This game reviewing malarkey can be difficult at times, especially when it comes to simulation games. What I mean by this is, it can be difficult to decide how to judge them – do you focus on the simulation part, or the game part. It is of course all subjective and one person’s definition of a ‘game’ will be different to the next. I will try my best to cover both aspects when looking at Project CARS.
Project CARS (Community Assisted Racing Simulator) from Slightly Mad Studios, is a community funded game, which suffered a few setbacks in the run up to release. It was finally out for all on May 8th, when it was time to see how if the studio had succeeded with creating an experience the fans wanted – a true racing simulator. First and foremost, I will say this – anyone interested in playing a racing game be warned that this is an unforgiving beast. For racing novices like me, it might be best to give this a second thought before investing.
From the get go, it is clear that this is a daunting game to get into if you aren’t familiar with the racing world, or cars in general. There is a whole plethora of tweakable options. This is for how the game in general controls, and each car has a huge plethora of changes that can be made – suspension, tyre pressure and much more. I looked at this page and immediately felt I was in way above my head. It also doesn’t help that there isn’t much of an explanation to what all the options are. Without prior knowledge of what things are, and how they are likely to have an effect on how a car drives, you are really out at sea. The same can be said for the controller options. A number of people have suffered from controller issues and have needed to change certain aspects of the controller, but so many options with no explanation of what they do has led to forums articles on the internet asking just what on earth everything means. The written tutorials that are in the game are focussed around what each different mode is when you go and use them for the first time. And while there is a voice over, it is clear that the game has been made with PC in mind while seeing the text. It is so small and lengthy at times that it really isn’t suited for the living room console gamer, without plenty of squinting and getting close to the TV to read what the screen says.
The racing itself is solid enough, but again the word ‘unforgiving’ needs to be used. Even on the novice setting you’ll quickly realise that this is a game that requires focus. Miss-time the braking or acceleration and you’ll be straight off the track, over steering and you’ll clip the grass and you’ll spin out. Once you’re off once, the lap time is invalid, twice and the lap time after that is invalid aswell. This can really put pressure on in career mode when you a vying for additional points for the leader board, and the best qualifying times to get the best position on the grid for the races. When you start racking up the difficulty, and turning on different options like realistic damage, mechanical failures, tyre wear etc you really need to think about what you’re doing. It’s worth mentioning that the AI is well made. AI drivers will regularly drive authentically and you can see them making moves to avoid any collisions on the track.
You can start at whatever point you like in career mode. I went for the karts, thinking that they would give me a better understanding of what the game is about, and give me a good platform when I moved into the proper cars. A forewarning to those looking to do the same thing – the karts are nothing like the real cars. The first time I jumped in a BMW and hit the first corner I found myself in a gravel pit. There can be stark differences in vehicles, so it’s useful to have the practice laps. On the topic of practice laps, and each tournament in general in fact, unless I missed the tutorial they aren’t explained very well. I found myself repeatedly going around the same track and wasn’t quite sure what was going on until I saw the timer in the bottom corner. Again, for racing fans I’m sure that it is quite obvious what is happening but I didn’t really know. And after a while, the whole process can become a bit monotonous in all honesty. There is a challenge to master the track of course, but after multiple laps it can get tiresome.
Graphically, I was expecting the game to blow me away after seeing all of the coverage prior to release. The night time and weather effects such as rain and fog look great, and add new challenges to the races. However (as it is with most games these days), it is clear that the pre release videos were created using top end PC’s, and I don’t think Project CARS reaches the same visual levels overall as the likes of Forza, which is disappointing.
Online racing is where a lot of people will spend their time. And there are some patches that are going to need to be brought in hear aswell. Having played with a group of friends there is clear that there is potential there. But connection problems caused massive issues with people regularly being kicked from races in the lobby before starting, and at times during the race themselves. The in game chat is also flawed, with chat cutting in and out constantly making it difficult to communicate with others. There is also a bug where game audio when using a headset (including party chat if you’re using it) cuts out when you brake or go off track unless you have plugged the controller directly into the Xbox. Again, the racing itself is solid (unless you are playing with people that like to play bumper cars) but there are a fair few issues that need to be ironed out to make it more stable.
Project CARS is a success with regards to making a deep simulator, but has very difficult barriers to entry for anyone who isn’t a car enthusiast, or racing fan. Even regular gaming racers who focus on the more arcade style racing may not enjoy this game. I’m sure that the people who funded this game have got what they wanted in return, but for most others, there may not be a huge amount here. There are a number of technical issues that need to be addressed, but even then, I’ll find the ‘game’ difficult to find.
