#shitbox mode

[mynonsenseistingling]

Mizutani Hozuki "Hoseki"

[seat-safety-switch]

"Get in the fucking car, loser. My name is Detective Tina Clownhater, I came from Upper Precinct, and we're going to the fucking circus. One of the clowns was found dead in among about 72 others stuffed into a tiny car, and we think it's Japanese."

"The car?"

"The clown."

I'd heard of Detective Clownhater before. Read some of her reports when they came around the inter-office mail. Circus division. She also did carnivals, which people think is the same thing, but really it isn't. As we rode in silence to the Carny District, I decided I wasn't going to like her. Mostly, it was because she still clung to an outmoded, indulgent, and inefficient mode of transportation known as the 2003 detective-issue Crown Victoria. My own City II Turbo would have been a much more enjoyable ride, but I didn't want to press the issue. Chief was already getting on my case about racking up the mileage per diem anyway.

Maybe I should introduce myself, too. My name is Archibald Shitpope, and I'm a detective for the city police. Every detective here specializes in something – they figured it was more efficient than having us all fight over the same books in detective school – and for me, my passion carried me to Japanese-made economy cars. You'd be surprised how often they crop up in my cases. This was going to be a bit outside of my remit, being a Japanese-made economy clown, but I'm a professional. I'd do the job.

I regretted that promise as soon as we stepped onto the crime scene. Besides the copious amount of blood and viscera thrown about the scene ("explosive decompression," explained Todd the CSI, in between Instagram updates of the most grotesque parts,) the clowns had been stuffed into a Fiat. An Italian-made shitbox. It's amazing they weren't burned alive. From what we could tell from interviews, the clown used to be Takenobu Unchipiero, a famous clown actor in his home country. Top of the industry, I was assured. After a series of gambling scandals, he was forced to retreat to North America, where our standards for clowns are much lower.

I was about to ask Detective Clownhater to buy some business-class tickets to Tokyo so we could "chase up some leads" – I wanted to buy an S660 while the auction market was still soft – but the amount of boiling rage behind her eyes indicated to me that she had already assumed I was going to do that. Instead, I returned to my work of checking the crime scene and interviewing witnesses, only intermittently pausing to take a look at the latest wheels posted to Up Garage's terrible website.

That's when Todd cracked it for us. While mopping up what was left of poor Takenobu, an artificial heart fell out. I couldn't help but notice its unique design: a triangular pump that spun eccentrically in a housing. A rotary engine, in other words. No normal person would have such a heart. Mr. Unchipiero was up to his neck in debt with the Wankel Mafia.

[bonebrokebuddy]

MY MOUNTAIN BIKE GOT STOLEN

FUCK

Hey uhhh if anyone wants to help let me have a bike again, feel free to kofi my twin bc I don’t have one. now when our shitbox breaks down I have zero alternative mode of transportation so any support would be appreciated

[rekofan101]

idk if i asked this before cause i was thinking of asking it and im not sure if i ever sent it BUT whats your hc for reko driving. i know a lot of people hc her as riding and owning a motorcycle but me personally i think she drives a crossover. semi small but big enough to carry band equipment. sure shes more popular and famous now but i imagine when she was starting out how else would she get her equipment to their sets???

DAY 355: i've had discussions about this irl (of course i have)

people headcanon her to drive a motorcycle mainly because it just looks cool. its the classic punk mode of transportation. no diss to that headcanon, i quite like it as well, but i feel reko is more into Practicality rather than Aesthetic. at least, when it comes to things she will actually use everyday. fashion is a different story, of course.

so, practically, a motorcycle wouldn't really cut it. also, i feel like she'd be a chronic road rager and borderline horrible driver, so a motorcycle isn't the safest option either!

i've always headcanoned her to be the type who is determined to keep anything she has working for as long as she can-- she often diys clothes and fixes her own equipment rather than buying new things (maybe i think this way because all of her articles of clothing look a bit raggedy and diy... + she is punk!). i think this would extend to her car as well, which means she probably owns this horrible shitbox she is constantly working on or beating the shit out of for being faulty. but she's had it since high-school, and it still drives straight, so she doesn't mind having a project... she's much too stubborn to get rid of it at this point.

as to what car? i don't know a lot about cars, i'll be honest. but i think she would like an older-looking model (this is about the only time an aesthetic would come in...) and they would've been easier to afford in her younger years. it needs to be a bit roomy though, so no shitty trunk that can't carry an amp or something. with this in mind, i've settled on her owning a shitty volvo 960 (1990-1997, haven't deduced a year of model). either black or silver. she probably decks out the inside but leaves the outside plain.

hope this suffices!

[video-game-guitars]

alright so i’m gonna try not to post about Guitar Hero/Rock Band controllers too often because those are super easy to make fun of, but i HAVE to mention powergig

the powergig guitar is a weird hybrid between a regular guitar and a rhythm game controller, meant to like blur the lines? it was released with a game of the same name marketed mainly by destroying thousands of Guitar Hero controllers

no this isn’t a joke

the main gimmick was that when you wanted to go from poorly playing real guitar on an all plastic shitbox with a horrible fretboard, you’d be able to lock the strings with the bridge and switch it to controller mode, allowing you to play powergig AND other 5 fret games with this abomination

it’s no wonder the game flopped, and if you happen to find one of these beasts laying around you can’t even use it as a controller because an xbox 360 dashboard update broke the controller entirely. please watch this video on the topic if you’re curious, it’s just as bad as it looks.

[eggmixercortex]

omg I reblogged that without knowing it was an ask game!! here >:) pick three questions that interest you the most of the oc of your choice!!

whoops sorry for startling you :]

anyway i'm going to talk about my girl ORION because i've spoken about her here exactly One time and that is a crime and a tragedy both

(here is an old old doodle of her since i cant be fucked to make a new one)

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh?

Orion is one of those people who laughs as almost a form of punctuation, it's that frequent. she is, generally, a very outwardly positive person with a nearly permanent smile, and laughing just comes along with that. unfortunately for her, because she's 6 n a half feet tall and build like a brick wall on top of being a smuggler, this means most people think she's some sort of ruthless hunter type to be feared.

17. Are they easily embarrassed?

yes and no. Orion has trouble picking up on certain things in the moment - mostly people trying to talk around a subject instead of outright saying it - but she does notice later, and often gets extremely embarrassed after the fact. it's pretty upsetting to her when she feels like someone is unwilling to just say something they are thinking, particularly if she's the only one who doesn't pick up on it. on the other hand, if she DOES pick up on it, she feels no qualms ignoring or refuting whatever might be implied. she finds it easy to do "demeaning" things or put up with intentional embarrassment efforts but can't stand feeling like she missed a signal or failed a social test.

26. What is their preferred mode of transportation?

her beloved scrap-car Curbstomp (image below)! in Orion's world, advanced biomechanics mean that most cars and other locomotive machines have legs/arms/meat instead of wheels. Curbstomp is Orion's livelihood, pet project, and one true passion rolled into one - she's like a mix of a weird horse girl and a car guy. Curbstomp is modified to all hell and looks like the most nightmarish shitbox car you could imagine, but she actually runs incredibly well and would be a mechanical marvel if it weren't for the whole illegal delivery business.

(also an old image, i'm lazy)

I've actually had a lot of trouble deciding how much intelligence Curbstomp should have.... on the one hand having her just be a machine like a regular car is really funny, but having a more horse/rider relationship opens up more room for characterization and makes more sense given the biomechanics.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week Year 2022-12-26

Currently in the middle of goddamn nowhere next to a giant hole.

Listening: Tom Lehrer's A Christmas Carol, because Merry Chrysler.

Reading: Finished Africa Risen, some really good sticky stories in there.

Calling out a few favourites and notables:

A Dream of Electric Mothers by Wole Talabi, which really shows his engineering background. What if a nation built a computerized store for their ancestors that could be consulted for guidance.

A Knight in Tunisia by Alex Jennings, a story about coming back from war and trying to help others avoid it in the first place

The Soul Would Have No Rainbow by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, which mostly stands out because I also got a praying mantis tangled in my hair the night I read it.

Housewarming for a Lion Goddess by Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga, a goddess deals with her intimacy issues.

A Soul of Small Places by Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo, about the cost of getting revenge and doing it anyway.

Hanfo Driver by Ada Nnadi, what if your weird rich uncle got you to drive a shitbox taxi that was also a hovercraft. Sci-fi slice of life fluff.

The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library by Tobi Ogundiran, about being stalked by a library when you forget to return a book

There's more but I'm going to cut it there. As a compilation with some focus on the Diaspora there's a lot of African-American stories because the transatlantic slave trade was the second biggest thing to ever happen to Africa. Those stand out as both more foreign in some ways and more familiar in others, I don't necessarily understand the Nigerian slang as well as I get the more Carribbean linguistic influences but I feel much more familiar with a story about a Danfo which is close enough to a minibus tax rather than the ones that involves the particular strain of black evangelical Christianity.

It's fun to read into a very specific context you don't have, a lot of sff build their context as they run whereas themed short story collections often presuppose it.

On net the stories are pretty optimistic which I'm mixed on, i get it but I also like stories about the inevitability of being subsumed by something bigger than you and finding your way through that.

Watching: Nothing, on the road most of the week.

Playing: Also nothing.

Making: Disastrously failed at baking bread. Doing some landscape photography around the Karoo which is not my usual forte but it's fun to practice.

Tools and Equipment: Speaking of landscape photography, of all the disciplines it's perhaps the one where a smartphone most closely performs like a much, much fancier camera. You're already working down narrow apertures and long exposures for clean shots so it's not like you're really missing out on much. Just maybe get yourself a tripod mount for the phone and learn how the manual mode works.

[homosuckofficial]

Trickster Jake English from Homestuck

( @meranthi2768 request)

[forelsketparadise]

Yuki got in Q3 in Miami,Baku,France, while Pierre got in Bahrain, Saudi, Miami, Baku. One more than Yuki. It could have been more if he wasn't fucked up often. It literally has been more of a team thing than Pierre's . Only sliverstone and Austria can be said that he failed.

Saudi- had his car tapped

Australia- got impended by Yuki.

Imola- team didn't leave enough time for either of them to get another lap.

Spain - engine issues(smoke and everything)

Monaco- got impeded by Yuki and team didn't let him go first

Canada- his brakes broke during a pit stop.

Sliverstone - couldn't get temperature in tyres.

Austria- checo's lap time not getting deleted stopped him. He should have been P10 at the end of Q2.

France- wasn't given enough fuel for another run. He was improving.

Hungary - got timed deleted unfairly

Yuki outqualifed Pierre 5 times (Imola,Spain,Monaco,France,Hungary) Pierre qualified Yuki 8 times (Bahrain,Saudi, Australia, Miami,Baku, Canada, Sliverstone,Austria) even if we remove Saudi because Yuki didn't get a lap in and Canada because Yuki was taking penalty Pierre still out Qualified Yuki more.

And if we talk about Race, Pierre had 3 DNF (Bahrain, Miami, Sliverstone) Yuki has 1 DNS and 2 DNF (Saudi, Canada,France) in the remaining races then only in Imola and Spain Yuki finished ahead. Pierre finished ahead 5 times (Australia, Monaco, Baku, Austria, Hungary). Yuki got into points thrice (Bahrain, Imola and Spain) so did pierre (Saudi, Australia and Baku). Twice Yuki's points came because of retirements ahead of him. Only imola was not because of retirements. Pierre didn't required retirement to score points. Pierre is also ahead in championship. P13 to P16.

Pierre engine fried in Bahrain, he experienced extreme pain in both Saudi and Baku. Got hit by Zhou in sprint race got damaged. Imola main race stucked in a Drs train and was forced to drive in mode 1 by Hamelin. Alonso punted him in Miami destroying the car Also contact with Lando. Esteban did that in Spain and damaged the front wing and damaged floor. Team didn't recognise it was broken or replaced it for most race also had a contact with Lance. Monaco 6 and 12 second pit stops stopped him from getting points. Canada he had to be in management mode was asked to lift off in all laps. Sliverstone Yuki destroyed his car. Sprint in Austria broke left side of floor and front wing after contact with Lewis. He was forced to pit at lap 12 without consulting him. Upset he got into an incident. Was told multiple time to lift off for brakes cooling. Apart from his contact with Lance Lewis and seb none of it was Pierre's fault. He also had a permanent brake issue since Canada.While Yuki only had an issue in Baku with the rear.

If Yuki starts ahead of Pierre and ends up behind him all the time you can't say he is handling the shitbox better especially because Pierre's car has had issues after issues weekend after weekend.

Pierre was literally faster and ahead of him despite the car broken badly in Miami, Barcelona and Sliverstone. Even in Hungary he was 108 seconds behind Pierre. That's actually embarassing for Yuki.

[chickn-slingin]

Jimmy/Saul & Jesse parallels

Both have experience caring for a sick family member; jimmy with chuck and Jesse with his aunt ginny and Walt, to an extent. (Ill also mention his worry/fussing over mike in mexico)

Both of them have an older man in their life who looks down on them,but (despite themselves) they look up to and seek his approval; jimmy with chuck and jesse with Walt

Both have a natural inclination towards gentleness towards vulnerable people that comes out in certain scenarios; jimmy with old people and chuck, in the beginning ( dont talk to me about the mylar suit T-T) +saul w Brock that 1 time lol and Jesse with kids in general: peekaboo kid, brock, etc (guy looves kids)

Both have brothers they perceive as being/having been the 'golden child' or favourite. (And whether they know or not, their brother feels the reverse is true)

((like 17 points more under the cut))

Both have a love interest that they "lead down the wrong path"; jimmy with kim and Jesse with Jane

Both are Smarter than people around them estimate

Both have a friend whose death they feel at least somewhat responsible for; jimmy with Marco and Jesse with Combo

Both are impulsive and often talk too much when theyre nervous, and only sometimes manage to talk their way out of trouble; too much to type, think the green bean dinner, think tuco, think ski mask kidnapping, think telling gus no, ill elaborate if some1 asks haha

Both put in a lot of money/effort into keeping a friend out of jail; jimmy with Huell and Jesse with Badger

Both have a love interest they lie to "for their own good" ; Jimmy with Kim and Jesse with Andrea.

Both have modes of Dress that serve a purpose past taste; jimmy with his loud suits and tracksuits, Jesse with particularly anything he wears early on, S 1&2 esp.

Both have an inclination for illustration/design; jimmy with is suit doodles + his Wexler-Mcgill logos and Jesse with all his superheroes

Both look to Mike as a mentor/for advice at times

Both enjoy playing instruments(not ab skill) ; jimmy with his fender and Jesse with his drums for twaughthammer

Both at one point drive an expensive car that they ditch for necessity / + /Both drive a shitbox for most of the show

Both tend to shout a lot when Angry or Frustrated

Both start with a troubled past but quickly get involved with bigger, nastier shit than they ever intended.

Both react to a tragic/traumatic event by going 'off the rails' and acting recklessly in different ways; jimmy after marco, and Jesse after Gale

Both are skillfully manipulative and persuasive; jimmy in p much any episode and Jesse w the gas station girl as just 1 example

Both make it out "Alive"

BOTH HAVE FUCKING TRAGIC LIVES!!!

Feel free to add on, i love to suffer apparently

[decepticon-nerd]

It depends on what alt mode I end up getting. Am I a flier? Am I a grounder? Is my alt mode a two wheeler or a four wheeler? If I'm a four wheeler, am I a sports car, muscle car, or an off-road shitbox? Am I a beastformer, a predacon, a semi, or a locomotive? On top of that, do I have any unique abilities? Am I a triple changer?

If I had to pick my name quickly, I would probably say Enigma.

However, if I had time to mull it over and figure out what I am, I have a handful of answers:

Flier build:

Thunderbird

Airstrike

Jetlock

Two-wheeler:

Sprocket

Nightracer

Roadcycle

Sports/muscle build:

Sunraider

Gearshift

Snowdrift

Burn-out

Hot Head

Comet

Off-road build:

Wreckage

Backburner

Meteoroid

Beast build:

Tigaclaw

Eclipse

Wolfstrike

Locomotive build:

Smokestack

Railway

Derail

akin to that "which faction" poll post keferon made: you wake up in the world of transformers, you dont know which universe, what characters are in it, the factions, etc, just that youre a giant alien robot now. you have to pick a new name for yourself that sounds "natural" for a cybertronian what are you picking

[gr33nbull]

I wasn’t gonna watch this race after Kevin decided to be a pleb to Lewis but my god George has been so entertaining making dickhead cry and Lewis must be in beast mode because holy shit he’s stormed the pack in a shitbox!!! That’s my team baby 🖤

[pinfineder]

update:

I managed to somehow fuck shit up even worse when trying to fix it.

At one point my computer couldn't even get into the bios and the fans spun like everything was normal even though the computer didn't have any RAM or a hard drive. no error codes and the computer just went wrummmmmmm.

eventually with enough troubleshooting and wanking the cmos-battery I managed to get into bios and boot a recovery flash drive.

but nooooo the pain wasn't over my recovery stick kept whining about "not having media drivers" even when the computer didn't have anything but a cpu, ram, mobo and peripherals. bitch drivers for what? fucking aquaman?

time to get my mom to drive me to a supermarket at 9pm because our house didn't have a large enough usb drive for the official windows media creation tool.

next up the windows media creation tool on our family computer doesn't recognize the usb stick and after a ton of more troubleshooting I have to try if my dad's laptop could recognize the drive.

finally after formatting another spare ssd trough the windows recovery mode command line I could install windows on that ssd and start copying my files from my bricked windows drive onto an external hard drive at a blazing speed of 400KB/s

all of my 170GB (I'm a bit of a data hoarder) onto a slow external hard drive trough a micro-usb 3.0 connector on 8GBs of ram and an unreliable i5 processor

like i knew my computer was kind of a shitbox and i pride myself in that but holy fuck when things break on windows they are a pain in the ass to fix

I just fucked my windows drive while trying out arch :(

[alfieandtobias]

Pit-stop.

Alfie Price:

A week has gone by since the “Outbreak” whatever the fuck that means.

The army arrived hours after my last entry.

THEY know what's going on, they just won’t tell us what “it” is. 

I’ve taken refuge in my shitty hotel room.

The walls have yellowed of old age and the wall paper has begun to peel, there is a stale stench of cigarette embedded into the velvet shag carpet, I sleep on a rickety queen sized bed that is stiffer than a corpse. 

I gaze through my one window that faces downtown Las Vegas.

The sky is dark, I cannot separate plumes of smoke from the clouds.

Fires are still raging in the distance, it’s sad to think that there is no one there to answer “the call.”

I'm watching MY city fall to the ground from a dingy hotel room. My train of thought stops there. 

“I need a smoke” I say to myself  as I reach into my leather jacket to pull out my smokes.

I open my pack of Marlboro Reds to find two left.

I check my watch, it reads “10:30 a.m” “perfect” I think.

One for breakfast and one for desert.

I open my door, step outside my room and walk to a bench near the side of the hotel. I sit down and light my smoke. 

My train of thought resumes.

I’ve got to do what I can to save my city from despair. 

I can't bear the thought of people suffering over something they have no control over.I stand up from the bench, gather my things from my room and head into the city on foot.

On the 23rd, my car got stolen.

I wish the best for whoever stole that shitbox, they were probably better off on foot.

The air is cold and damp, the rancid smell of death is on the rise. I listen to the sound of my boots echo down a quiet road.

The smoke from the fires has overflown the city, I cannot see but 3-4 feet in front of me so I tread lightly being sure not to make too much noise for the unsuspecting.

The city is a lot quieter now. After the army arrived, the city went into riot mode but the army wasn't going to play that game. 

Lots of people died that day that didn't have to. 

Things change when a position of power begins to feel threatened.

Cars are everywhere, stopped dead in their tracks. Everyone tried leaving the city but not everyone made it out.

I glance into car windows as I pass by not really sure what to expect.

The majority of vehicles that I have passed were empty.

Stripped.

Its crazy what people will do to “survive” in a situation like this

Cars have been stripped down to their shell.

“What the fuck are they gonna do with what they took?”

I thought to myself.

I checked my watch it read “3:45.”

I’d been walking for a few hours now, i'm not too far from downtown.

I decided to make a pit stop for food at a CVS on the corner of Blue Diamond and Las Vegas blvd.

The lights were dim, there was an obvious attempt at trying to block off the entries and exits but by the pools of blood on the floor, “they” weren’t very successful. 

I squeeze my way through a dilapidated sheet of plywood that covered the main entrance.

The stench of rotting meat burned my nostrils.

I covered my mouth, careful not to gag or make any noise. 

I creep through the aisles of the CVS, my boots sticking to the floor from having stepped in blood on my way in. 

I find some granola bars on a shelf.

The price tag reads “3.15” “fuckin’ ridiculous” I thought.

 I make my way up to the counter to spot out some cigs.

With my luck, there was one pack of Red 100’s left.

I lean over the glass counter and it shatters under my weight.

I yell “Oh Fuck!”

I hear some shuffling in the back. 

I turn around to find myself staring at the barrel of a dirty old rifle.

[loseranthems]

How did you get into cars? I've always been curious because I visually love mechanical stuff but i dont know nuch about them.

what an awesome question! haha and it gives me a perfect situation to be verbose lol. so, uh, going back in ye olde life timeline, it definitely started when i was like… 5. lol. i grew up around a purebred 50′s idealist british uncle and my cousin, and every time we went over they both would be out front restoring this old clunker of a ‘65 beetle. my uncle also had this fixation on thunderbirds back then, so i think one of those was being worked on too. but anyway, yeah, it started with them. anyway prepare for an ESSAY after the cut haha

really, they’d spend all day out in the middle of every summer on their driveway dropping engines, scouring backend sites for parts, taking me to car shows in fields up in northern ontario. i’d always be in the background looking on with this immensely vested interest. like, “holy shit that looks amazing, can i do that?” so eventually, yeah, i got involved. everyone said it wasn’t something ‘little girls got into’ and told me i’d hate the dirtiness, the guy talk etc. but i think i was 7 and changing oil and tires and ruining all my shitty dresses and making my mom mad lmao so, ultimately, the love for it never left, really. even if the early stages were based around me making my mom mad LOLuh, god what else, i was introduced to watching F1 every time we went over, i’d sit doe-eyed at barrett-jackson every year, would salivate over old muscle mags left on bathroom floors. then eventually my cousin grew up and became a mechanic (i think hes at porsche now, that lucky SOB), did some work for toronto indy as a pit crew guy and told me everything, taught me socket sizes, let me help him organize his snap-on toolboxes etc. then ebay flew around and we all scoured that for days on end, huddled around their shitty small computer desk while my mom and my aunt just scowled lmao. i’d try and go to every car show, make it to every autoshow. so to be poetic, it just waved over me as something that burrowed into my bone marrow and never let go. it was a ‘boys club’ but i could always hold my own, and especially as a young girl it was a real fucking effort to fit in, but my passion for it kinda made everyone realize that it wasn’t just a phase. and shoutout to my dad for that, too, who always egged me on while going full boy-mode and doing whatever i wantedoh, and old top gear. (especially this segment on the vantage) not the pompous, explosions everywhere, family entertainment shit they have now, but seasons 3-12 kinda deal. they were some of the first people in mainstream media who made poetry out of vocalizing what cars are. how there’s this bone-deep connection to driving, this primal love for tinkering and working in a shed. but ultimately, it’s about going. exploring, being able to have this personal connection to this machine that can ultimately kill you, this 2-tonne thing that you could pull apart on your own as this humanizing way of making it better, more, faster, stronger. putting trust in something so intimately, and losing yourself to the experiences that driving gets you. don’t see it as something you get only groceries in. take the long way to the store, take the back road, start by changing your own oil and ignite that feeling of just going somewhere. essentially, they put out this, well, practically a love letter every wednesday to how driving felt. and that’s really what cars are. the largest inspiration for it all was my ex though, who god bless his soul, kinda ignited in me that whole passion of tinkering and doing it as a hobby that could turn into a career, etc etc. he became a mechanic, too, and that’s where a lot of our shared cars came from. but just imagine this passion for a couple of 17 year old kids who would get ass-blasted by insurance rates for anything smaller than a dodge caravan - so that’s where the love for old 80′s cars came in. especially anything group B. the whole thing behind them was that they were cheap to insure (surprisingly LOL) and that was like this a-ha moment of pivoting this niche near-brutalist aesthetic of 80′s iconoclasm and subpar safety and using that as the jump-off point from childhood car-poster-on-the-wall to ‘hey holy shit i can buy this myself’. i’d download old pdfs of rx7 manuals to help him change wiring harnesses and we both sat up for days on end learning how to drop the engine of the MR2, researching how to change the lights of our celica supra, burning oil on the highway in our bugeye. a lot of it was passion turned academic, having this need to learn more about it, watering the seedling of a spark that started in childhood, entering a veritable boys club and holding my own, etc etc. and just driving. i think me and him clocked a thousand Ks on that MR2 the first week we got it, on near-slicks up north. getting lost on unassumed gravel roads mid-winter in a mid-engined safety nightmare and just… driving. knowing the limits of the car, knowing it inside and out, gravitating to older and older cars which led to being more in tune with driving, finding more and more challenging roads, etc. struggling with stock wipers on a rainy day, fiddling with the handle of the passengers side door as it almost falls off, staring at the farms 40 minutes out of cityi have no idea where i’m going with this, but ultimately – i got into it from kinda growing up around it and simply never losing that spark of passion that i had. coincide that with my love for always being on the extreme edge of tomboyism and it was a perfect fit. i love everything automotive, it’ll be something i never let go. and if you ever want to get into it, always just go in wanting to learn. it’s a huge nebulae of facts and little measurements and one-off tricks and bro-ism, but it’s so worth it in the end. because despite the gatekeeping for being a girl, it’s ultimately all about driving your own shitbox and knowing it inside and out. and that’s it. it’s not about rolling up to every theatre parking lot at 3 am showing off a chrome muffler, or backfiring at every red light. modding is a culture in itself, but bypass that. go straight to what counts and make it your own and just learn. that’s really it, use driving as therapy and get lost in how the roads feel. it’s the simplest way to get into it without worrying about 14-year old boys with bolted on spoilers lol. and i bring up the gatekeeping a lot, but only because it really is such a fucking macho culture. it’s like walking into a real life COD lobby with mics on. but push past that and automotive culture at its core is so much more, and completely open to everyone 

[entergamingxp]

Assetto Corsa Competizione review – the full sim experience comes to console • Eurogamer.net

When is a driving game a sim and when isn’t it? It’s a woolly point that nevertheless is often the subject of much debate – are Forza and Gran Turismo sims? You could make a convincing case for and against both, and I’d certainly not argue against either’s approximation of the driving experience – that much, as ever, is down to personal taste. But if it’s a proper sim you’re after, in the nerdy 90s PC sense of the term, where you’re managing tire pressures and engine maps and spending half your time under the hood to get your head around how it all works… Well, I don’t think there’s ever been anything quite like Asseto Corsa Competizione on console before.

Assetto Corsa Competizione console review

Developer: Kunos/D3T

Publisher: 505

Platform: Reviewed on Xbox One X

Availability: Out now on Xbox One and PS4

Let’s take a step back first, though. After a slightly unconvincing exit from early access last year, Assetto Corsa Competizione has now earned its place alongside rFactor 2 and iRacing in the premier class of PC racing simulators. It’s a brutally focussed thing, built solely around the GT World Challenge – the series formerly known as Blancpain GT – and the GT3 cars within. It’s not the place to explore an exhaustive list of exotica, or to go drifting around fictional cityscapes. Instead, it’s about diving deep into the workings of a real-life racing series, and replicating the thrill of going door-to-door with some pukka GT3 machinery around some of the world’s finest tracks.

And Assetto Corsa Competizione excels at what it sets out to do. The racing is authentic, equipping you with all you’ll need to engage with the busywork of a GT3 race – there’s a virtual spotter to help you with traffic, a series of gauges so you can keep an eye on tire wear, brake temperature and tire pressure, real-life rulesets so you’ll have to manage pit strategy and dynamic time and weather so you’re battling the track and conditions as much as you are the rest of the field. When that all comes together, there’s nothing quite like it; partake in the 24 Hours of Spa and you’ll see the sun set and rise over the Ardennes, the track gaining and losing pace as the temperatures ebb and flow. If you’ve got any affection for the real thing, there’s those same butterflies in your stomach when you trail a train of GT3 cars as they soar up Eau Rouge, their tail-lights snaking off into the forest ahead.

There’s a career mode that’s engaging enough if slight – it’s effectively just a championship campaign with a few extra frills, but the core racing is good enough to make it compelling.

It feels fantastic, too. Does it have the best handling model of them all? Again it’s a matter of personal preference – a number of real-life GT World Challenge drivers swear by it, which is all the endorsement you should need – but wherever you stand, I don’t think anyone would dispute that this offers the best take on GT3 cars around. They’re weighty things, and wrestling them up Eau Rouge isn’t easy work; these chunky boys jockey and weave their way up the hill, and getting the most out of them is a case of managing all that heft as you explore the limits of each track and chew up the tarmac.

Assetto Corsa Competizione does a great job of translating all that, as well as the sheer violence you’re subject to behind the wheel of a GT3 car. Thunder along the kerbs and it sounds as if the world is about to end, while even the more sedate moments are soundtracked by chirruping wastegates, whining brakes and clunking transmissions. And when you’ve got a Bentley or a Merc coming up fast behind you – well, you’ll certainly hear them coming, their rumble sounding like a squadron of angry Spitfires.

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The impressive thing here is Assetto Corsa Competizione console versions are faithful to all that. Everything that’s made Assetto Corsa Competizione such a marvel on PC is intact, and that’s quite some feat – but good lord do you have to invest some serious elbow grease to get at it all, with zero concessions made for console players and more than a few oversights and odd decisions made along the way. The headline, I’m sure you’ve already heard, is the limitation of console versions to 30fps, though it’s not really as big a deal as you might imagine and certainly isn’t this port’s greatest offence. To have a simulation of this complexity running in any form on what’s fast becoming vintage hardware remains quite the feat, and it only takes a handful of laps to acclimatise (and if you’re of a similar vintage to myself, you might also remember playing sims such as Geoff Crammond’s Formula One Grand Prix back in the 90s when 30fps would be seen as a blessing).

Elsewhere, though, it’s harder to get your head around some of the decisions made here. By default, you’ll have to map all your controls beyond the bare basics, and if you’re playing on a pad expect to put in a decent amount of time tweaking to fix the lacklustre default settings offered. It’s possible to find something approaching a good set-up, but it takes some serious work – and oddly enough, it’s not that much easier if you’re playing on a wheel, with Assetto Corsa Competizione on console not playing particularly nice with commonplace hardware. I’m primarily using a Fanatec CSL Elite kit, and had to work through all the settings myself just to get the thing to work, which is plain baffling. It takes the PC sim mentality a bit too far, for my liking.

Dynamic weather plays a part, as does some dynamic AI that can be tweaked to taste. They put up a good fight, though there was some spottiness on a couple of occasions during my time with the console version.

That’s not all, either, with private lobbies not available at launch (they’re promised soon) and with vanilla multiplayer experiencing more than its fair share of failures in these early days. Be warned, too, that Assetto Corsa Competizione is a fairly slim proposition, with its single series and 11 tracks, something reflected in its slimmer price point, and something that can be addressed with some DLC that’s available on day one that folds in the Intercontinental series, with the prospect of British GT being added further down the line too. That’s if you can get your DLC code working, that is, with problems there adding to the laundry list of faults found in Assetto Corsa Competizione’s console version on day one. Out of the box, Assetto Corsa Competizione is – to borrow a motor racing term – a shitbox.

It’s deeply frustrating, especially given how Kunos has worked so hard to get the PC version in shape in recent months only for the console version to suffer from a similarly flawed start. Work at it, though – and have some faith that this port will have a bit more work put into it over the coming weeks – and there’s something pretty special here, though it’s worth knowing what you’re getting yourself into. If crawling around a track on your outlap as you gingerly get heat into the tires and brakes before really committing, or trawling forums for ideal force feedback settings or camber rates for certain tracks doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, you might want to steer clear. Assetto Corsa Competizione is a proper sim, for better and for worse – and for its many faults, it may well be the finest sim that’s ever found its way to a home console.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/assetto-corsa-competizione-review-the-full-sim-experience-comes-to-console-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=assetto-corsa-competizione-review-the-full-sim-experience-comes-to-console-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net