World Sports Cars Q&A

It's been two years since Sierra released Grand Prix Legends, and hard-core racing simulation fans might argue that there hasn't been a driving game of that caliber since. Aside from having superior graphics for its time, Grand Prix Legends received critical acclaim because of the developers' unerring commitment to providing the highest level of realism in a PC driving game ever, and ultimately, the game earned numerous awards including GameSpot's Driving Game of the Year for 1998. It's Grand Prix Legends that inspired World Sports Cars, which looks primed to be the next benchmark for driving simulations. The game is being developed by UK-based West Racing, headed by brothers Chris and Tony West.

World Sports Cars was publicly unveiled at this year's E3 in Los Angeles, and despite having to compete for people's attention against high-profile games such as Black & White and Metal Gear Solid 2, the game still managed to impress crowds with its visually stunning cars and tracks. We'd heard little from West Racing since E3, so we decided to speak with the West brothers to find out a little bit more about them, and to talk about the progress of World Sports Cars.

GameSpot: What's your experience with auto racing?

West Racing: We haven't had a great deal to do with racing in the past, but we have raced go-karts and have attended numerous track days with fast cars. We have also been involved with TVR Tuscans, but our love of racing and all-things cars comes from childhood. Cars and racing have been a love of ours for more years than I can remember now.

GS: What, in your opinion, has been the most realistic racing game on any platform to date?

WR: Well that's an easy one: It has to be Grand Prix Legends. Mind you, I haven't driven the real cars [depicted in the game], but you can feel the cars' handling so well... no other game has evoked that sense of realism.

GS: What about Sega's F355 Challenge or EA's Sports Car GT? What are your thoughts on these games?

WR: Sports Car GT is a very underrated game in our opinion. It doesn't look stunning, but the cars do behave in a very believable manner, especially with the patches currently available. The other great thing about this simulator is the number of new cars and tracks now available - we really hope to steal a little of that support for World Sports Cars when it's done. F355 Challenge is a great game as well. I admit to having a bit of insight into this one, as we used to own some [Ferrari] 348s and have been to many F355 Challenge races as guests of Ferrari. This game really captures the feel of those cars.

GS: What do you hope World Sports Cars will achieve that other racing games have failed to accomplish as well in the past?

WR: With World Sports Cars we are aiming for realism - we are trying to give the player the real feeling of driving these cars. So to this end, the cars are fully modeled, both graphically and physically. [Players] can look around the car and open doors, boots, etc. Most racing games offer a wide range of cars, but oftentimes you don't really feel any difference between the individual cars. Physics considerations, like the mass distribution of each car, are also being modeled. Very few games so far have achieved this - only really Grand Prix Legends - and it's no coincidence that Grand Prix Legends also has great physics.

GS: How many cars will the game have? We've seen pictures of a Mercedes, a Lister Storm, a Panoz, and a Lotus. Any others?

WR: Currently we have a dozen car shapes, each with numerous paint jobs, and quite a few more planned. It all comes down to licenses in the end, but any cars that don't get released with the game will be available soon thereafter. We do have a range of cars planned, though, from classics to current cars. We'll be finalizing the complete list shortly.

GS: Is World Sports Cars based on the 2000 SCGT season?

WR: Again it comes down to licensing - we'll be able to reveal more once the legal details are finalized.

GS: How many tracks will the game have? Which are they?

WR: At the moment, we plan on having eight tracks, but we do have more being worked on. But yet again, the dreaded licensing is controlling the decisions at the moment.

GS: These screenshots of World Sports Cars look truly incredible. What kind of system were they taken on, and what kind of frame rate was the game achieving at the time?

WR: Most of these screenshots are from a Pentium II 450MHz with a Voodoo3 2000. The full-scene anti-aliased shots were taken on the same system, but with a Voodoo5 5500. The game runs at about 45 frames per second on that system, but no real optimizing has been done yet, so there's room for improvement.

GS: Does the 3D engine support any form of level-of-detail(LOD) algorithm or other performance-scaling techniques?

WR: Oh yes, every object can have eight levels of LOD with two levels of superdetail, and every polygon on the tracks has a priority level, so the track can be scaled either by the user or dynamically to keep the frame rates up. We made an early decision to add a lot of detail to the game, as we wanted to support it for quite a while to come. And we wanted it to still look good, but we have also put a lot of effort into making it scalable for current machines as well.

GS: So what are your target minimum system requirements?

WR: Well, currently for racing it is looking like a Pentium II 300MHz with 64MB of RAM and a 3D card, but we do have some plans for accommodating slower hardware.

GS: How many polygons make up each car?

WR: The models can currently be up to 6000 polys for everything on a car, including the engine, wheels, brakes, interior, driver, etc. But our rendering system dictates that anything that can't be seen isn't processed, so the poly count won't be that high.

GS: External shots of the cars look great. But what do the cockpits look like? And what about the tracks and their surrounding environments?

WR: There have been some shots of the cockpits floating around [the Internet] - they are fully 3D virtual cockpits, again, with everything modeled; switches move, pedals work, etc. Tony has done a great job on those. As for the tracks, Tony has modeled access roads, areas behind the pits, and so on, so if you want to drive around the infield, you will be able to - if you can find a way in, that is.

GS: What kind of performance upgrades will be available for players?

WR: The main game won't have many performance upgrades, so to speak, as that's not really in the nature of this kind of racing, but we have had some suggestions from the forums that this is something players would like to see, so we think that upgrades may find their way into some future add-on.

GS: And what kind of weather effects will the game have?

WR: We are implementing wind and rain, though we've redone the rain after seeing the excellent weather effects in Grand Prix 3. Wind is localized though, so you could have some nasty crosswinds.

GS: Accurate racing sims typically make use of three types of physics: tire contact, aerodynamics, and collision detection. Could you talk a little a bit about what role these and other physics play in World Sports Cars?

WR: Everything in World Sports Cars is modeled physically accurate... nothing is fudged. So the suspension links are modeled to get the change in camber of the tire as the suspension moves through its range. Each tire has over 100 variables that dictate its performance under load, pressure, and temperature, and the tire model is based on the latest SAE papers and theories. The aerodynamics make use of NACA data for lift and drag coefficients for the foils, and we have multiple lifting services for each car, not just one value for lift and drag.

GS: What about damage modeling? Since you're using licensed vehicles, will you show visible damage on the cars?

WR: The cars are panel-based, so we can damage a lot of parts of the cars, and you can lose bits easily.

GS: A lot of racing games tend to neglect to realistically simulate car engines. How realistic will the engines in World Sports Cars be? Can you blow a rod or crack a piston head if you punish your car for an extended period of time?

WR: Every part of the car has a wear value, so anything can fail. We have a ton of different things that can go wrong with the cars and what effects specific breakdowns have on performance. Some of the things that can go wrong will include brake failure, steering problems, cracked suspension, engine blowouts, and other types of breakdowns.

GS: How does interaction between the player and the pit crew work?

WR: We're still working on this aspect, as it needs a bit more design work.

GS: Will the pit crew be fully 3D modeled?

WR: Yes, we want a proper pit crew. It would ruin the image to have sprites or something like that.

GS: What about sound? Is each of the car's engine, skidding, and tranny noises sampled from the real thing?

WR: We are using an amazing sound system called Staccato, which takes a base sample of an engine noise and dynamically creates the engine sound from over 100 parameters. It adds amazing depth and subtlety to the engine sound, and we can build in mechanical noises as well... it really does sound great. We will be using real samples as much as we can, but it's a bit tough for some of these cars. We do have a group of people helping us out with such details, all of whom are as mad about cars and racing as we are.

GS: Is World Sports Cars limited strictly to track racing? Will players be able to take their cars on the road? What about including a test facility where players can test their car's roadholding, top speed, acceleration, slalom, and braking?

WR: We did plan on having test tracks at one point, and they may still find their way in somewhere. Otherwise we will do it as an add-on.

GS: What kind of multiplayer options will the game have?

WR: We will be supporting full online multiplayer. We have spent quite a while on VROC playing Grand Prix Legends to find out exactly what is needed and what people want, and that currently is our goal for multiplayer.

GS: Thanks, Chris.