PC2 Project CARS 2 Released on Xbox One, PS4 and PC

[Paul Jeffrey]

Highly anticipated racing simulation Project CARS 2 has been released today, marking the return of the best selling franchise to both console and PC systems.

Developed by Slightly Mad Studios and community backers from the world of sim racing, using the experience of professional race drivers the likes of former Top Gear Stig Ben Collins and sometime Renault Clio racer Nicolas Hamilton, Project CARS 2 looks set to be the most ambitious racing project yet from the British based development team.

Featuring over 180 cars and 60 locations on launch and benefitting from live track technology, advanced weather effects and class leading graphics, Project CARS 2 looks very likely to become yet another best selling release across all platforms following release today.

Unfortunately we have not been able to get access to an advanced copy of the game prior to launch, however in constant quest to bring you all the news and opinion from sim racing (haha, well actually because I cant resist a racing game) I will be purchasing testing this thing thoroughly tonight, with a view to writing up an article over the weekend with my first impressions.

About the Game

• 180+ licensed cars from iconic manufacturers
  
• Full 12K & VR Support
• Tested and tuned by pro racing drivers
• All-new motorsports (IndyCar, Oval Racing, Rallycross) join old favorites incl. GT3
• LiveTrack 3.0: Dynamic surface & weather physics affect vehicle performance and handling in real-time
• New loose surface racing (ice, dirt, mud)
• Full 24-hour cycle featuring real-time atmospheric conditions and seasonal ambience
• State-of-the art physics model
• Revamped gamepad handling
• Class-leading Esport capabilities

Project CARS 2 is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

Check out the Project CARS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment to catch up with the latest news, engage in lively discussions with the community, download some mods and get yourself out on the track in online races for both PC and console.

Well it's here! What do you think? Win, Lose or Draw? Improvement over PC1? Serious rival for the main PC racers? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Andy_J]

Mainly because I am in the crowd that donˋt like the SMS tactics of buying sim-sites, and the antics of the boss last time around.
Which is why I didnˋt buy PC1 either.

With that being said, I am quite sure SMS gets more sales from the way they get PR from buying sites, buying "people" and the antics, so in the straight economic way, I see why.

Also, by reading here, shouldnˋt the AI problems been ironed out pre-release? It sounds like something that wouldˋve been easily spotted under testing.

This ^^^^^

Yes, they have hoards of backers and beta testers, did they have any input in actually testing the sim against the AI or were they too involved in trying to get fantastic wet weather wallpaper screen grabs for the PR machine?

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Does this extend to not liking iRacing for similar reasons (ie they more or less own some popular sim racing sites to the extent that the hosts wear iracing T-shirts during videos), or Shannon Whitmore (chap in charge of community management and pro racing) thinking that hitting women is hilarious?

In general I'm happy to see any kind of competition in this space, to hopefully give some of the bad actors a bit of a kicking or make them change their ways.

Actually, I am not a subscriber of iRacing, and havenˋt been since 2012 I think, or maybe 2013, cannot remember when I last had a free month (or 3 free months) there.
Incidentally the same might apply there. I might end up doing 1 month re-sub to test RX there as well, but that are depending on some reviews as well, as I cannot get a refund if it is awful, while I can get that with PC2. But ye, if we take away the fact that I would never get in to iRacing at present time due to the costs regardless of anything else, I would hold them to the exact same standards as SMS, both in terms of buying press and individuals, and general attitude toward customers. (Same applies for all companies, and is a reason why I donˋt read, nor watch anything from Team VVV, as they seem to talk positive to get stuff from publishers and devs, and I feel that I cannot trust what they tell me).

I would like to see both iRacing and pCars 2 (as they have been mentioned in our posts) push themselves and others to get even better though. I donˋt hope for anyone to fail, and like I said, I am fairly sure that SMS have gained more sales than they have lost with all the antics and attitudes over the last years, PR is PR, and it will regardless end up creating an extremely loyal fan base. Polarizing tends to create such scenarios.

I think itˋs proved by Ian Bell himself rating my post sad, and by me mentioning it, it plays in to creating more discussion about the game, pulling it higher on searches etc. I find the rating ironic as well, as I am sure the only thing he is sad about is that I wonˋt buy the game/only buy it to test RX (thanks to Steam for making all games a sort of demo). But ye, when people, like me mentions the rating, others will answer to that ,and it breeds a discussion.

It can be used as an interesting case-study as well

 

[Skidmeister]

To say that R3E missed the mark is subjective. I find it to be the opposite. I was raised with muscle cars. Owned a 65 Chevy Malibu, 68 Nova and a 68 Camaro. All with either a 327 or a 350. For me R3E replicates the feel of that old school car with better sound, FFB and physics.
I race in VR and R3E seems to replicate that nostalgic feeling better. PCars2 is pretty good, but it still needs some work and tweaking. I run 4 buttkickers on my rig and PC2 hasn't quite got the sound and rumble that R3E has. And when I rev up an engine, that sound and rumble is what brings back the memories.

PC2 has only been out for 3 days and you've already spend over $3000 for 2 Titan XP's to up the graphics? Seems a little far fetched to me when one XP would have been plenty. Nothing personal but your story seems a bit fabricated and more like a commercial for Pcars. But hey, I've been wrong once before ....cheers.

I certainly agree all handling is subjective in these sims, some guys will spend time tweaking, and others want to just go with the out of the box feel, and some will never be satisfied no matter how much adjustment is given. I liked Pcars but feel Pcars2 is better in every way. It will take me several days to get things tweaked completly to my liking. Just as took time to get the handling right on all the cars I used to race. Now if your cars handled like the old school cars in R3E I'm sorry you missed out on what could have been an exciting time in real world racing. The R3E Greenwood Corvette was miles off of any Vette I ever raced. Perhaps you like to drag race and had them setup with ladder bars, and over sized bias ply tires, I can only speculate why they handled so strangely from your comments

Nvidia sells titan XP for $1200 not $1500. I usually upgrade my sim rig every year or at least when I feel there has been a significant new sim that justifies an upgrade like Pcars2. That way I can sell my old equipment while it still has some value and defer some of the high cost. I will pull the 2 Titan Maxwell cards when I get the 2 XP cards Wednesday. Btw one Titan XP is only half as good as 2 since they scale quite nicely and I am running Ultra settings. To say I fabricated the purchase of these cards is actually funny. If you think that's the case PM me and I will send you the tracking numbers and I will also post a picture of them this week when they arrive. If reading a good review of Pcars2 upsets you to the point of making accusations, you need to ask yourself , WHY? And please don't take this personally, just my take on what I'm reading. BTW I really do like this sim

 

[randMracer]

'Nothing personal but your story seems a bit fabricated and more like a commercial for Pcars.'

I felt that was sad. There are multiple very positive responses here so to assume this one is 'fabricated' made me sad. What I will say is that the vast majority of responses here, especially given the venue, is very encouraging and we're over the moon that people are enjoying the game so much.

Well I didn't say the story was fabricated. I guess just the way it was written "it seemed" fabricated to me. I never flat out accused him of fabricating the story. Since then SkidMeister has explained a little more, so no worries. I'm easy.

 

[randMracer]

I certainly agree all handling is subjective in these sims, some guys will spend time tweaking, and others want to just go with the out of the box feel, and some will never be satisfied no matter how much adjustment is given. I liked Pcars but feel Pcars2 is better in every way. It will take me several days to get things tweaked completly to my liking. Just as took time to get the handling right on all the cars I used to race. Now if your cars handled like the old school cars in R3E I'm sorry you missed out on what could have been an exciting time in real world racing. The R3E Greenwood Corvette was miles off of any Vette I ever raced. Perhaps you like to drag race and had them setup with ladder bars, and over sized bias ply tires, I can only speculate why they handled so strangely from your comments

Nvidia sells titan XP for $1200 not $1500. I usually upgrade my sim rig every year or at least when I feel there has been a significant new sim that justifies an upgrade like Pcars2. That way I can sell my old equipment while it still has some value and defer some of the high cost. I will pull the 2 Titan Maxwell cards when I get the 2 XP cards Wednesday. Btw one Titan XP is only half as good as 2 since they scale quite nicely and I am running Ultra settings. To say I fabricated the purchase of these cards is actually funny. If you think that's the case PM me and I will send you the tracking numbers and I will also post a picture of them this week when they arrive. If reading a good review of Pcars2 upsets you to the point of making accusations, you need to ask yourself , WHY? And please don't take this personally, just my take on what I'm reading. BTW I really do like this sim

My apologies if I came across as an arse. Guess I should have worded things a little differently. Like I said everything is subjective, so no sense in debating over something that can be so variable depending on rigs and setups. Cheers.

 

[Avo77]

I finally managed to start the game using some prehistoric nvidia drivers.
The first impressions are quite bad:
+ good pure lateral dynamics and weight transfer behaviour
+ convincing braking phase, pleasantly unstable but controllable
- atrocious combined grip in acceleration: unreal adherence levels and artificial braking force applied to the tires acting as automatic traction control. This is a true show stopper in my opinion and completely ruins the driving experience
- arcade grip levels on snow, ice, water, gravel
- unacceptable performances on my rig (770gtx 2Gb) even with everything on ‘low’
- some cars are exceptionally broken (lotus 49 is the most notable example).

At the moment is half-sim with decent potential, not on par with Ac, rf2 and AMS.

 

[thepharcyde]

I finally managed to start the game using some prehistoric nvidia drivers.
The first impressions are quite bad:
+ good pure lateral dynamics and weight transfer behaviour
+ convincing braking phase, pleasantly unstable but controllable
- atrocious combined grip in acceleration: unreal adherence levels and artificial braking force applied to the tires acting as automatic traction control. This is a true show stopper in my opinion and completely ruins the driving experience
- arcade grip levels on snow, ice, water, gravel
- unacceptable performances on my rig (770gtx 2Gb) even with everything on ‘low’
- some cars are exceptionally broken (lotus 49 is the most notable example).

At the moment is half-sim with decent potential, not on par with Ac, rf2 and AMS.

Hardly pinnacle a new card, what CPU is this paired with as you're lingering at the bottom of the minimum requirements that I assume is limited to min settings and low number of AI. I would say a 970 is where you should be aiming and i5

 

[Avo77]

I already have an i5 3.5Ghz and the 770 is still good for any other game with much better detail than PC2 on medium/low.

 

[Ole Andreasen]

Personally I purchased it, have tried it for little over an hour - and... well I am yet to discover the amazing leap forward from PC1, but then again - the possibilities in PC2 are more than enough for me to keep it, and yes I am sure I´ll fire it up once or twice a week and try out the different cars, tracks - and oh sure... the Career option. This is what keeps me at it the most. Love career modes...

Sorry for quoting myself - but better than to edit an old post.

I am now quite a few more hours into PC2 - and the longer I get into it, the better I feel about it. I find the physics to be quite nice indeed, and the graphics superb. I have two GTX980 cards on my i7 4790 cpu, and run PC2 on ultra settings with no problems at all.
For me this is a very very good game. I know others have a different feeling, but I love it.

 

[apex11]

Nothing was outsourced. Some 'interesting' commentary here

lol......

Mod reply from official forum. link to thread
http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?52726-PS4-VS-PC-version

"Console Version where tested by Professional Q&A Teams. (Outsourced not SMS)

There shouldn't be any Major differences between PC and Console. (Even if the Consoles have much less CPU/GPU Power).

There will be for sure Optimations in the next few Week/Months etc.

Underlaying FFB Issues on Consoles are allready beeing worked on. (As many other Things)

 

[Andy_J]

lol......

Mod reply from official forum. link to thread
http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?52726-PS4-VS-PC-version
"Console Version where tested by Professional Q&A Teams. (Outsourced not SMS)

Well obviously what Mr Bell meant when he said "nothing was outsourced", was that nothing was outsourced except for all that. I suppose one could say it's selective memory or little fibs here and there. There seems to be heck of a lot of complaints about the PS4 version though. So that begs the question, who were these professional Q&A teams that missed so many bugs?

I'm waiting for it to be patched on the PC before I buy it on steam. Then I will use the two hours to test it properly for myself. Looking forward to giving it a go actually.

 

[rw3]

When bugs make it through it's not always the QA team that's responsible, ie they may well bring up perfectly good reports but the developers may choose to mark them low priority or simply not have time to fix them or whatever other process may occur.

 

[Ian Bell]

lol......

Mod reply from official forum. link to thread
http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?52726-PS4-VS-PC-version

"Console Version where tested by Professional Q&A Teams. (Outsourced not SMS)

There shouldn't be any Major differences between PC and Console. (Even if the Consoles have much less CPU/GPU Power).

There will be for sure Optimations in the next few Week/Months etc.

Underlaying FFB Issues on Consoles are allready beeing worked on. (As many other Things)

None of the development was outsourced...

Well obviously what Mr Bell meant when he said "nothing was outsourced", was that nothing was outsourced except for all that. I suppose one could say it's selective memory or little fibs here and there. There seems to be heck of a lot of complaints about the PS4 version though. So that begs the question, who were these professional Q&A teams that missed so many bugs?

I'm waiting for it to be patched on the PC before I buy it on steam. Then I will use the two hours to test it properly for myself. Looking forward to giving it a go actually.

Not selective memory or fibs. When a publisher does QA for you it's not considered 'Outsourcing of development', which was what I was referring to. Thanks.

 

[Andy_J]

Thanks.

You are welcome.

 

[rw3]

Sounds about right re the QA, fairly standard practice in the business. While we've got Mr Bell here, any chance of an ETA on fixes for the following:
1. The qualifying skip-to-end-and-the-ai-gets-crazy-times bug
2. The snow grip bug (see formula rookie [love that car so much] in the snow in the career)

 

[apex11]

None of the development was outsourced...


Not selective memory or fibs. When a publisher does QA for you it's not considered 'Outsourcing of development', which was what I was referring to. Thanks.

Back when PCars 1 was released I got the ltd Ed xbox version for 20 quid that someone must if traded in, so a bargain and have clocked up about 600 hours on it over 2 odd years.
I then switched to PC, but anyway I can remember back in the dark days of waiting for console patches that you Ian alluded to PCars 1 having out sourced q and a and that this would never happen again....so why did it? I'm not that bothered as won't be getting the console version this time, but I can definitely remember you saying it was a mistake to out source q and a...

 

[Ian Bell]

Back when PCars 1 was released I got the ltd Ed xbox version for 20 quid that someone must if traded in, so a bargain and have clocked up about 600 hours on it over 2 odd years.
I then switched to PC, but anyway I can remember back in the dark days of waiting for console patches that you Ian alluded to PCars 1 having out sourced q and a and that this would never happen again....so why did it? I'm not that bothered as won't be getting the console version this time, but I can definitely remember you saying it was a mistake to out source q and a...

I said we'd ensure we had a proper publisher based QnA and that's what we had. We also grew our internal team by 4 additional people.

A proper Q and A team for a multi platform title would constitute maybe 40 full time staff for many months. Developers don't ramp these people up themselves, they make use of the publishers QnA departments, or they outsource.

 

[jimortality]

I said we'd ensure we had a proper publisher based QnA and that's what we had. We also grew our internal team by 4 additional people.

A proper Q and A team for a multi platform title would constitute maybe 40 full time staff for many months. Developers don't ramp these people up themselves, they make use of the publishers QnA departments, or they outsource.

I don't understand, do you mean for quality assurance? Do the publishers have the knowledge to test what's what?

 

[Ian Bell]

I don't understand, do you mean for quality assurance? Do the publishers have the knowledge to test what's what?

The tradition split is that developers design and create the game, publishers take care of QA and marketing. There are exceptions to that of course but they normally have a large team of QA professionals (with all of the multifarious kit required) which they stagger across each game in their portfolio.

 

[apex11]

That's all well and good but judging by your own forum and the PS4 and Xbox sections, the Q and A team failed.... Ultimately you then have to patch what they missed. Bollocking in coming for them?
Also Ian why would top SMS staff not spend a few hours with console versions?
Even you, steal an hour or 2 playing console version of your game? Then you could of seen for yourself some issues before it's released..