One night before the carnival day of the "Eldon Ring" on February 25, I first experienced the "Super Touring Car Racing Legend" (GRID) produced by .

"Super Touring Car Legend", which has been unlocked on the evening of the 24th (in fact, EA premium members can play it 3 days earlier) may not be a particularly familiar name to many players, but it is a racing game A well-known brand in China – this is a classic racing game series with a history of more than 20 years since the first game was released in 1998.

The transformation of a hardcore racing series

For most of us, the more familiar name might be Need for Speed ​​or Forza Horizon. Racing games can be roughly divided into realistic racing (car sim) and entertainment-oriented racing ( ). For example, "Need for Speed" is an entertainment-oriented racing ( "Mali") game where you can press the accelerator to the bottom and rely on the handbrake to turn. "Olympic Racing" and "Kart Racing" can also be classified into this category).

If "Need for Speed" can be described as the "Dynasty Warriors" among racing games, then there is also a type of "racing dark souls" style games, such as "Ridge Racing", "Astana Corsa" and "Dust", "F1" ", "Super Touring Car Racing" – the last three names in this string are all racing game IPs belonging to the company, so "high fidelity" was originally the biggest advantage.

However, probably under the current trend of "pan-entertainment", professional simulation games certainly still have their own market and a very loyal core audience, such as the "Farming Simulator" series and the "ARMA" series, but if they want to occupy the core " "Race" has become the leader in the market category. "Popularization" seems to be an inevitable path – originally, car sim (car sim) and entertainment racing (car sim) basically belong to the "big road leads to the sky, each side goes to one side" state.

But "Forza Horizon 4" started, the "hybrid gameplay" that combines the control difficulty of professional racing games with the low threshold of entertainment racing games began to be a great success – "Forza Horizon 4" Sales exceeded 2 million copies in the first week, and the number of players of "Forza Horizon 5" exceeded 10 million within 10 days!

Among the three major categories nicknamed "Gun Car Ball", "car" themed games were originally relatively weak in terms of sales and revenue-absorbing ability, so the incredible results of "Forza Horizon" obviously also made old rivals We have begun to consider our own "transformation path", and this is no exception – except that F1 continues to be a hard-core New Year product because of the support of real games.

Both "Dirt" and "Grand Touring Series" are beginning to transform to the masses. For example, "Dirt 5" provides two operating modes, and "Grand Touring Car Racing: Legend" provides as many as 5 difficulty levels. According to me In terms of experience, if you choose the normal difficulty, the vehicle control is even easier than "Need for Speed".

What remains: racing in between watching long-running TV series

The original features of the "Super Touring Cars" series include: 1:1 racing models built entirely according to the structure of real-world racing cars, the most realistic physical effects (especially the real damage effects of vehicles), and a long "racing driver story series" "——In "Super Touring Car Race 1", the player plays the role of a 27-year-old test driver named Rayn. His father and brother are both well-known racing drivers. Carrying the pressure of success from his father and brother as well as his own expectations, the player must lead Rennes from the most basic driver to participate in local events, step by step towards international competitions, and finally become a world champion.

In "Super Touring Car Racing: Legend", this tradition has been continued – you are a super rookie code-named "No. 22", under the leadership of Seneca team principal Marcus Addo and engineer Ayersinger. Lead the next step to become a legend (36 plots with competitions).

A very interesting setting in the legend is "teammates". In many games, you need to fight side by side with your teammates. At the beginning of the plot, your team already has a Japanese ace driver "Yu Mei", and you are responsible for it. As her wingman (although he is considered an ace in the setting, he is very good at it, and he can win the first place on his own in the first appearance together), he slowly learns and even surpasses her.

The plot content will still have a certain appeal to friends who have not been exposed to this series or the stories behind professional racing drivers (similar to 2K's MC mode), but for old players of the series, it may not be that fresh. Youya's very ZZZQ outfit makes people hard to get hard… I mean fighting spirit.

Failed and successful parts of “popularization” efforts

"Super Touring Legends" is not a completely unprogressive copy of the old game, but the focus of its efforts is obviously to attract more light players into its circle. Before I criticize Supercar Legends, I need to acknowledge the hard work and some of the fun parts.

After "Dirt 5" largely abandoned hardcore players in order to appeal to a wider audience, "GT: Legend" also put a lot of effort into following the same example – enhancing the fun of the racing process, so we You can see many familiar settings in it, such as the reversing setting of "Repentance" (I was reminded downstairs that it is the first generation of Horizon Science's gird). What is worthy of praise is that there are many times of "Repentance" in "Super Touring Car Racing: Legend" , so that players don’t have to pay a heavy price for a small mistake, and it can also maintain the tension in the game (after all, it’s hard to be nervous if you can regret infinite moves like Horizon).

In addition, there is also some unique fun in "renovating the streets", such as the trucks on the road dividing the track into an "obstacle race" feeling.

When players perform any operation in the game, they will also have the pleasure of "eating melon seeds" similar to the "scoring" in Horizon. What is more distinctive is that if you hit other cars, they will be set as "rivals" (but it also feels different). (When old enemies will specifically target you), this is easy to learn, because Horizon can improve vehicle skills, but "Super Touring Car Racing: Legend" does not improve vehicle skills!

This extra score probably reflects the amount of bonus at the end of the game, but there is no obvious prompt to tell players this. All in all, it is not a successful design.