I liked the way the older cars had a softer suspension and would bounce more over bumps whereas the sports cars would have a stiffer suspensions. Also the cars in WD1 felt like it had weight. WD1 in my opinion is an amazing game and is easily on the same boat as GTA 5 even though I do prefer GTA 5 over WD1, WD1 definitely had it flaws but I prefer some aspects of that game over GTA 5
I do expect you to talk about Mafia 2's handling.
Just like GTA 4, it strikes a perfect balance between realism and arcadey/easy controls (and it also featured a simulation mode which also makes the handling way more realistic). And cars do feel fast and dangerous (as hitting could kill you as cars back then didn't have safety belts (some cars have them as an option which barely anyone wanted)
And Mafia 1 also implemented a proper steering wheel support with actual force feedback. And driving physics feel pretty good too at its time
Driving those hotrods at max speed on the highway felt like 1 small mistake could kill you instantly (which it could)
Also the way tires deform in that game is amazing
@@Ganjatraining Yeah
The first 2 Mafia games were known to go face to face with GTA when it comes to attention to detail
@@JadeyFreakinM Shame they ruined it all with mafia 3. Hope they do better with mafia 4.
@@IskenderCaglarM41B441 -Mafia series is pretty much falling apart-
One thing for sure is that Mafia DE is a massive improvement over III's questionable quality (thanks a lot crowb) even though the game was made out of a tight budget (thanks to that one cancelled game), so yeah I basically have a bit of hope that Mafia 4's actually gonna be fine, even though Blackmen left and replaced by some guy who was in charge of II and III's remasters or something (Dunno if it's true or it's just MGV doing some trolling)
I WAS ABOUT TO COMMENT THIS, thank you so much for pointing this out.
I love the sense of speed in beamNG, the fear of crashing the car and the grip levels all add to the lightning fast reaction time you need to have to keep the car from turning into a fireball stuck to a tree which makes the game feel unique. Especially coming from a person who played forza games all his life.
i hate beamng's controls on keyboard
with that said it has an unmatched sense of speed
@@cyberdemon6517 i mean yeah,using a keyboard in a game with realistic handling is not great,because you are either steering all the way,or not steering,that said,i still play on keyboard
@@Damian-cilr2yeah would agree. I use a controller simply because its easier for me.
@@Damian-cilr2Wooting keyboard with analog input is really good for this
Driver: San Francisco was such a good game, last of the franchise. It's what brings creativity into light. The story, the mechanics, and the damage models especially with licensed vehicles. It's sad to see a franchise like that end.
Maybe it's for the best.
Wow you still remember that game it is a memory now for me 😥
@@TechnoCookie4life Yeah haha, I still have the disc in my house along with the ps3.
@@An3ient lucky you
That game is so good, I have completed it like 4 times
I do think that vr isn’t a priority for games like FH5, considering its simcade physics, weird in-game wheel rotation and the lack of people who are looking into using their vr headset for FH5. Instead if you are looking for immersion then it’s probably best to play something like iRacing, Assetto Corsa or rFactor 2 as they all offer a far supperior driving experience even if they don’t have any major crash phyics
Vehicle artist in the game industry here. I'd like to chime in and share a few things.
Regarding being 'half assed' you always ALWAYS contextualize the driving/handling around the type of game being made. If its purely a 'car' game eg :Forza, NFS then they really don't have an excuse for the physics being boring and broken, it would be like if in GTA the character couldn't walk straight. However with open world games like GTA, watch dogs, saints row etc usually (not always) the vehicle interaction comes secondary to the rest of the game. In other words that part of the game is deemed not as important and receives far fewer resources. There are outliers to this of course but you can probably count on one hand how many open world games actually have really good driving physics.
Point two : Physics programmers and people that understand the nuances of car physics are usually not the same person, so you now have to find two or more very specialized people, and once again if your game's primary focus isn't cars then the companies will probably cheap out as the priority is the 'bigger picture' (usually characters and shooting) and not the vehicle physics.
Point three : If your system is underdeveloped the studios can keep using a broken foundation for several titles and never fix the fundamental problems. On the flipside for one reason or another, studios like to throw away perfectly good systems and star over. The anecdote I have is that the system developed for Driver San Franciso was amazing (as is the handling in that game ) but for some reason Ubisoft decided to put it into the garbage for The Crew and start over.
Point four : Real world car manufacturers are all over the place when it comes to vehicle damage but for the most part they do not want any kind of realistic damage depicted in a game. Fictional vehicles are therefore the prime go-to for this kind of thing, however on that point, fictional cars are also really hard to design well, there are far too many examples of games with really terrible looking fictional cars.
You also missed the difficulty in adding in VR into a game because it's no where near simple to add in as well. It requires detailed interiors as well as many game engines not supporting it
One racing game I love is Wreckfest. It’s one of my favorite modern racing games, with great realistic car handling, a good sense of speed and weight, and awesome destruction.
It feels great being in a big muscle car, smashing into a small subcompact, and still keeping most of your momentum while the other car gets wrecked!
frrr that game is pretty amazing. It is one of my most played games on Steam, and the driving physics are indeed super enjoyable. I can comfortably play on keyboard in that game!
@@thejonatan._ I have Wreckfest on my PS5, and it works really well with the Dual-Sense triggers and vibration! It feels awesome accelerating the trigger and the vibrations on impact.
But I found out how well the game worked with my steering wheel a few weeks ago. I have a Thrustmaster T150 steering wheel, which is a mid-range overall really good wheel made for the PS4, PS3, and PC. I’ve tried it on a couple PS5 games, but usually doesn’t feel right, which makes sense because it wasn’t made for those games.
Surprisingly it worked really well with Wreckfest, though. The driving felt responsive, though I did need to turn the force feedback setting down a bit first. It felt even more fun, drifting around corners and smashing into other cars. I also think the first person is really great, which adds to the immersion!
@wavecraft123 dam that's great that you are able to experience it with those setups! I have a Dualsense controller, but i don't get those triggee sensations while playing on pc :( i bet it would be fun
I also want to get a wheel setup some time in the future, they look so great to use and I'm glad to hear about how great wreckfest worked for you with the wheel
Wreckfest is an underrated gem and no other racing game gave me more fun than this masterpiece. I really hope the next thing that Bugbear is cooking is equal or even better. Their long silence lately is a bit worrying..
@@ozar1472 I fully agree! I have 152 hours in the game and i wish there were more things to do
I have to say I've loved watching BeamNG come along, especially in the physics department. Driving on dirt roads in particular feels incredibly satisfying.
yeah but tire thermals ....
@@Blacksmith52 Which is a miniscule problem.
@@Blacksmith52 Tire thermals are the least of your concern. What you should worry about is that oilpan being destroyed after the slightest bump.
@@martinmethod427 that's how it works IRL too
@@Blacksmith52 It's almost like the game is in beta. Oh wait, it is
GTA 5's damage was nerfed slightly after the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions came out because of the first person camera. In GTA 4 and original versions of GTA 5, cars can be completely caved in. Especially when hit with a heavy vehicle or of course, a tank.
Yes! I remember back on the Xbox 360 hitting random pedestrians cars and the wheels coming off super easy
Now on the updated version it is very rare to get a wheel to pop off unless it's being ran over by a tank
Oh good. I wasn't tripping after all.
You can crush cars completely even on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Although yes, they do take longer, but then again, considering how most GTA players, myself included, play the games, should you be surprised that the cars are practically indestructible?
@@mayteexxis thought i was too lmao
@@linkskywalker5417 Fair point, but that just gives novice players an excuse to not drive well. Honestly should have made damage terminal in 2 or 3 hits so that the average GTA player would be forced to drive good. Just my opinion, though.
The driving was very weird in Watch Dogs 1, I agree. Once I couldn't find a unlocked car without stealing one, so I took the train, which was funnily enough very relaxing, knowing physics wouldn't screw with me.
Glad you picked up on the missing steering wheel support. This is one of the reasons I have so many hours in ETS2 and a few in ATS now as well.
GTA IV had physics based driving and it was superb. Perhaps it took a bit to get used to but it was way more precise and predictable than anything else.
I also agree that Most Wanted was awesome.
Something you forgot in my opinion is the sound design ! For me it completely break the immersion when cars in games have bad engine sounds, especially in GTA, GTA games always had fake and terrible engine sounds, for example a muscle car in a GTA game doesn't have a real V8 engine sound, it completely break the immersion and it feel like you're driving a fake chinese replica lol.
Thats my problem too with cars in GTA, handling and physics in GTA 4 is maybe great but the engine sound are so bad, an infernus(Lamborghini) sounds more like a racing bike than a car
Modern Need for Speed games, Unbound especially, are really bad with this. For some reason the faster you go, the more quiet your car gets. The old Blackbox games, MW05 especially, had it be really loud and you heard those woosh sounds driving past signs, other cars and lamp posts. MW2012 also had amazing sounds and sound design
The Mustang in Assetto Corsa is just a loop and to fill out the sound the played it backwards for the second half.
one should also consider engine sounds in Cyberpunk 2077
As a person who's been riding motorcycles for many years now, I can safely say that GTA IV got the motorcycle riding physics very close an enjoyable experience with it still being a bit realistic.
It felt weird to me.
Personally the base game motorcycle physics felt weird to me, TLAD fixed it.
I remember playing GTA IV on PS3 and wandering why my inputs seemed to be off, then I realised I still had SIXAXIS tilt controls on.
what do you think of RIDE 4 motorcycle gameplay?
@@AeiouCommander its bad. Somehow develpers of riding games clearly dont ride themselves.
imo, it starts with what Dark Space said in the video, the stick being the primary single input device, makes it inherently inferior, because it needs to cover both the bike leaning and it coming back out of it, and the result is extremely sensitive controls and jerkyness, or so many assists that it gets rather boring and feeling stiff etc.
The solution seems rather simple, but then again, most people dont care and just want the object to move around. I mean, lets be honest, do you enjoy ride 4 or do you think its lacking somewhere?
Not a big deal, but a pet peeve I've had for a while was tire smoke. After playing Driver: San Francisco and seeing how the rear half of a rwd car can be *completely* obscured by smoke when burning rubber, all other games kinda feel like a let down when I do burnouts.
I don't think gyro controls for bikes would be much of a good idea. They're good on paper and as a gimmick, but having to do that a lot with a controller that you hold in the air with your hands can get very tiring. The DualSense triggers were an interesting idea on paper, but in long term use it becomes annoying or outright uncomfortable. Same thing would be with gyro controlled bikes I feel.
The gyro idea is literally what the wii did for some games
Damn the Wii is underrated af
This is a really touchy subject, realism is racing games isn't something that everyone wants, simulation games are there for it, games like NFS, Burnout, Midnight Club and etc. are more focused on the speed and fun, imagine a game like that with forza motorsport realism, it wouldn't be fun, forza horizon is the best example of an arcade game with realism in it, still has an arcade feeling to it with a decent touch of realism, some of the most realistic "racing" games aren't even built for racing, like BeaNG drive, it feels more like a tech demo than a racing game, there are people who actually use it for racing but it's a small portion of the fan base, realism isn't always the best choice.
This whole video is proof that you know nothing about how games actually work. Stop demanding developers to focus on such insignificant things that don't matter. Not every game is Grand Theft Auto, and they don't need to be.
Driver San Francisco had one of the BEST arcade handling physics to date
In my book it is tied with Midnight Club 3 in that regard (and better then MC:LA). Only issues with Driver SF were the flipping physics (it got kinda wonky if you landed a jump upside down) and the super cars were a little overly drifty.
@@scottthewaterwarrior I liked how the drift physics were in DSF. If you eased on the throttle and didn't break traction, you could accelerate harder. But if you floored it from a standstill in a high-power RWD car (or pulled the parking brake), you were going to spin the wheels.
The driving was great in the sense that anyone could pick it up, but players with racing sim experience could be much, much faster. It made setting times super fun.
Car damage in games is hugely impacted by the manufactures. Why would they want to show their car being smashed up...
This video seems to be lacking some basic fact checking. First of all, Kyloton is NOT a remotely well respected company, and they lost their WRC licence because the last 4 games they released under that licence were hot garbage. Secondly, and most importantly, it has been an open and easily researched fact that car companies have been the driving force (No pun intended) behind the "No Damage" in modern racing titles. It's why GTA does not feature ANY real life vehicles. If it did, you would have zero damage, just as you find in Forza Horizon games.
I mean yes, games companies do need to do a hell of a lot better, and it absolutely is possible to persuade companies to relax their rules around showing their products getting damaged, but ultimately the final decision is not, and never has been, down to the developers. I'm a racing game addict, a sim racing enthusiast, and a lover of driving fast and smashing shit up, so I don't say any of this to cover for the game devs, just that facts are facts, and you seem to have missed some pretty bloody big ones.
I had to lol when you say, VR is easy to implement, whilst on the surface it might seem so, in reality it is not - lots of love from a race game dev :)
Ps. It is largely the publishers and licences which constrain and hold back our industry, not the developers themselves.
Midnight Club 2 features the best motorcycle physics ive played. They're not perfect but it features the option to hold down L1 while turning to enable leaning, which feels great ingame.
The bikes in that game are overpowered
Have you played midnight club 3? It feels waaaayyy more polished than anything in mc2
This is not an issue of lazy devs or bad physics, it's a licensing issue with the manufacturers, they don't want their cars getting badly smashed up in the games they're being licensed for.
All that talk about damage but no mention of what is considered fun. That’s a big reason why you don’t total your car just for hitting 1 wall. They may have even had that feature but it was removed because play testers said it made the game boring to constantly have your car get destroyed. It’s not always low effort or rushed, just because it looks like that to you.
Yes exactly. But they should add an option to toggle it off and on
It’s licensing. Toyota started pulling their cars from video games because they didn’t believe people would be interested in buying their cars, but that’s changed. As far as damage, it’s licensing. Companies don’t want you to see their cars damaged because it might “put consumers off about safety” so games like gta have to resort to making their own parodies of cars so they can add damage. The difference between gta4 and 5 is the fact that players were complaining about loosing tires and totaling their cars. GTA5 had a somewhat minor soft body physics. But they removed some of it and they started realizing cars that took absolutely no damage. And I hear players boast about “gta’s impressive scratch physics” that I find super annoying. I aren’t hours crashing cars in gta4 because it was fun, and I was able to challenge myself when I tackled to see how little damage I can get on my car and see how long I could drive a car. But gta 5 I don’t want to damage them because it’s more annoying driving around with you hood popped open and there be a scratch on it after you just accidentally touched a light post. Gta6 will be just like the crew, or they will go back to vice city type damage. Take 2 doesn’t do physics, they do graphics. 😒
The reason motorcycles are steered with one input is that when you're riding a motorcycle, you mostly steer by leaning and the front wheel turns with you. I can actually ride and steer my Harley without using my hands. (After locking the throttle of course) Dirt bikes are much different, but street bikes, sport bikes & cruisers are this way.
burnout and gta 4 have great damage and forza doesn't is mainly due to licensing. A lot of car brands don't want damage to be shown on their cars in games. It's not the only reason but its one of the reasons why modern racing games like the recent forza and need for speed (Especially the ones that feature new real cars) lack damage.
"Many games don't have VR support despite it being easy to implement." Tell me you aren't a Software Engineer without telling me you aren't a Software Engineer.
Get VR Sickness (Motion Sickness) once.
You'll NEVER play another VR game again. EVER!!😂😂
i agree, but i'd hope he was referencing the actual core implementation of it being easy. not necessarily from a development process, but the fact that it's just a POV from inside the car instead of needing all these dedicated systems for reloading guns, interacting with items and the world environment, etc.
You did a fantastic job outlining a lot of quirks of driving games! I have some additional input of my own:
Part of the issue is compromise between expectations and reality. You have lots of people (kids) who really don't know how cars work, and realistic physics are annoying for them. Even adults who have driven their whole lives have a surprisingly shallow understanding of how vehicles really behave in the extreme situations you see them in on screen. Most people won't understand that their offroad truck isn't "steering" properly because it has a locked rear differential, which works differently than an open one. They'll just go "ugh, I hate this truck" and pick a different one instead. So developers will almost exclusively choose to leave that behavior out--if they even have any idea what a differential is themselves.
Take, for example, motorcycles. Anyone who's ridden knows about "countersteer," but normal people don't. Hence, video games always require you to steer in the direction you want to go. but in real life, motorcycles require you to turn *opposite* of the direction you want to go, once you reach a certain speed. If games worked that way, people would get annoyed and give up, because it doesn't make sense to them. But there are *lots* of complexities like this in real life--even with cars.
Another example is aircraft. I had a friend who played a game where the airplane steers like a car: left to right (yaw). He swore up and down that "that's how planes work in real life." But he'd get frustrated if the controls were realistic, especially if he had to deal with realistic performance, stalling, turbulence and crosswind, ice accumulation, the impact of altitude on performance and behavior, etc. etc.--or even situations where there's loss of control, like flat-spins, overspeed, dives of death, etc. Not to mention that even small changes in design can lead to fatal situations if you aren't familiar with the aircraft.
On top of that, programming the behavior of any system is much more complex than it seems, especially because it can't be solved in an intuitive way. You can't program a car by typing "if it hits a rock, the wheel bounces." If you try to program it in an intuitive way, you'll have all kinds of hair-pulling bugs and issues, and it won't behave correctly. That's because our modern-day physics engines aren't 1:1 compared to, well, *life's* physics engine. You need an exceptionally rare type of talent to take a complex physics system and "translate" it into a (relatively) simple equation that produces the desired result.
All in all, it's not just darn hard to program these systems. Most people don't WANT vehicles to work realistically. Just realistically *enough* to immerse--not everyone, but specifically--the *target* audience. And when you throw in these expectations, coding a system that works *as expected* is incredibly difficult. You have to figure out what inputs someone is expecting to give, and what outputs they're expecting to see on the screen. And then you have to turn that into code. Both of those problems--figuring out what your audience wants and how to give it to them--are more difficult to solve than people think, especially if you're a massive company where getting anything done requires wading through a swamp of "red tape."
People who have both the *inspiration* and especially the *ability* to execute a vision like yours are *exceedingly* rare. And that's the real problem.
For me this like engineering, You can imagine you have a linear force and easily use that to impulse certain machine... but vehicles in gaming are like take that linear force and develop a whole factory that fully works only from that linear force.
This happens also the whole time with rigging, people dont get how hard is for example to pretend to move 40 muscles always realistically with barely a couple of imputs... at the end you dont really "control it" more like the rigging is a simulation that behaves correctly depending the situation/scrips and your imputs (like 90% of the movement are a simulation and only 10% of your imput are actually taken on count)
@@BioClone Absolutely, it sounds like you know what you're talking about, too! 😁
"VR is easy to implement!"
As someone who has talked to devs from Codemasters/EA, I can call BS on that. There's a reason the VR for WRC 2023 is coming AFTER release. It's because it's NOT easy to implement, and takes time to do right.
The reason VR isn't in more games it's because it's still pretty niche, especially on console. Crew 2 (and arcade racers in general) isn't a game worthy of wheel and pedal support if it doesn't have the physics to back it up. Even if it's a racing game, it should have the physics to back it up if it has wheel and pedal support.
As for WRC Generations, last I heard about that game is that when it launched, there wasn't accurate enough response from the throttle - the car basically crawled until the gas was about 80% pressed - so I don't know if that game series was the _best_ example. I'm surprised you didn't mention Dirt Rally 2.0 though! Even a classic of Richard Burns Rally is insanely fun today.
I'm also surprised you quite quickly glossed over FOV. I remember trying NFS Heat during a free weekend on Steam, and going 125mph felt like I was going only 45-55mph.
Why did you call FH5 a simulator in this video? It's a Simcade, it was intentionally dumbed down from the FM handling model which only just brushed simulator territory to begin with. You had BeamNG footage at the ready if you wanted to use a simulator that wasn't track-only
Forza Horizon is far from being a simcade either. the Motorsport series is simcade.
I love the work put into your videos man their top tier.
I would say FH5 is not a simulator, at best it's a "simcade", even though I personally think it leans to the Arcade side.
man if every game was like beamng drive I would be so mad because its so annoying when youll be just chilling. your tire pops and you fall off a cliff killing your entire body system in seconds
2 things: Games like Forza horizon five and GTA 5 don't use crash physics because it makes the game more frustrating if ur car brakes every time u make a mistake. Considering ur in police chases a lot in GTA. And they want you to have freedom in forza, thats why u can smash through trees with only a scratch. U wanna be able to drive around without being stopped by damages. That being said, i can't believe you didn't talk about BeamNG Drive!!
It's crazy to think that indie games like BeamNG and Wreakfest have better car physics than pretty much all of the recent triple A titles with driving in them.
wreakfest is a 10/10
Beam ng would suck as a racing game BECAUSE of the realism. What would happen if you put Beam ng’s physics in a need for speed game? It would suck, because cars are fragile, and that just doesn’t work for a game like need for speed. They wouldn’t be able to even if they wanted to, because licensed car companies wouldn’t want their cars to be seen destroyed.
@@genricjohnLiveForSpeed.
more realistic, and more fun
@@genricjohnDepends what kind of racing game you’re talking about
@@biponacci yeah, you're right. a game like need for speed where you are constantly bumping your car into things would suck with car physics like in beam ng. A sim racer would be much better for those types of physics because you are meant to have to watch your car's damage and other things. my problem in this video is that Dark Space tries to say that every racing game NEEDS these types of physics, when they don't and shouldn't.
For open world driving games, Burnout Paradise still remains my favourite in terms of the overall package. Fantastic feeling cars, damage models and a near perfection on the arcade style. Yes it had some jankiness to it, but even the bikes feel better than most others I've played.
Agreed I can't believe he didn't mention Burnout Paradise in the video
ngl I like burnout 3 more than paradise. Probably just my nostalgia speaking for me but I loved booting up my original Xbox and playing some burnout 3
I take Burnout Takedown over any other game in the franchise
@@seva7500 I did say for open world driving games.
@@fehmartinss I did say for open world driving games.
I totally disagree with your solution of integrating leaning the control along with turning the handlebars on a motorcycle. If you've ever ridden a motorcycle, you know that's not how motorcycles work.
Firstly, your body intuitively does this for you and the faster you go the more you lean and the less you turn the handlebars, separating this in a game would make controlling a motorbike in a game more difficult than controlling it in real life, unnecessarily difficult, you would have to learn and practice this intuition to be able to play the game.
Second, if you turn more than normal without leaning the bike, you will simply fall, and vice versa. The amount of lean and steering depends on the speed, it makes no sense to give this control to the player rather than simply automating this in physics.
In my GTA-game, IMPUNES, motorbikes and bicycles work by balancing on top of two colliding spheres that slide on the ground with real physics, and turning the handlebars causes the spheres to create friction with the ground in some direction, thus making the front turn. I liked the result because you feel like there is a physical balance happening.
"Why are game studios simply reselling the same content in new packages rather than offering true innovation with each new release?"
Big game companies:
Apple:
5:17 as much as I prefer IV's handling, I do like how I can flip my vehicle back up. It isn't exactly what I would call "handholding", more of a QoL feature.
I agree. But in combination with the arcade'y driving-physics in GTA V, and the ability to adjust the car in mid-air; the entire "flipping of the car" seems a bit too unrealistic and breaks the immersion - although it's a very convenient feature. If Rockstar Games instead would have combined the ability to flip the car, with realistic driving-physics, and an inability to adjust the car in mid-air; then the car-flipping wouldn't feel as unrealistic. It's simply easier to forgive only 1 unrealistic aspect, than it is to forgive 3 unrealistic aspects.
This is going to sound weird but I think there's a large market segment in which innovation in car driving mechanics is not desirable. For games that merely feature driving rather than being all about driving (e.g. stuff like Just Cause or Watch Dogs, not racing games), I think customers would be much happier if "good driving physics" was a drop-in middleware that games studios could just buy and configure. Similarly to how lots of games just drop in Havok or Bullet or Box2D rather than inventing rigid body physics simulation from scratch.
This video expressed a lot of my frustrations pretty well, ESPECIALLY the comparison between Horizon 5 and Burnout 3
"We should experience mayhem" - no we shouldn't, because most modern videogames players are just casual gamers, who want to press X to win, that's why people hate GTA IV at most. And if studios would present more AAA titles with normal physics, videogames industry will go bankrupt.
GTA4 on PS3 actually used the 6-axis controller to incorporate lean on motorcycles as you were describing.
The Forza damage question has been solves LONG ago, its for the same reason Gran Turismo didn't have "realistic" damage. LICENSING! Ferrari and Aston Martin & Bugatti don't want people to see their vehicles destroyed.
Regarding damage, I used to feel the same about how GTA5's damage was a complete downgrade over GTA4's... But I ended up realizing that it makes life a lot more convenient in most situations, especially given the Online component. Dying instantly in Story Mode because of an unfortunate lamp post hit is simply an instant fun killer. Having a stunt session ruined because your car flipped on its roof is an instant fun killer (before 5 at least - this turning the car around mechanic is, imho, an absolutely welcome addition).
The older cars in GTA5 were more malleable, but that comes with so many downsides. In some stunt races, just racing cleanly and normally would absolutely destroy the suspension of my Entity XF after a few landed jumps, making it an absolute pain to drive.
In freemode, more recent sports and supercars are designed and built in such a way that the front bumper sticks out enough to usually protect the headlights after head-on collisions. Is it unrealistic? Of course. Is it practical? Immensely and absolutely.
Mafia II has the best driving I've ever seen in a game. Piloting those land barges felt exactly as it should, the body roll, the sliding and traction, the everything was dead nuts on accurate. The only thing it didn't have was a great damage model. It was passable but if it had GTA IV's damage it'd be perfection.
You do know that the cars from the 40's and 50's era was made from solid metal and not light aluminium and plastic? That is why the cars in Mafia 2 don't deform as much after an collision as in Gta 4..
@@erwaldox yea but they should defrom.more of you are going 60 MPH than they do
I read it somewhere, damage on car is limited nowadays because licensing issue, the license holder of that car dont like their product looks wrecked in game.
One of the best game with bike handling (well, bike-only) is in my opinion Motocross GP 2019.
In that game, you would need both sticks to drive: the left stick is for steering, the right stick is for weight transfer. If you steer left and transfer weight to the right, you'd instantly fall off.
What makes the handling even better: when setting the handling mode to simulation, accelerating in midair tilts the boke backwards, whereas letting go of the throttle leans the bike forward.
Also: "it's so easy to implement VR in a racing game" - says who, exactly? Sorry if I seem entitled now, but do you have any programming experience? I really can't stand statements like these from backseat devs.
A lot of this is pretty short-sighted. Cars don't crumble to pieces because it's computationally expensive, and executives at VW and GM don't want to see their cars destroyed (this is why Forza has damage and GT does not -- GT has a very old set of contracts that prevent damage, and Forza has varying contracts so some cars are relegated to undamageable AI in Horizon while others can be completely shredded) Camera controls are limited because of the inherent limitations of consoles in that you only have so many buttons, no keyboard, and no console/scripting to set up cameras. VR compatibility is more complex than simply publishing to a second monitor and requires careful math, very finely adjustable player control models, and extensive modelling of car interiors (including all the controls) to work. And bad physics, other than weird bugs/unintended interactions, are often *on purpose* -- Watch Dogs is a game about being a hackerman with a gun, not a professional race car driver. Of course the cars are sloppy, they're there to create setpieces where you spike a cop car with deployable bollards, not to drift so hard you lose them at the turnpike. Of course GTA has wonky driving physics; it's a cinematic crime game, not Midnight Club. If you want to talk about bad driving physics in GTA5, have a look at how Franklin's special ability actually works; it literally functions by increasing how much steering you have before full lock and increases the mass of the car. Seriously. That's how the "improved handling" is achieved, it makes your car weigh more but dumps kinetic energy into it to maintain its speed, and the increased mass improves traction because of arcane scottish coding that was refactored 1000 times like a bad katana. (Interestingly, GTA5 has an infinite speed boost exploit with that ability because of this, and it's only limited by franklin's super meter)
In general, if you want a game that satisfies what you want, play BeamNG and watch your CPU burst into flames. Or maybe pick up one of the earlier DiRT titles or DiRT Rally.
I'm not trying to defend anyone but here are few reasons behind damage, for forza its because of licensing, and for gta v they decreased physics for better graphics, which was a mistake imo because they should have just released the game on next gen, also there are gameplay reasons, just look at gta v damage of roof on old gen (ps3) and next gen (ps4 and up), they introduced first person and with that they tried to remove camera clipping
I get what you're saying in this video, but a lot of the comments you made honestly feel like the things Redditors who don't know much of anything about game design or development would say.
Everything you brought up regarding Watch Dogs' driving physics was honestly pretty spot on, but then you brought up Forza Horizon 5 in the same segment. Contrary to what you said, no Forza Horizon game is a simulation racer, they're all arcade style racers built on the foundation of simulation racers. Basically, they have their physics tuned down so they're right in between feeling realistic and being fun for the average player. Forza Horizon (and Motorsport for that matter) are also both games where your car only goes airborne for very limited amounts of time and in specific scenarios, like for danger signs, specific areas on some rally tracks, and in a couple of Hot Wheels DLC races. The only scenario where that matters is during rally races where being airborne for even a short amount of time can completely mess up your racing line. With danger signs and Hot Wheels races, those jumps are clearly meant to feel arcade-like and cartoonish, as danger signs are just extra things around the maps for players to complete and Hot Wheels races are inherently ridiculous.
For Just Cause 3, I'm not sure how the driving element alone can make the game feel cheap when like you said its main focus on transportation is the grappling hook and the wingsuit. There's also the fact that Just Cause is an extremely chaotic series where almost anything that can be destroyed, will be destroyed. This requires the physics engine to put an emphasis on how those objects interact with each other and the world around them, and that will mess up how cars feel in the game because if they're to keep their destructive properties, then they're gonna remain physics objects like anything else in the game. The closest comparison I know of here is how vehicles act in the Source engine. One of the main selling points of the Source engine and the games built on it was how physics worked in the game. They were so good for the time that an entire sandbox game was built with it; Garry's Mod. Now if you've ever driven a car in Gmod or Half-Life 2 then you'll know how weird they feel, and that's because the game's physics engine isn't based around just the car, but so many other things. That's the same case with Just Cause 3, so bringing it up in a video about driving games as the title implies doesn't really make sense.
I think a similar thing can be argued with GTA V. There's *a lot* more driving in the GTA series than there is in a game like Just Cause, so of course there's a greater emphasis put into how the cars feel. That may be one of the reasons why racing events are so popular online. Like Just Cause though, GTA is a ridiculous sandbox game. I mean you go through the game pulling off increasingly ridiculous heists and jobs all as part of a fairly large story. And look at everything online, you've got flying motorcycles, private yachts and submarines, futuristic tanks, jetpacks, energy weapons, orbital strike satellites, etc. I think Rockstar wanted the driving in GTA V to be taken to more of an extreme with its arcade style feeling because it just fits better with the game's more ridiculous and faster gameplay. And again, it's not primarily a driving game, so many other factors have to be considered when talking about the car physics in games like this compared to how they work in dedicated driving and racing games. This applies not just to GTA, but to pretty much any game that isn't a driving game first, so I'll leave this point at that to avoid making this comment longer by repeating myself with Final Fantasy, more Watch Dogs, etc.
As for damage, well as @user-xd4hb5lb2k already brought up, any game that uses licensed brands and manufacturers is very limited in what they can do with damage. Game series like Need 4 Speed, Forza, Dirt, The Crew, Gran Turismo, etc. would not in a million years have the extremely wide selection of real-life cars that they do if they were to implement detailed crash physics. There's absolutely no way that brands like Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota/Lexus, and Chrysler would allow their cars to be put in a game where they can be physically destroyed like that.
I do agree a bit with your section on camera controls, but you also have to think about why they're like that in the first place. Most people like playing racing games in the third person perspective, and mirrors don't exactly work there. Rotating the camera to see your opponents is obviously the best option, and when you're in the middle of a high speed race it makes sense that the camera should first snap to where you want to look then adjust afterwards. This camera snapping method is actually being used by some controllers in FPS games now because it's faster than waiting for the camera to rotate to where you want to look. Of course players should always have the option to choose what they like best, and adding more camera settings could help out with that. Also, I'm sorry but saying VR is easy to implement is just plain wrong.
On a side note, that little section about Forza not improving much over the course of nine years is just wrong, and especially so when you compared it to the early Mario Kart games when we were still in the process of experimenting a lot with both the development of games and new technologies. The physics have improved massively, engine sounds have gotten so much better, customizability is better than ever for both cars and tracks, the vehicle selection is absolutely massive, and the cars look better than ever (although the developers really need to update some of the older models). You can possibly get away with saying the difference between Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5 is just a new map as many players already have, but you can never get away with that when comparing it to the very first game in the franchise.
Anyways sorry for the long comment, I just had a lot to say about this because I personally have a lot of experience with racing games, and I think you could have brought up some much better points or argued the ones you already had much better. Please don't take this as me just being mean or rude, because I can see what you're trying to say here, you're just not saying it in the best way, and I think that can be improved.
"It shoud be up to the player to finish a mission in style or... in pieces" - Driv3r
Just remembering those days when Atari an Reflections were working so hard to get realistic car damage in 2004 for Driver 3. Anyway, leaving the licenses aside, this is a problem that applies to anything in video games, not just driving: Simulation >> realistic but unpractical // Arcade >> practical but unrealistic. Developers need to find a balance in between but sometimes can be difficult.
Like, I know that drifting in a Ridge Racer game is as easy as tap the brakes and the car drifts on it's own but drifting in Gran Turismo means adapting the car like in real life or either you don't drift or you end up losing control. I guess here depends on player preferences for an easy but unrealistic drifting or a more complex but realistic drifting. The point is developers can not cover all players preferences unless they add an option to switch between arcade or simulation just like VR shooting games that allow you to choose manual reload of a gun or automatic.
Wow. You basically summarized my entire thoughts about this topic I had since the release of GTA V. Just like you, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with the physics in it and took me 2 - 3 years to get around it. You needed real skills to drive in IV, V held your hand all throughout.
Every other game apart from GTA IV, the cars feel like an afterthought, where they don’t interact with the environment. No weight, no damage, no crumple zones, no suspension travel, and agile handling in EVERY vehicle weather it be a supercar or an SUV etc. it’s infuriating!
Test Drive Unlimited 1 & 2 were great games BUT they also lacked the same issue with handling where cars felt like they drove on ice. Hopefully this issue doesn’t carry over onto the next one.
I still haven't gotten around to completing GTA V, mostly because of the boring driving physics. Hardly ever had to slow down for curves and even when I did, practically every vehicle could stop on a dime, so even if I misjudged my speed, I could correct mid-corner and be fine. The only challenge seemed to come from the police's rubber banding with their magic turbo boost ram ability that would force you to swerve. The swerve wasn't even a predictable thing based on impact angle most the time, felt random.
NFS Prostreet had great damage and collision models
Sounds like skill issue if you need that long for your brain to realise that your car doesn’t have jelly as suspensions anymore.
@@NerfMaster000 Nah, it's just so easy it's boring.
Nah TDU2 was terrible and the driving in the 1st game was fine.
There sure was a lot of complaining here with little to no research. Many of the complaints are answered simply with "for legal reasons"
As far as bike physics go, gta iv on the ps3 had whats called "sixaxis". You would use the controller to tilt bikes, helicopters, and even reload. It was the only time ive seen any game use the software
For what that's worth, that was an _option._
Car companies don't license their brands to games if they will get damaged badly, or usually, at all. That's why every game that HAS good destruction physics use unbranded cars or "close but not close enough to trigger copyright law" cars. Flatout and Wreckfest are good examples.
I get where everyone is coming from on the whole GTA IV vs GTAV physics debate... They both appeal to different audiences and you can't be expected to love both styles. Niko is a certified badass with a troubled past and an even more troubling inability to drive. As Cousin comes to meet you at the port, you look back at the boat and realize "Things are going to be different...". You are now Niko, and you can't drive for shit. 10/10
Tourist Trophy on PS2 was the best motorbike racing game for almost a decade and the reason for that was because it was built upon the Gran Turismo 4 engine. It's outdated by today's standards but it's still a blast to play, even if it needs an update in its physics and other aspects. Kazunori Yamauchi has briefly mentioned that he wants to make a successor that incorporates proper racing sim setups and motion controls but it's still not possible with the current technology (or at least affordable to gamers). There's at least one UA-camr who has mentioned that VR could work as a possible workaround in lieu of expensive racing hardware that it's not streamline yet. I also think this is a viable option even though VR is still out of reach for most of gamers' pockets, especially on the PC side.
I struggled to finish wasting 15 minutes of my time, just so that I could maybe try to change opinions about games, instead of a random guy I started hearing about that doesn't seem to understand games properly, how much effort it takes to make them, yes big companies make mistakes, but the games I talk about in my comment are all games I've played, and enjoyed, while I don't think you played many of them. It seems you try constantly to make every game like reality, when the purpose of a game is to escape reality. Again I blame the big corporations for the bugs that are undeniably here because of hasty releases, and poor treatment for devs. But also, do you even know how making a game work? Like I used a few game engines to try and make games, I know I'm not good at it but it still is hard. Even to make a simple system for money, with saving your money, it takes a few lines of code, around 30 on Roblox studio, which has all the tools needed to make a proper game (don't just think it's bad because it's roblox, you can really make pretty much anything with it). VR support built from scratch, even with Unity, would require a few devs for maybe a day or two, which, if you look at the release dates is a lot, especially for smaller studios. No you can't just magicly put VR support in a racing game, because of so many technical reasons. And also performance. Most games have Steering wheel and pedals support anyway, since they're basically controllers in fancy casings, so most of your arguments in your video are worthless. I played The Crew 2 quite a bit and honestly love it, driving really fast, with different cars, and it, unlike you said, feels different, yes not as much as other games, but it still feels different; I really also like GTA V, and is, unlike what you said, quite good in terms of damage, but it looks like you used 100% body armor, which obviously doesn't let the car get damage too much; Forza Horizon 5 is definitly an arcade game; you showed a lot about BeamNG but it is a game that needs a monster PC to run at max graphics, my pc is worth I think around 1000$ and manages to run at 40 fps at min graphics no mods, so of course the map is immovable, and you don't even mention the game, just make allusions; NFS Heat is also an arcade game, you showed clips without mentioning it again, and it's a game I really like, of course "fans" will say it's trash, the story is boring etc, but who cares, you can basically finish it without doing like around 90% of missions, plus the degree of modification you have in it is one of the best I know. So stop trashing on games because you're mad at something unrealistic, it's like being mad at a desk because it's a desk, it doesn't make sense.
If we get a game that mixes GTA IV and Mafia 2 handling, it would be great.
Mafia 2 on realistic handling is awesome, shame he didnt mention it on this video, he could say that realistic handling is optional
O right! Yea Mafia 1-3 had awesome car handling. I had wanted a manual transmission in Mafia 2 and 3!! (sequential no clutch just like NFS MW 2005/Mafia 1) I have had so much more fun driving around free roam in the Mafia games then trying to play them as a Grand Theft Auto like.
Mafia 2 was such a waste of potential. And Mafia 3.... Nuff said. No but I do have somethings to say about Mafia 3. I do like Lincoln clay and the main story. The driving after patches and turning realistic driving on was really good too. Yet the buggy release and endless boooooring open world missions of repetitive garbage really makes you want to forget it even exist.
Mafia 2 and 3 had some really grate truck/lorry driving. I do not know how many hours I drove around in Mafia 2 just being a truck driver. That gearbox shifting sounds and realistic physic and traffic was awesome! Agen what a waste not getting the Mafia 2 we where promised! Still feel cheated out of not being ticketed running red lights! Joe even scream at you for doing it! ARRRRRRG.
@@TheDiner50 mafia de has manual transmition
@@ididntmeantoshootthatvietn5012I don't remember that Mafia 2 has the driving options. It was introduced to Mafia 3 and also in Mafia 2 definitive edition.
The car damage of original Mafia was way ahead of its time because they bend. Every 3D GTA game doesn't have this feature.
One thing I can say about GTA V’s physics, even tho the ability to roll your car onto it’s wheels is very unrealistic and weird, it would be highly inconvenient to have to hop out of the car and find a new one, especially in GTA Online. So I can see why they added that. As for the damage physics, yes, they need to fix that in GTA VI. Some cars barely even deform, while others, such as the cop cars can literally be compressed into a toaster. The inconsistency is what bothers me so much.
The real "problem" is that no real car can take anywhere near the amount of abuse that a game car can, so where would the fun be? Real life flat jumping: impossible without folding the frame. Real life drifting: likely to break suspension unless you have the genuine skills. Hit a curb sideways in real life: bent rims = wobbly ride. The list goes on and on.
This is why I love beamng drive its physics feel real, wish you would've talked about it more
Always excited to see a new top tier video from you man. Mad respect for the production value boss.
If you had any knowledge or even did a little research, you would know that licensing requirements of many manufacturers stipulate that their vehicles do not show crash damage.
My opinion of each game I've played. I'm breaking it down in two parts (GTA and Watch Dogs series') (Racing games) I'm sorry for this essay but some ppl might enjoy reading all this 💀💀💀💀
GTA HD Universe & WD 1, 2, Legion
GTA5: Almost every car feels the same when you drive it. Whether it's an SUV, sedan, or sports car they have the same physics when it comes to body roll and suspension. The only notable difference is the speed. However in the recent Chop Shop update they seem to change this issue a little bit. For example, the Bravado Dorado (based on the older generation Dodge Durango) has a much softer suspension and actually has the weight and feeling of an old SUV as it bounces more and rolls more. I think GTA 6 will make each car feel different based on how old it is and the style of car.
GTA4: Personally as a little kid I thought the physics in GTA 4 were funny and it was just funny to drive a car. I still look at it the same way. It definitely was not perfect; the body roll made sense for SUV's, not for a small little sedan. The wheels were always glued to the ground, if the cars wheels lifted off the ground while the car tilted at a high speed, I would've called it the perfect physics every open world game should have had. Also the vehicles need to incorporate a sense of speed since they all felt slow. I see a lot of people glazing GTA 4 physics, they were definitely above and beyond for a game made in 2008. However looking at it now, I'm glad we have GTA 5 physics rather than 4.
Watch Dogs 1: Cars feel like they have weight. The steering feels too stiff and arcade like. The vehicle suspension physics are awesome in this game, older cars have a softer and more worn and bouncy suspension. Sports cars have a stiffer suspension. The speed is another issue where each car is capped out at a certain speed but they add motion blur to make it look like you're going fast. Another issue was that the wheels would clip if you go over a bump, the body of the car would react appropriately but not the wheels as they would just teleport up and down over a bump.
Watch Dogs 2: Cars have less weight compared to the first. Sedans and sports have a much more responsive steering whereas SUV's and trucks feel weighty and delayed similar to real life. One thing I noticed was the suspension was toned down which I dislike however the feeling of driving a car was improved greatly.
Watch Dogs Legion: Each car has their own physics. SUV's and older vehicles are much more springy and roll more whereas newer cars are much easier and lighter to control. This game is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of vehicle physics in Watch Dogs but sadly I think Ubisoft is done with that franchise. I hope they make a game that's similar or a new franchise which is branched off of Watch Dogs. For me the Watch Dogs storyline and game is second in place standing beside the GTA franchise.
Racing games: Forza Horizon (2, 3, 4, 5), The Crew (2, Motorfest), Need for Speed (Rivals, Heat, Unbound), Asseto Corsa
Forzo Horizon series: Each Horizon game felt the same. The cars have a much more arcade like feel if you drive with a controller. Driving with a steering wheel makes it feel much more immersive and with the beautiful graphics it can make it feel like you are driving a real car. Off-road driving in different cars can be felt, sports cars with a stiffer suspension made it a much more bumpier ride whereas an SUV or off-road vehicle was softer and smoother.
The Crew 2: Each and every car felt the same and the vehicle had no weight at all. You're driving across the US but it felt very dull for 80% of the ride and wasn't the greatest experience (it shows that having a ridiculously big map can cause a lot of flaws).
The Crew Motorfest: Much more improved physics for cars. Stock cars vs modified cars had a significant change in feeling. Large map yet they made it much more fun to explore (takes place in Hawaii). Even the sounds of the cars are realistic and have a good echo to them if you listen from afar.
NFS Rivals: Though they have their own physics, each game feels like an arcade game. However NFS clearly established that it is an arcade racer and it makes it feel fun. Some may not agree with my take but I enjoyed Rivals more than Most Wanted. I've played both however I ended up purchasing Rivals as it gave a feeling of a proper racing game. Even though it's arcade like, it felt real and for it's time the graphics were phenomenal. For me that was probably my most favourite NFS game.
NFS Heat & UB: Improved graphics, and vehicle physics still arcade like, yet still fun. I like the vibes of UB more however they are on the same boat.
Asseto Corsa: This is a driving simulation game. This game is meant to be played with a wheel. The cars have weight, body roll, good suspension depending on what you drive. It's also a game that is meant to be modded so I add a lot of vehicle and map mods as well as aesthetic mods to make everything look more real. It's not an open world since you're just driving on a racetrack or down a highway with AI traffic but in terms of physics, it is easily the best. Graphics wise I would argue the other racing games mentioned above are better but easily way better in physics.
I decided to delete my comments to retype them as one giant comment up as more and more relevants stuff popped up:
3:50 The vehicle physics in JC3 and JC4 hurt with how "instant respons-y" they were. Every car either had all grip or no grip. Just Cause 2 had more "cartoony" vehicle physics (IE if you fell off a cliff you could trigger the car to barrel roll at violent speeds (there was also a whoosh sound effect to accommodate it as the game was built to be a cheesy action thriller)), but there was an actual sense of weight and momentum to every vehicle you drove. Your armored cars were slow and bulky. Your trucks slouched and sagged at corners. Your daily drivers had modest body roll to them and would break traction as if they were on all-seasons if you drove too fast. The sports cars were grip monsters that would send you into oblivion if you found the limit
7:02 So, we did try motion control motorcycles during the PS3 era and the general consensus was you had input delay with how far you needed to crank the controller over to get to max tilt, and it was difficult as can be to re-center your steering. The majority of us stopped using motion control steering almost instantly and went back to using the thumbstick. If we were to implement it as a weight shift mechanic instead, you need to learn the counter-intuitiveness that is "how to steer a motorcycle." We're about to get weird...
When you're riding a motorcycle at low speeds, you want to turn the bike in the direction you want to go and lean away from the corner. Want to go left? Turn the handlebars left, and shift your butt over to the right. This will droop the bike in the direction you want to go while changing your center of gravity so you don't dump it. Takes some getting used to, but you can easily translate that into a gamepad input.
When you're riding a motorcycle at traveling speeds, however, things get very... backwards. If you want to turn left, _you actually want to push your handlebars (or your thumbstick) right_ and then shift your weight to the left. The weight shift brings the bike down onto its left side, and by turning the wheel right it exposes the sidewall, which gets smaller and smaller the more you lean it. That's gonna be the hard one for people to get used to
The Ride games that simulate this have handled this debacle by automating the whole counter-weighting and counter-steering process. You want to turn right at speed? Push the analog stick right and watch as your rider automatically shifts their weight and counter-steers into a right hander. The unfortunate drawback of this though is every single steering input has a 1 second delay, so you're stuck playing the games as if you're a mystic predicting the future and planning your inputs well in advanced.
10:49 A song as old as time itself, it's brand marketing fighting against (as well as exploiting) the low intelligence of society. Companies like to have their brands represented in their games. What they don't like is inaccurate representation of their brand. If you were to take that Dodge Viper there, and wrap it around a tree, Dodge might be unhappy that the damage model doesn't match how it would actually crumple in real life. It's considered "bad press" to see their models destroyed in an unrealistic and unsafe fashion.
From the consumer's point of view, if you have some guy who knows nothing about NCAP or IIHS crash tests who takes a GT86 and crashes it in Forza to the point that it pancakes, they in their uneducated guise would believe that Forza, a game known to be an "accurate" simulator, is showing them that if they owned a GT86 IRL that that's what would happen should they be involved in a crash, and in turn be less inclined to buy it, which would tarnish Toyota's reputation. Yes, this actually happens. Just look at all the people who think a car will explode if crashed into thanks to movies. It's 2023 and people still believe that shit.
The burnout games and GTA games could get away with it because they aren't tied to real brands. They can smash them however they want without the worry of setting false expectations on how a car were to fare in a crash. Toyota for a short time in the 2010s refused to be in any games that involved street racing for they feared their cars would be purchased by irresponsible young adults for irl street racing. Thankfully they rolled back on that and allowed their cars to be re-added to games like Forza Horizon when they came to their senses.
Similarly this is why some brands such as Ferrari stay out of games with heavy emphasis on customization. The board still has this high and mighty idea that their cars are perfect from factory and shouldn't be allowed to be tweaked too extensively. See also: Deadmau5's Purrari lawsuit.
12:05 All I have to say here is NFS Shift is the only game I've played that really nailed that "you are in a fast car" feel with the exaggerated tunnel vision effect. That game made road course racing as fun as open world arcade games.
12:34 I miss the hill cam from the Midnight Club games. You're coming up over a blind hill or have a tall vehicle in front of you? Push the left analog stick forward to raise the camera up about 15 feet. Now the BS of accidentally dicking it into a car you didn't see is no longer an issue.
God I feel old seeing how bass-ackwards we've gone. lol
I'll die on the hill saying that we peaked during the Gamecube and PS2 era. Gabe Newell's "games as a product are becoming games as a service" E3 line from 2010 looks more like a warning than an announcement as the years go by.
*Last note. I'm going to plug Night Runners. That game is taking inspiration from the PS2 era of racing games and it's the first time I've been genuinely excited for a racing game since Forza Horizon*
I'm sorry but IMO you made a ton of mistakes in your reasoning and arguments.
1: Forza Horizon 5 and the whole Horizon series in general are definitely not racing sims. They are arcade racers with more realistic oriented physics, akin to Need for Speed Underground 2 for example. Forza Motorsport is the Turn 10 franchise that actually focuses on sim racing, and it's not even close to being a fully fledged sim game like Assetto Corsa, to name the most popular.
2: GTA IV's driving physics are a lame wannabe realistic attempt. They fail so bad at what they're supposed to be doing that they look like a parody. The cars' weight transfer and suspension traveling are overexagerated to the point it looks like you're gonna flip over every time you take a corner. All the vehicles are too heavy and wiggly even the ones that are supposed to have firm suspensions and sharp handling like sports cars and supers. In fact, GTA V is much more realistic in that regard, though now the problem is the cars feel too light.
3: World objects being easily destroyable is actually the opposite of realistic. Try crashing your car into a lampost full speed, see what happens. Spoilers: the pole will likely barely budge while your car crumples on it.
4: Many games don't feature realistic levels of damage due to licencing. It's also very often not necessary as it's not the focus of the game. On semi-sims like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo for example, the main aspect of the games is the driving and racing, and tho more realistic, damages would hinder that experience on these large-audience franchises.
Also you're comparing Burnout 3: Takedown, a full blown arcade game that had crashing as its core mechanic, to Forza Horizon 5, an "immersive"/real-ish arcade racer which focuses on the driving and freeroaming. Having crash physics the same type as Burnout or BeamNG in such a game would be terribly frustrating!
5: If you play racing games because you wanna go fast, you shouldn't be playing simulation oriented games, so this FoV problem is almost a non-issue. The fun in sim-racing comes the driving, not the speed in itself. Speed there is a reward for your driving skills. If you're good, you can handle the car at high speed and make quick laps. Sense of speed is good, but the car feeling a bit slow in a simulator is not too bothersome since you should know when to brake and at what speed you can take the corner, not guess it. Anyway, the FoV can often be tweaked, and sim games are mostly intended to be played in cockpit or hood cam, which usually solves both the FoV and camera angle issue.
6: Racing game doesn't necessarily mean sim racing game. Arcade racers don't really need to implement support for VR or wheel setup because the average player for these games is going to play using their controler or even keyboard. Heck, some arcade games have such wacky physics that they'd actually feel counterintuitive to play using a wheel.
GTA IV's motorcycle physics are still some of the best motorcycles I've ever seen, you can actually lean on them and the crotch rockets still work with body roll and traction, once you get the hang of them they're actually very dynamic
Spot on. Sport bikes were a joy to ride. All the bikes in gta 5 are stiff trash
Apparently the deformation in gta 5 used to be better on last gen but it was somewhat disabled at the sides and roof I guess so the interiors wouldn't get messed up in first person. Don't quote me on that though, I never owned it on last gen and just read some forums. Still a huge shame :(
Yea it was, cabin area cant deform now, but on release the damage was still worse than in 4, and it got worse with online cars they added
I mean, if the roof deformed and blocked my view I'd just switch to 3rd person, that's what I do in Wreckfest. Or if they really want to keep the immersion, design it so that your character ducks down some if the roof is in the way.
@@scottthewaterwarrior There's an interesting fact I learned from the video "A Look Behind GTA 5's Weird Gameplay Design" is that car roof deformation can be toggled in real time, so why they didn't just do that based on selected camera perspective is mind boggling.
I worked as a software tester for a large portion of my career. My first game was Need For Speed 3 for the PC. A great game for LAN multiplayer, but it lacked some elements that made the PS1 version more charming, such as the cops shouting at you on a bullhorn.
The reason why Burnout and GTA are better at accurate destruction models is simply because they make their own cars that emulate real ones.
Having licensed cars in your game or movie comes with a cost: Some manufacturers don't want their vehicle used by villains, and others may require that their vehicles not take realistic damage.
The developers can do 3 things:
1. Make a simulation game that includes as many manufacturers as possible, sacrificing real physics and damage (and the cost of licensing the cars) to rely on brand recognition for big sales numbers
2. Include a handful of manufacturers that allow for damage, allowing for better realism while sacrificing depth
3. Make your own cars that sort of look and behave like the real thing, sacrificing brand recognition while potentially reinforcing a parody-esque narrative and allowing the player to explore what's available without specifically having to live up to the player's preconceived notions of what a specific real car would behave like. Players can do that over the course of multiple games. Designing your own vehicles keeps the costs internal (designers, modelers, artists, sound designers), preventing licensing costs and restrictions altogether.
I prefer GTA IV's physics, BTW.
I think most users of the game would bale their car on the corner of a building at the first bend (did you see the 120 mph crash on fifth gear?), thus game cars are made out of 8 inches of plate steel and given thirty thousand horsepower engines to compensate. That way they can drive into anything like battering rams and just get a few scratches on the paintwork. The exception is beamng and Garry's mod
I loved the Test Drive Unlimited games, if TDSC comes out, finally going to have a driving game to enjoy again.
A game that did motorcycles really well and driving in general, was sleeping dogs. That game had arcadey physics, but driving in it was always a joy. Along with the ability to quickly switch to different vehicles from all types by jumping from one to another during driving. I wish they'd make a Sleeping Dogs 2.
Kinda sad that you didn't mention NFS ProStreet as one of the examples. It's that middle ground between arcade and sim, where cars feel realistic in both damage and physics, while still being arcadish enough to be enjoyable.
Or Porsche for that matter given the extra tuning which still seems unmatched in the series. Can you name another NFS game that lets you adjust gear ratios and toe-in ?
@@TheExileFox Prostreet...
@@TheExileFox good old underground 2 lets you play around with the suspension a surprising amount like that
Forza Horizon isn't a simulation game! About GTA V physics and damage, everyone forgets that was a game lauched on Xbox 360 and PS3! The game is massive on an generation of consoles dying! They have to choose a big game or cut some features that we have in GTA IV!
There is a problem that stops game companies from making realistic physics, the people. Everyone wants realistic physics but not many people can deal with the aftermath of switching cars after every crash or being stuck flipped over or cars taking a long time to slow down.
Car producers are those, who actually preventing the damage being introduced into these games.