For anyone who disagrees with the poor review...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPbarUpKzms
Simracingtonight also gave it a scathing review. Slightly mad studios just can't produce realistic driving at all.
Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends Review
Game Emblems
The Bad
A terrible campaign structure and other problems make Ferrari Racing Legends an exercise in frustration.
The Good
- Great collection of cars from throughout Ferrari's history
- Racing these cars can be exciting at times.
The Bad
- Many campaign events are maddeningly difficult
- Unlocking content is an often infuriating struggle
- Absence of rewind option results in frustrating restarts.
Few automotive manufacturers have a legacy that's as bold and exciting as that of Ferrari. Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends has the advantage of being able to draw on that rich and thrilling history. It includes 51 cars from Ferrari's past and present, from the 1947 125 S to the 2011 150° Italia. These are incredible machines; the 1967 330 P4, the '84 Testarossa, the 2005 FXX--the sleek lines and sharp contours of these cars can quicken the pulse of most any red-blooded automotive enthusiast. Unfortunately, despite having such an exciting stable of vehicles to celebrate, Ferrari Racing Legends flounders, with a poorly designed campaign that's structured in such a way that even the privilege of driving some of the most coveted cars ever produced becomes a chore.
Why does the campaign matter so much? Because the overwhelming majority of content--most cars and tracks--are locked at the start and can be unlocked only by playing through the campaign. The campaign is divided into three eras--golden, silver, and modern--and each era includes anywhere from 53 events to over 100 for you to complete.
The problem is that each era is structured as a linear series of events; until you complete one event, you can't do the next. Additionally, many of the events are extremely difficult. The result is that you might find yourself stuck attempting the same event over and over again, not because you get any enjoyment out of attempting the same feat in the same car on the same track umpteen times, but because you want access to the content you'd unlock for completing it, as well as the opportunity to play later events in the campaign.
If you come across an event that you just can't win, you're out of luck. There's no way to skip an event and move on to later ones in the same era. All the cars and tracks that can be unlocked only by completing subsequent events in that era will remain locked to you, forever. Of course, it's nice to be rewarded for success, and the lure of unlockable content is an effective incentive to meet certain goals in any number of games. But Ferrari Racing Legends' inflexible, uncompromising campaign isn't a source of enticing rewards so much as it is a source of demoralizing punishment. Unless you have incredible patience and determination, you won't be willing to jump through the infuriating hoops this game requires you to, and most of the content will remain inaccessible.
That's a shame, because when you're not running up against these frustrating constraints, driving these cars can be a pleasure. Ferrari Racing Legends isn't one of the most visually impressive racing games on the market, but the beauty inherent in Ferrari's designs makes the cars attractive, and many of the track locations are picturesque. Of course, one Ferrari can handle very differently from another--a 1948 166 Inter that tops out at 125 miles per hour feels quite different from a 1995 F50 that can hit 202mph--but they're all extremely quick and responsive.
By
Carolyn Petit, Editor
Carolyn Petit has been reading GameSpot since 2000 and writing for it since 2008. She has a particular fondness for games of the 1980s, and intends to leave the field of games journalism as soon as she hears that her local Ghostbusters franchise is hiring.
34 comments
1 Like So, wait... It's challenging, unlocking stuff is a process.. and there's no carebear rewind?
Those honestly seem like features that cannot justifiably be used to reduce a game's score.
"absence of rewind feature..."
Silly rabbit, were you expecting this to be like forza 3-4?
I'm not a huge racing fan, but it's an alright game. I feel like being able to skip to which challenge you want within an Era would be nice, as for rewind; I feel like it should have a limited use in any racing game simply because losing a difficult challenge within 100 yards of the finish line is highly annoying. (By "limited", I mean once, maybe twice depending on difficulty.)
1 Like Rewinds complaint ? Really ? The game being hard to drive ??? You really need to go on a track day to see how REAL sports car behave. Also, a friendly advice, dont try looking for the rewind feature while in the car.
Can you actually drive Test Drive FRL with a controller or is that going to be impossible and rage quit inducing?
1 Like Completely agree with you.
It's not because Codemasters started to add flashbacks in their games than we should see that in every racing games ! If you're a newbie just play in easy mode.
I almost never use rewind in Forza 4 but like having the safety net I guess but wouldn't see that as a deal breaker. Unfortunately I can't get the game here in the UK as yet so it will be a while before I can comment on the difficulty. Disappointing review but it is only one person's opinion!
5 Like WOW no rewind is a negative ? I think you need to put that as a positive... if you mess up you mess up and pay for it.. simple.. and omg the game is hard... what are thigns coming to...
4 Like I understand it's a crap game, but seriously? No rewind was actually a deficiency against the game? Don't let this reviewer play any FPS that doesn't have regenerating health, or god forbid, it'll get a 3.0 :P
@DethSkematik Haha even with health regen 6.5: http://www.gamespot.com/blacklight-retribution/reviews/blacklight-retribution-review-6370993/
don't use flashbacks, i play gt5 and grid and gt5 is better in the fact that you have to be good at racing games to be good at it, with grid and dirt 3 you can rewind 5 times in a race which takes the challenge out of racing around the track trying to hit every apex perfectly, with grid you don't have to be good to win, with gt5 you do but for me gt5 isn't hard, maybe its because i'm awesome, or maybe its because it is actually easy, actually no, its because i'm awesome. if i get this game (which i probably wont) then i can judge whether its easy, but looking at that video, the reason its so hard is because your crap :|
@Voice_of_Wisdom No, i haven't even played forza 4 and i know its better than this, more cars, more tracks, customization, need i say more? yes, better graphics and forza 3 was amazing in terms of physics and damage then forza will be even better
3 Like wow , Carolyn Petit , really ?
What a horrible review , you must be taking classes with Kevin....
So, basically you want a game that is EASY to play , EASY to unlock things and still want to rewind.... gosh, really ?
Apparently you want a game that play itself ?
I can't imagine Carolyn Petit playing Dark Souls for instance , lol.
4 Like @suplax Ha! I love Dark Souls. And I love a good challenge. Poorly designed, incredibly difficult challenges that you have to try over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to unlock one piece of content and the right to try the next grueling challenge that you will then have to try numerous times is not a satisfying, well-designed challenge. It's just punishing. Plenty of simulation racers benefit from the presence of a rewind option--it's an OPTION, not something you're ever forced to use--and when you're nearing the end of a really difficult and rather long challenge that you've already attempted numerous times and then an AI driver nudges you off the track and costs you that shot at a successful performance as well as the past several minutes of work, the absence of a rewind option starts to seem unfortunate.
1 Like @carolynmichelle I'm genuinely interested, are you a fan of racing sims in general? It's not that I don't see the use of having a perspective from someone looking from the outside-in on this kind of game, but I feel like GT5 also received a lot of negative reviews with one of the big complaints being difficulty. The hand-holding nature of a game doesn't really matter as much for this kind of game because it's not going to get a lot of people interested in a genre, so they instead focus their limited resources on the actual game and making it fun for their pre-existing audience.
Complaining about things like the lack of a rewind feature makes me feel like you're probably not really a fan of the genre, but it has a big impact on perspective for the quality of the game. Is the game infuriatingly difficult because because of bad or broken game design in some fashion, or is it just that it's made for that hardcore simulation crowd who want to have a race lost for even a moderate screw up? It's just that perception of difficulty in this kind of case can really affect the validity of a recommendation for or against a game depending on who the audience is.
2 Like "Absence of rewind option results in frustrating restarts." Because GOD FORBID there be any consequences for messing up too much in a race.
@jinzo9988 Ferrari Challenge was good. Not easy but with nice cars and the graphics were correct.
4 Like @ferrarimanf355 Fair enough. We're digging pretty far back into history though, that's a 12 year old game. I think even movie licensed games have a better 'hit rate' than these kinds of games do.
Soul-crushingly frustrating game... I had such high hopes and faith in Slightly Mad Studios. Now I just want my money back.
1 Like It just proves the devs didn't care about this project considering its the same guys who made Need for Speed Shift. Slightly Mad Studios. Also dev credit is given to the wrong studio where it says Evolved Games.
Seems about right. Looks to be some of the most mediocre gaming I've seen in some time...
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Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends
Not Following
- Publisher(s): Evolved Games
- Developer(s): Atari
- Genre: Driving
- Release:
- ESRB: E
Test Drive: Ferrari Navigation
