Project CARS Preview: The ultimate car racing game ?
Alex Walker ABC Technology and Games 3 Sep 2014
In the land that is crowd funded video games, there are a couple of standard bearers, benchmarks for the way forward,
evidence of what the platform is capable of. The never-ending financial success of Star Citizen is one such example; the
unexpected brilliance of Faster Than Light and the staggering competence of the New Zealand-made Path of Exile are
others.
Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been popular ventures for such campaigns, with the former recently publishing a list of
more than 100 games since released to the public. But there is always another route: hosting the campaign yourself,
something that the makers of Project CARS, one of the most hugely-successful crowd-funded games to date, has done.
Famous for the Need for Speed: SHIFT series, Slightly Mad Studios now has another honour to its name, having
organised the 19th most successful crowdfunding campaign of all time with over 2.2 million euros of capital from fans.
The dedication is so much that the community regularly produces trailers and screenshot galleries of their own that any
developer would be proud of.
The never-ending buzz on social media and YouTube is infectious, but access to any of the in-progress builds is restricted
to the original backers ever since the British financial services regulator asked for a stay on the pCARS crowdfunding
campaign in late 2012. Certain levels of the pCARS campaign offered a return of the game's profits and Slightly Mad, in
the middle of last year, changed their model going forward to "avoid it being considered a collective investment
scheme".
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But while the British developers were barred from raising Star Citizen-like vaults of gold, that rarity of access and the
growing word of mouth publicity has given Slightly Mad a level of momentum most developers can only dream of. It
doesn't hurt that the Galileo Engine, which powers pCARS and Slightly Mad's free-to-play racing MMO World of Speed,
is breathtaking in its beauty.
That much was immediately evident in my preview of pCARS at the Bandai Namco offices in Sydney's Redfern. The
session was split into two sections, the first featuring the tighter, but much more limited, Gamescom demo shown in
Germany; showcasing just one track, but with AI and weather modelling at its finest.
There is actually a freakish level of customisation for the AI, with individual sliders for aggression, passing, blocking,
reaction times and overall racing ability. That meticulous streak of design extends throughout to the driving assists,
HUD, overall UI and especially the graphics, which looked gorgeous on the Bandai Namco PC - an Intel i7-4960x
teamed up with a NVIDIA GTX 780Ti, hooked up to a Panasonic 4K screen.
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And despite rendering rolling thunderstorms, a track littered with debris - a regular occurrence in the daily build, where
the AI drives more in a manner more befitting of Carmageddon - an advanced HUD that tracks the individual
temperature of each of the tyres, the throttle and brake percentages, the overall status of the car and the G-forces
currently being exerted, there wasn't one noticeable drop in the frame rate.
It's a good thing too, because the driving model in pCARS, even with the difficulty lowered and all the assists on, still
requires a good deal of time to master. Casual F1 or GRID fans won't get away with carte blanche assaults on the
accelerator. My starting Audi - one of the slower and therefore more controllable vehicles for novices - still occasionally
twitched as I came into the straights, particularly in my more cavalier moments cutting the grass and driving on the kerb.
But despite my lack of time with more serious sims, such as rFactor and iRacing, I was able to put my track knowledge
to use. Described once by Gerhard Berger as the best circuit in the world, Brands Hatch provided a perfect opportunity
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to get accustomed with the driving model.
Instantly, from the first corner, certain behaviours were noticeable. I felt - not so much through the vibration of the
controller, but from the reaction of the car - the camber and track much more harshly than any racer I'd played
previously. Hardcore racers had advised me beforehand against driving all out and after one lap I immediately
understood why - it's simply impossible to push the car to its limit the same way you would in other games, because the
impact of the track, environment, your car and those around it are much more pronounced.
Another element that's more pronounced even on lower difficulties is the AI's Sebastian Vettel-like attitude on the track.
The Gamescom build exhibited a much fairer brand of track racing, although regardless of what numbers were crunched
when you get bumped, the result is the same: you're pretty much buggered. Regaining a few places isn't impossible,
although with the grit on the tyres and rolling thunderstorms - you can't change your tyres in the Gamescom demo - a
clean lap felt like a gargantuan achievement.
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Given how many variables affect the performance and handling of each vehicle, don't expect to be able to comfortably
switch from one car to another without a wealth of experience. I laughably attempted to take an Ariel Atom for a spin
around Laguna Seca, but lacking any knowledge about cars - I don't have a driver's licence - I may as well have been
given an fridge on ice.
The Atom was twitching violently across the track, even before the first corner with the most cautious start possible.
Noticing this, I was given the reigns to the Mugen, a less powerful but ultimately more controllable sub-class of the
Atom, which allowed me to at least complete a lap with my dignity intact.
When pCARS launches proper the entire career mode will be complete, offering a more structured and more stable
introduction into the world of professional racing. That start, the path Lewis Hamilton and so many others have followed,
begins with go-kart racing - and oh me oh my, are go-karts fun.
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You can thrash the pocket rockets on any of the game's tracks, but for a true experience the specialist go-kart tracks are
recommended. I tried a few laps on Glencairn, with lots of tight corners, hills, dips and the wild AI of the daily build,
which made for glorious, kart-smashing mayhem. It's comfortably the most fun I've had controlling a vehicle this year
and reminds me favourably of my hours in Gran Turismo 5, albeit without the horrendous loading times and sparse
backgrounds.
After almost an hour's practice, it was only fitting that I finished my preview with a time trial around the mountain at
Bathurst. Thanks to some V8 Supercars 3 races, the track was largely familiar, although the ongoing curse of the day -
the notoriously inaccurate dynamic racing line in Project CARS - caused much consternation on my first few laps.
I wasn't going to set any speed records, but I was starting to appreciate handling a vehicle without all the traction and
stability controls on full, breaking more efficiently and learning what corners and angles my capabilities would allow me
to push.
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It's difficult to appreciate Slightly Mad's attention to detail at times, because of the tunnel vision that develops when you
concentrate solely on the next apex and the next racer. But there are many finer points worth mentioning, like the
inclusion of the passenger cockpit and helmet camera views, the subtle roar as you gently squeeze the accelerator, the
crunch of metal as a six-car pileup sends one of the AI soaring into the air or the way your car lurches and bumps as you
caress the camber and crevices of every corner.
There's so much more to say - the various classes you can compete in, the glory of point-to-point tracks such as the
California Highway, the number of manufacturers that have come on board offering their official support or the graphics
- and not everything is perfect. The force feedback system feels a little limited, there are no visual cues in the daily build
for when you venture onto the grass, making it difficult to gauge when your racing can resume at full pelt, and it would
be nice to have a UI that includes the track mini-map and the throttle/brake levels.
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But perhaps the most appropriate remark I can pass is this: if you haven't upgraded to the latest generation of consoles,
and have any passing interest in racing at all, then Project CARS might be the killer app you've been waiting for. It
certainly looks the part.
Project CARS is due out in November for Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC. Wii U and SteamOS versions are
scheduled for release in 2015.
Alex Walker is the regular gaming columnist for ABC Tech + Games. You can follow him on Twitter at @thedippaeffect.
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