Driving games basically challenge the player to challenge themselves. Beat your own best time whilst avoiding skilled AI rivals. It must be difficult to balance various levels of player ability when creating a racing sim so that it's fun and fair for the gamer regardless of their skill level, I mean in reality a computer controlled car should beat any human player every time. Wait a minute... It's true that on a level playing field a computer should beat a human - reaction time would be one hundred percent and the perfect racing line nailed at every turn. So coders should apply manufacturered foibles, quirks and margins of error to keep the game challenging but not so good that the human player has no chance. Do they do that? No, they allow you to get ahead in the race then simply strap a virtual rubber band tethered to both your car and the cars behind you. If you have moments of brilliance or manage to sideswipe the computer opponent off the road the band stretches to a point then flings the AI car right behind you. Many, many racing games do this and it's infuriatingly annoying and totally unrealistic. I've pit-maneuvered a computer controlled car off the road just before the end of a race only to have it pass me one second later to win - like it was catapulted past me. And it's not just racing sims who do this. Both Watch Dogs and the GTA franchise is guilty as I'm sure many other free roam/driving combo games are. There are videos on YouTube of Watch Dogs' cars blatantly doing it. Have you ever played a mission in GTA where you know for a fact it's impossible to catch the car that you're chasing until you reach a certain location? The rubber band in that case is acting in reverse almost like two magnets of the same polarity near each other. I've slowed down in those instances and guess what... the computer car slows down too! Utterly ridiculous and makes a mockery of the idea that part of the game is interactive. You're effectively controlling the playback speed of a cut scene, not driving a car in a dramatic chase sequence. Rubber banding is a shoddy short cut and developers should realize that players can see it when it's used as we're not nearly as stupid as the lazy code that causes it.
A Welsh semi-retired television producer and actor known for low end work that astonishingly people actually watched and even garnered some awards. Originally residing in the electrically-challenged Amish areas of Pennsylvania he has written a few books (Hollywood Pants and Hollywood Horrible Hints and Terribly Fake Tips vols 1 & 2) which you can buy on amazon and all great book stores.
After a brief stint in Australia he now finds himself back in the Welsh valleys of his home country noting that it hasn't changed a bit!
