Project Cars Review - Driving On The Edge

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I'm hurtling round the twisting, winding bends of Laguna Seca Raceway in a BAC Mono open-wheel track day race car at 180mph on the edge of control.  The rain is pouring down whacking the top of my helmet as thunder and lighting crackles across the sky and I try to keep control of my car as it slips and slides all over the track, desperately trying to whittle my way through a pack of 19 other racers trying to do the same.  I need to change to wet tires.  Do I pit in and hope the rest does the same or risk it with racing slicks so not to give up my position.  This is racing on the edge of control.  This is Project CARS.

I am a huge realistic racing simulation fan.      In the last generation of consoles the genre was not well supported in all honesty.  There was games that were brilliant like Race Driver: GRID, Need For Speed: Shift and Shift 2: Unleashed, all of which fall more into to the simcade sub-category rather than full on sim, Gran Turismo 6, which is indeed a decent sim but long standing problems like non existent AI and terrible audio as well as PS2 era graphics in most of the cars and tracks plus it is utterly soulless and boring, and Codemaster's F1 series their only series that still remains a true realistic representation of the sport while others such as Dirt and Grid have been dumbed down for the casual market and instead of being a realistic simulation of Rally and multiple Motorsport disciplines respectively they are filled with American style drift and Baja racing.

So when I first heard about Project Cars I was immediately behind it.  A realistic racing simulation that features real world tracks and multiple racing disciplines from  Formula 1, 2 & 3, multiple classes of Touring Cars, Open Wheel Track Day Races, Professional Go-Karts, Supercars and Le Mans.  65 cars (or 73 if you buy the game digitally or managed to buy a GAME exclusive Limited Edition) and more to come with free DLC packs featuring new cars and tracks every month.  110 tracks from 30 locations the most ever in a racing game and each car and track deserves their place on the roster rather than its closest rivals Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport where most of the cars are all but useless and seem they are merely there to print impressive numbers when marketing the game before release.  Each car in Project Cars is recreated here in exquisite detail not just in terms of the genre defining visuals but also the physics of each cars handling is spot on and each feels different to drive and unique.  Each track is created with the same excellent attention to detail and deserves to be there.


The graphics are quite simply stunning and on-lookers would be easily mistaken if they caught you playing it and thought you were watching a real live race on television.  The trademark helmet cam Slightly Mad Studios developed first seen in the Need For Speed: Shift series is used to amazing effect here and is the closest you will get in a simulation to actually sitting in a real racing car.   The cars look absolutely stunning and the tracks are fantastic to admire as your speeding round.  The weather effects are truly outstanding as rain pours, splatters across your windscreen with a button set for turning windshield wipers and headlights on and off, you can hear the rain smacking off the body of your car, racers in front of you spraying jets of water from their tires back at you, when in a open wheel car splashing on the visor of your helmet and making the track a nightmare to control your car as it is wet and slippery like trying to ride an elephant over an ice rink.  At the time of writing I haven't been brave enough yet to try racing at night but I have raced in severe fog which arguably is even worse for visibility.  It was extremely challenging and the only thing to help you is if you have a car in front you can follow it's brake lights if you manage to stay close enough, if not or you are at the front its a nerve wracking game of edging round hoping you don't make a mistake and send your car careening into a wall.

A lot of people find realistic racing simulators sterile and boring.  This when speaking about Gran Turismo with its funeral procession AI or Forza Motorsport with it's more simcade handling and casual aimed car and track roster I can totally agree with even though I like both those series mostly due to lack of alternatives in all honesty.   Project Cars is simply leagues ahead in producing a realistic representation of motorsport.  Its twitchy, unforgiving car handling and physics, realistic and dynamic weather system, immersive helmet cam, outstanding audio and visuals including sun glare, fog, night racing and haze obscuring your vision and changing track conditions making the whole experience a truly tense and nerve wracking experience that is the closest thing you will get to being in the shoes of a real racing driver.  The AI is the best I've seen in a racing game they behave like real racers and will slip stream and fight with you to break your line and create space to try and overtake you.  They all behave differently as well most are good professional and courteous racers but you do get oddball drivers who will cut corners and nudge you out of the way.  This seems to be intentional rather than poor game design as former Top Gear's The Stig Ben Collins, who voices the pit chief on your in game headset, advises about certain drivers to watch out for.  My only bug bear is that while the player is penalised for such dirty tactics the AI gets away with it so hopefully this is fixed in a patch soon.

The sound design is rather excellent as well.  From the roar of the cars' different engines, tires squealing as they struggling to retain grip, aforementioned rain battering of the body of your car and spraying off tires, Ben Collins talking to you and offering advice throughout the race, the main title screen's chilling classical score well suited to the tension and nerve jangling sensation of racing and other audio effects like gear changes and other weather effects really help pull you into the experience.  Audio is very important in a racing car as it gives you audible cues like tire squeal and hitting the rumble strip and other engine noise telling you how the car is handling and when you are losing traction or your wheels are  locking and need to react accordingly.  The haptic feedback on the Xbox One controller's triggers and central rumble motor is used to great effect here simulating force feedback in the throttle, brakes and tires that adds even more to the experience and makes controlling the car's that bit easier because you know when to ease off.


Project Cars is quite simply the best realistic racing simulation ever made.  For all the reasons above and also it is worth praising Slightly Mad Studios for staying true to their vision and creating a true representation of motorsport that the community who helped fund the game asked for rather than pander to a more casual audience in pursuit of more sales.  That being said the game features a suite of driving aids so that even someone who has never played a realistic racing game like this before but wants to learn it is very accessible to them without detracting from the developer's original vision.  It is worthy of note there are still a few minor bugs here and there in the visuals and audio but nothing major and I have read a new patch has been released to the people who crowd funded the game so should be out for general release very soon.
It is a true labour of love, a stance against greedy bigger game companies with their game tailored to suit the casual players rather than the die hard fans who buy their games and £300 steering wheels, racing seats and multi-monitor setups expecting a realistic racing experience.
Who fill their games with as little content as they can get away with and charge extra for the rest with season passes and DLC.  Project Cars is a substantial package as it is, well worth the £49.99 I paid for it but with free additional content already being released and more promised in the coming months that I would quite happily have paid extra for is exceedingly encouraging and will provide new experiences to keep fans like myself satisfied for months if not years to come.

Project Cars doesn't just beat it's closest rivals on console Gran Turismo 6 and Forza Motorsport 5.  It laps them twice and sends them spinning off the asphalt into the dirt.
9/10

Awesome cheers dazamann

Downloaded the patch last night, and to me it seemed to make a massive difference to the controls