The below is from a blog entry of mine. Just sharing here because I want the thank Reiza also for all of these great things and, above all, because I finally feel like I have a sim "home" so to speak. I've never cared about this sim or that sim before because I believed it was silly and that specific mods were more important than the software they run on top of. But Reiza has turned my sim world upside down. They break all the rules and set the new rules. AMS is so good it's literally scary. In fact, my new favorite mod is the Formula Retro which is a vehicle type I am not even interested in, or at least WAS not interested in but is so darn immersive and magical on the limit I have simply fallen under its spell...
Well I've been spending quite a bit of time driving Automobilista since its early access release. Just a very quick-and-dirty list of initial observations / feelings:
Quality - Polished. Pride in work, mastery of technology and tenacity are evident in attention to detail as well as the overall experience / package. Excellent skins. Slick HD UI.
Out-of-the-Box-Experience - Best out-of-the-box experience I can remember in any sim (more driving / less fiddling). Reiza updates default settings when helpful to out-of-the-box experience. Reiza has asked forum posters to stop recommending unnecessary .plr file changes. These small things add up to the best initial experience possible.
Content - Volume and variety of vehicles is second only to the immense variety of AMAZING tracks ; many of which are not found in other sims.
Graphics and Sound - Clean, balanced and flawless graphics very easy on the eyes. And NO 2D SPECTATORS! Excellent replay quality. Very high quality sounds.
Physics / FFB - Physics and FFB are second to none and deeply immersive. FFB is strong while also including plenty of information (even with G27). Track surface bumps produce excellent and continuous FFB / immersion. Behavior on the limit inspires confidence and pushing hard but risk / reward is very much present and you will pay dearly if you get greedy.
Gameplay - Speechless here. Amazing variety of tracks. AI is excellent. Versatile race configuration. I actually enjoy when an incident occurs because it is my fault and not physics issue or AI issue so is always opportunity for improvement and never frustrating. Delta time bar aids improvement and makes hot-lapping fun. It's like a ghost but better because you know exactly how much you are gaining and losing with a different approach. And straights become more fun as you watch the tenths tally up that you saved by improving your corner exit.
Intangibles - Reiza is a company you love to love as much as its products. It's efficient and effective mastery and leveraging of existing technologies such as SweetFX, ISI motor 2 and Dyn HUD and ability to pull it all together into such a complete and balanced experience delivered by the overall AMS package is something very special indeed.
Opportunities for Improvement
The surface bump modeling which improves force feedback and immersion results in a substantial amount of camera shake. While the Real Head Motion plugin eliminates this problem by locking the view to the horizon, a side effect of this is that free camera mode no longer works and free camera mode is important for a number of reasons due to FOV differences, personal camera preferences, inability to see hood in hood view (again likely because different FOV), etc.
At certain angles, collisions are not crisp but rather cause a strange "jittering" motion (which I believe is present in all other sims based on gmotor 2 as well. Additionally, open wheel vehicles cannot lock wheels, which I believe is also inherent to gmotor 2.
