Project CARS (PS4) - Review
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 27 May 2015 / 8,708 Views
Project CARS has changed me. I’m primarily a fan of arcade racers, but there’s something about Project CARS that has transformed me into a person who genuinely now wants to go out and purchase a racing wheel so that I can get the most out of the racing experience on offer. This is a testament to Project CARS' ability to cater to all tastes, at least once you strip away the controversy surrounding its development and get down to actually playing it.
I could pin my newfound appreciation for more simulator-heavy styles of racing gameplay on Project CARS’ deep core mechanics and plethora of options, as well as the fact that I recently learnt to drive, but this doesn't completely explain my enthusiasm for the game. Project CARS is certainly a sim racer first and foremost, but there's plenty of icing on this delicious cake base as well.
There are options, my God are there options. Everything from tire pressure, to brake stiffness, to the laxness of the steering can be changed. None of these settings have to be changed, but if you're one of those players that loves to tinker with everything in their racers then Project CARS is for you.
When I say settings don’t have to be changed, I genuinely mean it; at first I used the default settings, and these are completely viable, making the game suitable for more casual racing fans. After a while though I started experimenting, first with minor tweaks to things like tire pressure and the steering (these caused me to spin out far more frequently), but then with more significant changes which ultimately improved the racing experience no end. The accessibility of these options allowed me to enjoy Project CARS more so than any simulator before it, and it helps a great deal that every little tweak you make really does have an impact on your racing experience, even when using a controller.
Project CARS includes a career mode, where you work your way up through tournaments and car classes, starting from kart racing and going all the way up to super cars, but I found this mode to be tedious and boring after a while. Every single car and track is already unlocked in solo mode, so it's easy to quickly tire of the restrictions imposed in career mode. Career mode's one redeeming feature is an in-built fake twitter counter which posts cheesy and sometimes hilarious messages after each race; these made me smile and did keep me engaged in-between races.
Solo mode is where I had the most fun. Being able to select any car and any track variant, including weather conditions, the amount of cars on the track, and so on, is very liberating. I invited one of friends who has driven around Silverstone in real-life to drive around the track as he did on his track experience day, much to his delight. It's a testament to the amount of detail Slightly Mad Studios put into the tracks and cars in Project CARS that my friend was able to remark on how accurate the gaming experience was as he raced around using the exact same car that he'd driven during his experience day (an Aston Martin Vantage).
I’ve found myself, time and time again, coming back to this solo mode whenever I've had a spare hour or so to play a game. Part of what makes the racing experience so enjoyable is the game's complexity and difficulty. There’s no purposeful ramming of opponents, no track skipping, and if you want to record your lap times you must stay on the track at all times. It's fun to retry races, attempting to find the perfect racing line, with every little bump and scrape causing a loss in places.
I could compare this level of challenge to (bear with me with this example) that found in Super Meat Boy. The extreme difficulty of the levels in that title made it incredibly addictive, and success or failure came down entirely to your own skill (or lack thereof). The same can be said for Project CARS, whereby subtle mistakes will cause you to spin out or drop positions, but always at the end of the day because of a failure on your own part.
For the most part, the AI in Project CARS is acceptable. The AI will cleverly attempt to position itself when heading into corners so that it can exploit an overtaking opportunity, for example, but at other times the AI falls apart and sticks too rigidly to the programmed racing line. Interrupt this racing line and the AI will attempt to avoid you but will instantly move straight back onto the line as soon as possible, belying a lack of adaptability or variation.
All in all, colour me surprisingly impressed by Project CARS. After all of the delays, negative publicity, and my own personal preference towards arcade racers, I honestly wasn't expecting great things. How wrong I was; Project CARS has managed to set the early new standard for this generation of racers.
This review is based on a retail copy of Project CARS for the PS4, provided by the publisher.
