I just powered through Sleeping dogs this week, and really enjoyed it. It's far from a perfect experience, but it does a lot for an open world game, has an excellent story, and looks pretty great on PC.

However, it has reminded me of one of those things that, as someone who loves to drive in real life, I hate in video games lately. The first time I really noticed such a pronounced under steer in virtual cars was probably Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Everyone was caught up in the pretty cars and the well implemented social leaderboards, but I was stuck up on the handling of the cars. You see, the reason I love driving in real life is because, cars are actually pretty easy to maneuver once you get to know the car you're in. Sure, some cars under steer, some fish tail, but at the end of the day, they can all make a 90 degree turn. They can all turn on a dime if you go slow enough. And assuming they aren't a massive hunk of metal and payload, they can usually manage to weave in and out of traffic at 70+ miles an hour. I would know, my family constantly ragged on me for my driving habits (no accidents though, knock on wood!), and it's this feeling of making a pretty heavy, massive piece of machinery do exactly as I want it to that makes driving so fun. Whether it's taking a turn in a country road at 100 MPH or sneaking up the free way to get past traffic, I really enjoy it. It's one part thrill, one part meditation, and two parts of feeling in control.

Really, it's this last bit that is most important to me when I drive. I want to feel like I'm the one swerving around, not the car. I want to feel how responsive and quick the car is. And I'm the same way in games. As someone who's used a gun, and likes to run around my house with an 1:1 M16 replica BB gun just practicing stock weld and target acquisition, I know that making weapons feel "heavy" isn't about sluggish aiming, because especially with a close quarters stance and grip, you can dart that gun around like you set your mouse to 3200 dpi like a crazy person (and me!), and if you're good, it'll land on the target and you can squeeze off a shot.

So it's been kind of distressing to me how many games have opted for cars that handle like they have the inertia of a semi-truck and the brakes of a tricycle. If I turn my wheel all the way to the right at 60 miles an hour in a real car, I'm not going to slowly drift into the next lane, which is almost what pushing the analog stick all the way to it's stopping point does in Sleeping Dogs, unless you power slide, but that's only good for taking corners, not swerving. On top of that, if you go from a dead start, hit the gas for about 3 seconds, let off, and then immediately slam on the brakes, your car just kind of floats to a stop. It's infuriating when you need to actually STOP your car, but your car decides to just keep on going and ram into a truck that used to be 30-40 feet ahead of you.

I feel this is probably a result of every game with driving these days needing a "handbrake" to let you swing your car around turns, but the problem is that this ignores the fact that there is more than one type of maneuver a car can make. Swerving is also arguably the most important one on a roadway with other vehicles, because it, not just yanking the wheel and hoping for the best, is how you avoid collisions. And if you're a bad ass triad motherfucker, it's how you do anything in a car because why wouldn't he go as fast as he possibly can?

Another weird example of bizarre handling is ArmA 2. Now, to be fair, hold any direction but forward for a bit, and you'll lose traction, slide into a turn, etc. It's not realistic, but at least I can make a turn in less than 100 meters. But, as soon as you slow to a certain speed, if you even try to turn sharply, as if you were navigating a parking lot, your car just stops moving, period.

I want cars that, when going 5 miles an hour, can make a uturn without 5 lanes. Cars that can make maneuvers, especially in an open world driving game, when shitty AI is never more than 60 seconds away from suddenly not moving right in front of you, or deciding to change lane positions while you're in the lane position they want.

Cars are far from nimble compared to a human, but the way under steering has become so goddamn prevalent in games these days is so frustrating. Let me have fun, exagerate a bit. Take a leaf out of Saints Row's book and make it really fun and rewarding to drive through traffic, instead of forcing me to use your (completely digital, despite being on a freaking analog stick) gunked up, child protected steering. Cars can turn! Cars can stop! Don't make me depend on a fucking E brake that makes me slide 300 feet before making a turn.