SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Preview: Live for Speed S2 Alpha

Part of the physics as well as the graphics, the damage you can do to your car will progressively make it harder and harder to drive a damaged car. Despite crashing very heavily on some occasions, I have not yet experienced a complete write-off and subsequent retirement. The car however has become impossible to drive after heavy crashes and this of course is at it should be. Just to mention one example, I was hit from the back by an AI and as a consequence the tracking of my steering was off to the left.

The damage inflicted on my poor car in the following screenshot is the result of a fairly gentle meeting with the wall, so while the mechanical damage seems very well done, the graphical damage is taking second seat.

Force Feedback

With my Driving Force Pro, the force feedback feels adequate, without being sensational. The force feedback communicates well the forces acting upon the car. Weight transfer indicating a sideways motion to the left or right is simulated well by a tightening of the forces. With my fondness for tank-slappers, I noticed that the backlash in the steering is quite pronounced when the tail is at extreme angles to the general traveling direction of the car, indicating that having attempted to save a slide I have overcorrected and initiated a slide in the other direction.

Feeling understeer in the force feedback, strikes me as being less well communicated to the driver.

My overall impression of the physics is that the package works so well that it is fun and convincing to hot lap in this simulation. I can't help but think about GPL in terms of a driving simulation that sucks you in and keeps you coming back for more.

Tracks

The list of only 9 tracks at first looks a bit disappointing, but once you realize that most of the tracks have several variants in terms of length, layout and day/evening versions, even autocross track variants and skidpads, you begin to appreciate that in fact LFS has a lot more tarmac under the hood than is initially apparent. A very nice touch is that the shorter, modern layouts have modern, speed-inhibiting chicanes, but if you choose the "classic" version that is available for some of the tracks, the chicanes are gone and what you have is a high-speed, 7 or 8 km long road course with fast sweeping corners, challenging esses and a few slower corners! Just the kind of tracks I like!

Blackwood
Autocross
Fern Bay
Skidpad
South City
Drag Strip
Aston
Kyoto Ring (Oval)
Westhill

As you have noticed these are not real life tracks but fantasy tracks. Be advised though that they are a hoot to drive and real life track designers might very well pick up some good ideas from studying these tracks. The tracks that have evening variants look very good with that kind of warmth to the visuals that is impossible to describe. It simply looks gorgeous and you have to see it for yourself.

Setups

LFS ships with very good and very driveable setups. I haven't found much reason to change much in the default setups but you can adjust things like camber, suspension, gearing, brake balance and down force to mention just a few of the options.

Sound

While LFS does not have the raucous sounds that GTR boasts, I find the sounds in LFS adequate. Viewing replays from the external view and especially with more cars on the track, I think that the sounds are quite convincing.

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