In yet another instance of the games industry's loss of teeth, racers have picked up the nasty habit of playing for us in recent years. Where PlayStation 2/Xbox-era installments once threw players to the wolves, modern entries hold hands at best and outright penalize at worst. If you're lucky, the option to auto-brake on turns will, in fact, be an option; otherwise you'll simply be smacked on the hand. There are very few cases where it is acceptable for games to tell players they're playing incorrectly, if only because them of that rewarding sense of self-learning. In racing in particular, being forced to brake a corner or take a certain road is a crippling, annoying obstruction because other options are readily available. Those options may very well end with us getting another good taste of the airbag, but we're still going to try and take that turn at 60. We've got lap times to beat, you know, and don't have time for pussyfooting.
A freelance games writer, you say? Typically battling his current RPG addiction and ceaseless perfectionism? A fan of horror but too big a sissy to play for more than a couple of hours? Spends far too much time on JRPGs and gets way too angry with card games?
Well that doesn't sound anything like me.
