My Steam review after a 12-hour session.
Project CARS 2 is the Witcher 3 of racing games, but instead of role-playing as Geralt de Riv, you roleplay as Tommy Milner.
PC
AMD Ryzen R5 1600 @ 3.75 GHz
16 GB DDR4 2933 MHz RAM
AMD RADEON RX 580 4 GB OC
Kingston HyperX SSD
Windows 10 64-bit
Thrustmaster TMX
2560 x 1080 resolution, 75 Hz
Offline single-player
POSITIVE
> Very nice-looking visuals, with natural colours, dynamic lighting, good textures and a realistic impression, even at night. Still bright enough at gamma 0.80, but with increased depth.
> Good performance (60-75 fps) with maximum MSAA, high shadows and low reflections. This keeps everything sharp and clean, with minimum flickering. You can still see some twitching stuff on circuits like Watkins Glen and Oulton Park, but it’s gone for the most part.
> Intuitive force feedback, with three main presets and a few sliders for adjustments. I selected the Raw preset and increased the Volume and other sliders by a bit. It’s solid, communicative and allows you to drive intuitively. It resembles rFactor 2 and Raceroom depending on the settings, but it is its own thing.
> Superb list of accurate circuits so you can have fun with enduro, touring cars, single-seaters, stock cars, etc., including Algarve, COTA, Daytona, Knockhill, Fuji, Long Beach and the usual stuff.
> Most cars tested drive very well with the same FFB settings, like GT3, GT4, LMP2, touring cars, IndyCar.
> Proper multiclass support for up to 4 classes with separate rankings. Very immersive and groundbreaking for authentic enduro fun.
> Ridiculously good weather and dynamic surface implementation, with moving cloud cover, great rain effects, puddles and aquaplaning, lighting transitions with customizable weather states per session. It truly affects gameplay in a significant manner.
> Complete list of options with menus that are easy to navigate, including Motorsports presets per type of racing series.
> Clearly made by people who love motorsports, with the great amount of liveries, the subtle flexibility in the drivetrain which allows you to hold your speed and angle and play with engine resistance depending on the gear selected (try the Corvette GTE at Watkins Glen), great mix and match of content, sharp menus, informative radio chatter, just attention to detail all around.
> You can tell the professional drivers were used for feedback and not just marketing reasons.
> **** EA.
NEGATIVE
> Struggling AI in a lot of scenarios, even after restarting the session a few times. You often have to wait for them to get sorted out and actually start the race in the middle of the first lap. Happens in a lot of racing games, but it is a serious issue here. Some unnecessary slowing down here and there as well.
> Some cars have very subtle FFB which force you to change your regular settings. For example, I love the Clio Cup in rF2 and was hoping to use it here, but it doesn’t have much feel to it. But that made me discover the world-class Renault Mégane, so…
> Seems like the FWD FFB is not as well-done as other drivetrain configurations, far from the level of the WTCC cars in Raceroom, still the Mégane is great.
> Too many cars. I prefer focus and polish, and the amount of content makes it difficult to achieve that. I get it, netKar Pro 2 would not sell and Forza 7 will sell millions.
> Still favours NVIDIA in the benchmarks by a lot. Excessive tesselation? GimpWorksTM? Who knows. At least they don’t plaster the logo on all the circuits like before.
> Bugs when going from session to session, like rain or wiper sounds never going away, or cars being all piled up as they spawn in front of you, or spawning as ghosts, various stuff like that. Restart Session always fixed it for me, but the replay was bugged, with the other cars being ghosts that never left the grid.
VERDICT
Project CARS 2 feels more like a big budget rFactor 3 made by a team in love with motorsports rather than simply simulating car values. It’s got a ton of great-quality content, little touches that no other racing game attempts and an intuitive road feel with easy-to-adjust FFB. I’d give up all other racing games for this one. The last time I played a new game for 12 hours, it was Final Fantasy XII. I only stopped because my neck was hurting too much.
Great fun in my first 12 hours:
Radical SR3 track day at Algarve
Formula Renault sprint at Fuji
“ALMS” LMP2 at Long Beach
Renault Mégane Touring races at Monaco, Brands Hatch Indy and Knockhill, including a sideways slide and save BTCC-style at Paddock Hill and a little moment on 2 wheels at Knockhill.
1-hour “ALMS” endurance race in Corvette GTE at Watkins Glen GP. Finished 3rd in category, was scared many times by AI LMPs, with minor contact only once or twice. Three classes competed for the bus stop and I spun out with two laps to go. Looked like a typical race incident, was not even mad.
The last time you saw your little brother (Slightly Mad Studios), he was in a shitty semi-pro band (Project CARS) and played the same Nickelback songs poorly like he was still in his high school band (Shift 2 Unleashed). A year later, he’s playing in some new band (Project CARS 2) in a town where you’re visiting on business. Might as well go see him, right? He still has his Flying V, but he changed the stock pickups, replaced his Line 6 with a MESA Mark V, doesn’t wear ripped T-shirs any more and his ex-girlfriend is not the singer and bass player any more. They play November Rain and you don’t even cringe when he starts the solo, because he’s learned to tune his guitar and has started to practice like his teacher told him to. He used to play like Kurt Cobain, now his new idol is Gary Moore.
If you like pretend race cars, buy this game.
