Review: Live for Speed Update

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Latest Developments

Live For Speed in its Stage 2 "U" incarnation still offers a beautiful sim with DX 8.1 graphics and with very credible high-fidelity physics, as well as very good mulitplayer capabilities.

As always, Live for Speed delivers an excellent sense of lateral weight transfer where you can feel the rear of the car having mass and weight as you traverse corners.

The “T” update which was announced on April 21st, 2006 included tire and aero physics improvements.

The physics have been notably tweaked and in this driver’s opinion mostly to the better. The sting and bite of cars such as the Caterham / Westfield / Lotus 7 look-alike has been reduced, without compromising the fun or the realism.

Another very welcome improvement is that the dashboards and insturment pods of especially the open-wheel cars have been improved. The interior of the F1 BMW-Sauber, which was introduced in update “T”, is truly stunning. This by no means implies that the exterior does not look equally stunning!

The engine sound of the Sauber is a bit on the tinny side. The physics appear to be perhaps too forgiving in terms of being able to save the car from situations that would otherwise lead to a crash, but the sound as the traction control kicks in seems spot-on.

In April 2006 further improvements and refinements were introduced with the “U” update. A list of the patch contents can be seen here.

December saw the announcement of the “V” patch. It featured many improvements including a further refinement of the physics and the sound engine, which includes transmission whine. The multiplayer component also received an overhaul. A full list of fixes can be found here.

Just recently, update “W” was released and apart from an impressive list of enhancements that increase the functionality, the change that most catches the eye, or in this case the ear, is the inclusion of new and meatier sounds. Patch “W” details are listed here. The FX and FZ sounds are impressive.

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