Xtreme Air racing availability

[Daiwa]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

StreakEagle -

My heart wants to cut the VS folks some slack, since they did some great stuff early and had improved the game a lot by 1.032, but I have to agree with you. The way we were led on & hung out to dry, so to speak, has left a very bitter taste. And even minimally acceptable technical support was virtually non-existent - you just had to be lucky enough to read the boards at the right time.

While I haven't purchased XAR2, I have read several reviews, all of them bad I'm afraid. It still doesn't have a workable on-line multiplayer mode. The retail version of XAR1 (eGames 1.04 version) has the GameSpy Arcade tie-in, but I don't know if it ever really worked - never could find anyone in the *lobby* to play with. There also is apparently no way to turn off the announcer in XAR2 except to mute your speakers - not a good thing. It reportedly has some Formula 1's, however, and I was definitely looking forward to seeing what flying those is like. I also plan to wait for it to show up in the $9.95 clearance bin, though.

I admit you have to *really* want to fly this sim to put up with its quirks & slow loads, but none of the above lessens the enjoyment of XAR1 once you're flying.

Cheers,

Daiwa

[Matt58]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Does anyone know if they make that game for the Playstation 2?

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

[edit]I didn't see my first post go through so I had already typed this one. I will let this one stand as well since it is slightly more coherent. I can't delete the other one

You posted unregged, they go into a moderation bin, by the time I "moderated" it, you'd posted again, subsequently, I deleted the first one for you

Blame for the failure of XAR rests squarely on the shoulders of Victory Simulations.

Streakeagle, if you only knew the full story.... It was nothing short of a miracle that what did finally get to market did get to market. When Mattel bailed on Victory and XAR, it took all of Pat Hunt's personal resources to "chase the dream" of seeing his "baby" get to production. Seriously, it was done out of pocket and pretty much broke him in the process.

The game was finished by mostly one guy with the help of others providing artwork, but the programming was all a one man show once Mattel bowed out.

The intent was to get it totally polished and out the door, obviously, if fell somewhat short of that but when it shipped, it was pretty much "do or die" ...

Other sim makers have a lot of bux behind them, Victory did not. The concept of an air racing sim was just about as hard to sell to anyone as is real air racing as a valid motorsport when trying to obtain sponsorship.. that's just how it fell down..

Placing blame is not really in order in this case.. we got what we got and I guess, I feel we should appreciate that it ever left the drawing board in the first place..

As far as I know, the multiplayer thing never did get totally worked out. Apparantly, it worked fine over a lan and that was the only means for testing that was available to the programmer.. I never got to try it, over a lan or otherwise.. In fact, I never actually got to fly the "finished" version.. too little time and a joystick that was/is incompatible with later versions of Windoze...

Wayne

[Daiwa]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Matt58 -

I'm almost certain it is only available for the PC platform.

Daiwa

[AirDOGGe]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

As much as I love the sim, the three items that turned me off were the ultra-slow start-ups for each race, and the fact that the planes would all remain in a tight group (flock?), rather than spread out as the laps progressed. Real races (planes, cars, boats etc.), and pretty much every race sim I have tried don't have that flaw. Even the real T-6 races with closely matched planes don't stay bunched up like the unlimiteds in XAR do. it may have been an intentional characteristic by the programmer(s), but it didn't suit me.

The third item was the fact that you could not replay career races (only single stand-alone races). many times I went down from a mid-air collision and could not replay the race to see what happened and/or why. I found that strange.

But hey, XAR is probably as close to real circuit air racing as we will get for quite some time (the "air race" add-on for microsoft flight sim was a REAL bummer in comparison).

So I must say 'thank you" for providing us with what we did received....A valiant effort....

(A real nice feature could have been to follow the lead of many successful car race games.....include a paint shop and let users design their own plane paint schemes....)

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

But hey, XAR is probably as close to real circuit air racing as we will get for quite some time (the "air race" add-on for microsoft flight sim was a REAL bummer in comparison).

So I must say 'thank you" for providing us with what we did received....A valiant effort....

(A real nice feature could have been to follow the lead of many successful car race games.....include a paint shop and let users design their own plane paint schemes....)

Air Doggie... (you guys are gonna think I live at my computer... err... sometimes I think I do!!) actually, I'm up working on a project that absolutely has to be there... err.. tomorrow.. well.. by Monday anyway.. I get email notices when posts come in... so... back to on subject...

It is really sad that the funding to do this project never materialized! Pat had visions of doing a TON of things with it.. including a paint shop... and, design shop, where you could mix and match components and come up with your very own custom combo... I spent hours on the phone and in person with Pat talking about what *could* be done.. the bottom line was.. well, the bottom line..

Again, once Mattel dropped it, it was simply a matter of Pat's drive to see it through that made it happen. Trust me when I say, it just wasn't his fault. He did what he could, hoping for enough sales of the game to fund improvements and future versions.. Investment capitol is just not there for something thought of as much of a "niche" as was/is an air race sim..

Wasn't/isn't perfect but may well, indeed, be the best thing, and closest thing we ever see. The folks that bought the rights to it will probably not put any development into it, for the same reasons that capitol was hard to get to finish it in the first place.. it's a NICHE that nobody wants to spend money on. That is the dilemma of air racing and funding.

May change someday, certainly a bunch of people have spent a ton of money and time to see that it does..

Cross fingers and hope!

Wayne

[Sryth]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

But hey, XAR is probably as close to real circuit air racing as we will get for quite some time (the "air race" add-on for microsoft flight sim was a REAL bummer in comparison).

Real circuit racing http://srythshangar.lasthome.net we build our own microsoft flight sim addons and race every week.

[Race 29]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Well, three cheers to Pat Hunt! Even with all the quirks, we still have something better than if he never chased his dream (mine too). I was one of the first purchasers of XAR, waited a year to get it, got less than what I was promised, and was disapointed with the graphics. All that never stopped me from many hours of enjoyment. It was obvious from the start that VS didn't have mega-buck backers. Ya gotta take it for what it was. An air racing simulation that's as closer to the real Reno than any other game. EA's NASCAR series has much better graphics, but it's still NASCAR!

Race 29

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Well, three cheers to Pat Hunt! Even with all the quirks, we still have something better than if he never chased his dream (mine too). I was one of the first purchasers of XAR, waited a year to get it, got less than what I was promised, and was disapointed with the graphics. All that never stopped me from many hours of enjoyment. It was obvious from the start that VS didn't have mega-buck backers. Ya gotta take it for what it was. An air racing simulation that's as closer to the real Reno than any other game. EA's NASCAR series has much better graphics, but it's still NASCAR!

Race 29

Two Nine.. actually the graphics *were* pretty good but, it was optimized for the old Voodoo chip cards. I guess later versions had optimization for whatever we're using now (Nvida?) but with the Voodoo 5500 that I had, with the AA set to high, the graphics were absolutely amazing.

Not that detailed mind you, but then, if you've been around Nevada long enough, you know that it's not too detailed there either

One thing that really got me, when Pat and I visited Lyle right after it released, or actually, just before it released, we brought him a copy.. He (Lyle) is an AVID flight simmer (believe it or not) and when we loaded it up on his computer, first thing he said was "that looks about like my panel" then... as he flew the course, he commented about pylon four "ahh, you guys have the pylon in the wrong place, it's further up the hill..." I reminded him that they had moved it down into the valley since he'd last flown it and he just smiled..

It was that accurate, as to the layout at least.. He talked his way around the course just like he was on it.. They really did nail the course down tight... it wasn't perfect but it was a HUGE leap from anything before it and, unfortunately, will probably be about as good as we ever get...

Wayne

[Daiwa]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

About the graphic quality - it actually got pretty good by version 1.031. Orders of magnitude better than 1.02. And with the in-game quality setting on high, it's quite good on a current nVidia or ATI card with at least 64MB VRAM. Admittedly, it's not high-res detail and the scene transitions are not as smooth as you might like, especially on some of the over-water tracks (things kind of pop into view, rather than materialize), but then you're supposed to be whippin by everything at 300mph+ anyway, which would normally blur things a bit, not to mention Voodoo's oil all over your canopy from the first-lap jockeying.

Cheers,

Daiwa

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

LOL.. I had a dinasour Voodoo card, and that was the format that it was originally written for. Unfortunately, Voodoo had gone out of business and the technology of their chip was buried by Nivida after they bought them out, so, the video stuff had to be rewritten.. It was WONDERFUL for those of us running the old Voodoo cards at the time. I remember seeing screenies taken elsewhere and I could not imagine why it looked so bad, with the Voodoo, I'd never seen such good airplane graphics.. I had one beef, and it's always seemed to be this way with the sims I've flown, the ground rush was pretty nonexistant.. Now if you moved your view waay back in the cockpit, it got pretty reasonable but in normal view, the ground did not move fast enough..

*sigh* wish they could have kept at it!

Wayne

[Daiwa]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

I have no technical basis for making any judgements, and I never saw any games run on a Voodoo card (the Voodoo I was referring to in my post, of course, was Race 55), but I've read many times what a great gaming card it was, and still is for many devoted enthusiasts, a few of whom continue to develop drivers for it. I get the feeling it was the Betamax to nVidia & ATI's VHS - much better quality & speed, much less in the way of backing & user base. I've seen lots of comments about what a shame it was nVidia didn't embrace it rather than buy it just to kill a competitor. There may be technical reasons why that sentiment is way off base, for all I know, but makes for a good story. Won't be too long until they vanish, though, as people steadily migrate to newer, incompatible hardware. C'est la computer vie.

Cheers,

Daiwa

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Yep, I had to get rid of mine when I built a new puter, it was not compatible with the new MB... so, g'by... I did get a very good graphic card (better be, cost me enough!) I got the ATI all in wonder 9800 pro.. I wanted something that, if I ever find the time, would allow me to transfer my old Reno Hi8 video tapes onto disk.. I've got some neat old stuff.. Have not watched much of it in years, most of it, never.. just shot it and put it away.

I actually got tired of viewing the races from behind a camera.. hummn.. seems I still do that most of the time

I'm sure the one I have now would make a great gaming vid card.. Would that I ever have time to use it for such! I'm also stuck now with no gaming port and a considerable investment in a HOTAS throttle, stick and pedals setup that will not work with current stuff.. (no drivers being made anymore)... not gonna go that route again. Sucks that companys can just abandon legacy hardware that cost an arm and a leg!

Wayne

[Daiwa]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Wayne -

FWIW, a Logitech Wingman Extreme 3D USB stick works very well for XAR and is pretty darn cheap. I'd love to have a full-on set of controls, too, since it would create a more realistic experience & be more fun (I have a helluva time avoiding applying rudder with the stick), but I've been leery of the same potential problem - nice hardware from a defunct company. I also seem to remember a bunch of posts about problems getting anything more complicated than a joystick to work with XAR, anyway.

Cheers & Happy Flying,

Daiwa

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Xtreme Air racing availability

Wayne -

FWIW, a Logitech Wingman Extreme 3D USB stick works very well for XAR and is pretty darn cheap. I'd love to have a full-on set of controls, too, since it would create a more realistic experience & be more fun (I have a helluva time avoiding applying rudder with the stick), but I've been leery of the same potential problem - nice hardware from a defunct company. I also seem to remember a bunch of posts about problems getting anything more complicated than a joystick to work with XAR, anyway.

Cheers & Happy Flying,

Daiwa

I think I actually was able to get my CH stuff working with XAR, pedals worked and throttle worked, what the problem was the keyboard programing with the buttons. It would crash the computer ever time. Never did figure it out, CH just told me to buy a new throttle.. yea.. right.. In my "air combat" days with sims, it was cool having almost everything at your fingertips. I spent WAY too much time at that venture! It was fun tho.. I'm not sure that a PCI gamecard would not allow me to plug in all that stuff again with limited functionality. Time will not allow it tho!

Wayne