After downloading the SCGT demo and giving it a fair amount of play, or try to play , these are my impressions so far. I do agree with the other comments that the game feels a little too *arcadish*, and in more ways than the way the cars "drive". It's like it's a game on the borderline between arcade and simulator. I think the game has great potential to be a fantastic simulator, especially with the backing (or former backing?) from Professional Sports Car, but I suppose the 3 way war between PSCR, ALMS, and USRRC has split over to ImageSpace, and it shows.

Here's the way I see it, and I'll not beat around the bush about it. If a software company wants to make a "sim", then why don't they, or as it seems lately, won't they go out and garner information about their sim from the racing teams, drivers, organizations themselves. The SCGT sim , formerly known as PSCR sim had great potential until what I just mentioned above arose.

Being a huge sim racing fan, and having worked for and with racers that are now running in different professional road racing series (PSCR and USCCR), I believe, that especially the teams and whichever sanctioning body you choose, would be very willing to provide detailed input for a sim. The US road racing scene has gone from mediocre, to bad, and now to worse, with a whole other "split" (ALMS from PSCR). Creating an excellent road racing sim would garner great sales and reviews, draw interest in the gaming community (consumers, fans, spectators, users, etc.), which would in turn raise awareness of the American road racing scene. More awareness, more fans, spectators, more users and consumers would certainly make the American road racing scene look more lucrative to companies and promoters for sponsorships, more sponsorship means more money, more entries, more competition, etccccc....

Ok, now that I've just solved all of road racing's problems indirectly through creating a better sim, let me get back to the game itself. Notice I'm calling it a game, and not a sim.

I don't have a good 3d driver, but I did manage to get the game working on my computer, so I don't get all of the great visual graphics. But great graphics don't make a great sim.

I'm using a TSW, and haven't gotten it to work properly in the game. My brakes are always fully applied. I've re-installed and re-calibrated it in Windows, hoping to solve the problem, to no avail. So if I try to use the wheel, I run laps with full throttle and full brake, and can't get the full experience. There's no way, or at least I haven't found one yet, to either set the controls, or calibrate them from within the game . I've never had a problem running any of my sims in DOS, however if I try to run any of my Papy or Microprose sims in windows, something usually has a fit. SCGT, as far as I can tell is a windows only based application .

Having driven Improved Touring races in SCCA competition, I've never had grass slow me down as much as the grass in SCGT does. Usually if it's wet, I'd accelerate with no hope at all. And if it was dry, boy the turf was hard, and I went for some wild rides (usually airborne) until either I struck something (like a tire wall, guardrail, or sandbank), or managed to regain control a few hundred yard later to slow down and drive back onto the track. Not once did I ever sink down 6 inches into the turf to bog down to a slow stop like in SCGT.

I also agree that the cars look a little big on the track, the scale seems a bit off in SCGT.

Since I've had to relegate myself back to driving with the keyboard, I haven't been able to be competitive with the AI, but I did notice that after a collision (heavy) with one of the Saleen's, the AI did limp back to the pits with the LF wheel locked up and leaving a black rubber streak all the way to pit lane. Yay on that one, good realism there, but no body damage. . A big disappointment there, but I suppose the big whigs at Mercedes or such made it that way because they didn't want the "image" of their cars tarnished by "body damage". C'mon guys, that's pretty lame.

No control in pit lane.

I tried to blow up a motor by overrevving it.....nothing happened. . But it does backfire when you lift or downshift, occaisionally. .

Working lights, and way cool brake lights .

That dweeby horn .

Cool engine rumble at idle

That disgraceful note from the Porsche . Personally, I think the engine note from a Flat 6 Porsche motor is one of the sexiest sounds on the face of this planet.

Tire marks , body roll .

In conclusion, it seems that they did a great job on the "superficial" aspects of the game. But it still falls short on the "sim" aspect. Realistic looks, realistic sounds, realistic effects all give it great potential to blow away other sims, but it's still an Arcade game. I know it's only a demo, and there's still a lot that can be done with it.

My hopes are that Image Space wants to make this a simulator, and not an arcade game. If they do want to pursue the "simulator" aspect, I wouldn't mind waiting at all for it, and they should take as long as they need to to make an accurately rendered sim. We've all seen what happens with sims when they are pushed out the door before their time like what Papy did with ICR2/CART Racing and Microprose with GP2. The GP2 release even has the files included in it (multilanguage radio communication, changing weather conditions, etc), that MP wouldn''t allow time for completion. ICR2 also has rain settings included, but are not used. N2, N99, ICR2, GP2 are all very good simulators. They could've been ranked as great or excellent simulators if they were allowed completion. Grand Prix Legends borders on greatness. We'll see about N3, but I suppose Sierra will push that one out the door too soon.... SCGT has great potential to be "fantastic", but by the looks of the demo, it's far from it, at least so far......

It will be interesting to see how the final product turns out. SCGT, the excellent sim.....or SCGT Revolution, all graphics, all hype, no sim....

John Hinkle