Top Gear - JC vs. PS2 vs. Real Life!

aidan_dunne

Just wondering if anyone else happened to catch 'Top Gear' on Tuesday night last? Did you see that feature towards the end of the show where Jeremy Clarkson tried to see if he could learn a real-life circuit on the Playstation ('Gran Turismo' was his game of choice, Laguna Seca his track of choice) and then actually go to that same circuit for real and try and match the time he set on the Playstation?

Ummm, one little (well, big, to be honest! ) problem with the way you went about it, Jezza. Since when has the real life Honda NSX had a joypad controller for a steering wheel? :rolleyes: If he was going to even try to make any kind of decent attempt at this, he should have been using a proper steering wheel/pedal setup. Okay, he probably still wouldn't have even gotten close to the time he set on the PS2 in real life anyway (due to real-world physics, the fact a computer game is never going to be 100% accurate, the fact you don't get the same feedback through your hands, feet, arse, etc. sitting in front of your telly, etc.) but even the dumbest person knows that playing a game with a joypad and playing it with a steering wheel are two completely different kettles of fish altogether.

Oh yeah, there was also the other little matter of the fact that you don't drive a car in real life either:

a) sitting on the front bumper

or

b) hovering in the air on a magic carpet about 5 feet behind and 5 feet above the car you're driving! :rolleyes:

No wonder he couldn't understand how the track looked so different when he was actually sitting in the real car!

Just wondering if anyone else saw it and, if you did, what did you make of it? Personally, I would love to see something like this done properly to see if there really is any truth in what some racing drivers say about how effective some racing games can be in helping them learn new circuits. With computers and consoles becoming more and more powerful and games becoming more accurate and realistic in terms of both track modelling and car modelling, performance and physics, I think it would make for an interesting experiment......... as long as it was done properly and not the half-assed Jeremy Clarkson way! :rolleyes:

Chong

It was a good segment all the same, for how much I love Jezza its nice to see him fail lol.

coolcon

I also thought he should be using a steering wheel... but good all the same. Went off to see if i could beat the lap time on my own ps2 - but didnt beat it (yet)

Fabritzo

Any luck coolcon? 1.40 in a standard nsx in gt mode should be easy shouldn't be too hard? I'll give it a go with the controller.

qz

I didn't manage to beat his time! Nearly broke down trying to though. It's that first major corner when the timer starts. If I don't get it right, I have to restart.

Fabritzo

I got a 139.945 but I fell off the track once, all ya have to do is not upset the car on the entry to the high speed bends, string 3 fast bends together and it can be done.

iregk

Also the fact that he used Gran Tourismo as his starting point was bad. GT mearly has a representation of the real tracks and not a complete reconstruction of it in the game. Hence as he was driving he said that turns not in the game! Probably would have done better if he tried it on Forza Motorsport as they are actually 100% accurate reconstructions of the tracks.