I mean what if you go to a casino, you put in all your money and you lose, who’s fault is it then? yours or the casino?
Btw I have a nice trick if your really afraid of losing your car. Put AUTOSAVE off.

I just don’t agree with you guys calling this a bad game because your to stupid to read a warning message…

Seriously, I cannot even see where loosing your car after carefully building it and upgrading it is a good idea on paper. Nobody, ever, would think that kind of punishment is a positive way to encourage gameplay. Not even the twits at Capcom, kings of jacking with a player would dare to do this. There has to be a special place in hell for people who do things like this.

The simple fact is, many of these titles aren’t good enough to increase the stakes like this, the controls aren’t precise enough, the maps and vehicles tuned to that level of performance. If you are going to make a title where the stakes are high, you need to compensate by giving the player as much control and precision as possible so they can challenge this based on skill and ability. To loose a game because you aren’t randomly given a certain puzzle piece or because of traffic flow is a hallmark of bad design and nothing else.

At least allow the player to earn the car back by challenging the owner again. There has to be a suspension of reality to an extent to encourage people to play on.

“Reality” is something I am never going to fully understand in games. Reality to me is highly subjective. The moment a single hit from a round doesn’t put you out of action or kill you, reality is out the window. Reality to me is a means by which the environment is made richer or more options are available. In a game like this racing through traffic would result in an accident that kills you or there would be cops all over you, spiking your tires and arresting you. Would anyone play a street racer title where those were the only outcomes? No? Why not folks, it’s “reality” afterall. Oh wait, thats right, because that’s no damn fun.

Punishing players seems to be the rage, I can see why, its genuinely easier than making things challenging. All you have to do is turn a dial to turn up the heat. What is easier, analyzing your own title and creating a difficulty curve (its not just a term folks, its an actual unit of measure)based on the understanding of your approach or simply turning a dial to reduce the players abilities or increasing the power of the opponent? One is an understanding of the concept, the other is called lazy.

I think the era where you can give accolades to a player for beating a titles is largely over. I remember when playing and beating Contra made you a king among men, now with a lot of titles your ability to win is often proportial to where you randomly get respawned, or how the environment allows you to play. There are tough games out there that players can win simply because the right combination of random circumstances give you the edge. You better take them, because you may not be so lucky next times. “Flip of the coin gaming” to me isn’t fun.