By Kermath Davies
Project CARS is a game built for the hardcore racing fan; in-fact, calling it 'game' is nearly an insult.
Never before have I felt more tested as a racer, having to keep more alert of every command I process. Be it a positive or negative aspect at the cost of appealing to a wider audience, Slightly Mad Studios has made CARS a merciless racing simulator, and doesn't care about the skill you've picked up in other racers.
You'll start career-mode the way real track racers start theirs; in a go-kart.
You'll soon learn that hitting the accelerator trigger as hard as you can will put you in a tailspin over and over again. These karts are volatile and unpredictable, equivalent to operating a dinghy in a speedboat contest.
There's much more to take into consideration like tyre wear and tear, fuel consumption and every small bit of physics that would usually be on a real racetrack.
The initial circuits are filled with horrible corners and ridiculous hairpins, but I needed to keep reminding myself to ease in and out of acceleration. Things get much easier once you get to learn the sensitivity of your controls.
I also needed to keep reminding myself to take one step at a time and not jump in to something I thought I might have been okay at. Slightly Mad gives you the option to access many of the available disciplines in Career Mode right away.
Each event is marked on a calendar that separates into several days that include the practice rounds, the qualifiers and then the main race. It's extremely tempting to hop into an F1 and boost down the track on the first go, but you're almost guaranteed to end up in an endless cycle of spinning out and restarting.
As you level your skills up, you'll find yourself progressing into new leagues of disciplines like LMP and Prototype. Each discipline has its own set of championships and contracts that will open up as you progress; the properties of each type vary significantly.
Touring cars are bigger, bulkier beasts that sacrifice steering for power, where the McLaren P1 and other hyper cars feel as though the wheels never touch the road. I also I don't think driving a McLaren at this level of obsessive detail can be validated by playing with a controller, which doesn't sit well with me.
This is probably where the more hardcore gamer will shine in their Recaro simulation racing seat awkwardly setup in their lounge. For those among us using a controller, you're going to want some assistance.
There's an endless list of options like traction control, braking, steering and a difficulty level that changes the degree of how mean other drivers can be towards you. I can only imagine what it would be like playing this in a full racing setup.
CARS is an incredible looking game and I was blown away by how realistic everything looks. Do yourself a favour and pause the game when you hit the straight and take in the details, in and around your car.
This is what the future of racing will look like. Literally drooling over the screen, I realised the Xbox One's resolution was only putting out 900p, which seemed ridiculous for how life-like the game already looked.
PS4 puts out at a smooth 1080p, and if you've got grunt behind your PC and want to see it perform at an insane 4K resolution, you can.
The weather system is just as over-the-top as the graphics. I've raved on about weather systems in racing games, like The Crew, Drive Club and Forza, but CARS takes the entire system to another level, while borrowing some already established technology.
The weather on each calendar day for each event has been implemented for each location, something we've already seen in Drive Club, but what really astonished me was how the cars reacted to the weather systems so dynamically.
Nothing feels systematic, and there are no seams in the environment that surrounds the car. Unlocking new scenery and locations is enough incentive to keep pushing forward; I couldn't wait to see what the next levels looked like.
CARS is by far the most realistic and best-looking racer I've ever come across, and sets a pretty high bar for racers to come.
Although relentless and not very friendly to newcomers, if you take the time to study each circuit and learn the ins and outs of your favourite flavour of discipline, you'll be in for an incredibly enjoyable ride.
CARS is sitting in its own league, and I'm really happy there's something out there to give the racing genre a kick up the butt, giving Forza a run for its money.
Five stars.
3 News
Project CARS
:: Publisher: Bandai Namco
:: Developer: Slightly Mad Studios
:: Format: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC
:: Rating: G
source: newshub archive
