Rate The Sims: Community Edition | Assetto Corsa

[Paul Jeffrey]

We are looking to crown the 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite' racing game - get your votes in now for our first game on the list... Assetto Corsa!

Our dear RaceDepartment community. You folks are the most mighty fans of sim racing, often displaying an immense amount of understanding and depth of knowledge when it comes to our favourite hobby.

With sim racing and eSports in such a wonderful boom period of late. Gamers looking to have some fun with their virtual racing machines have never before had such a wide and robust variety of software to enjoy.

Now occasionally I've been in a position to rate new racing titles that have come my way, and almost every time I've received a wide variety of folks agreeing, or strongly disagreeing with my own opinions.

Opinions are great, but sometimes the opinion of one person, with their own likes and dislikes taken into account, can often give a bit of a skewed picture (intentional or not) to the greater cause in which said person is trying to explain.

As such, rather than doing one myself, and in the spirit of engaging some interesting community discussion, I thought it could be fun to let our own community rate each of the key sim racing / racing games available today.

As always with these things, please do try and respect each other and their opinions, and let's try to see if we can give a fun, but fair shake of the stick to each of the games included in this poll.

For transparency, I'm going to be featuring the following racing games over the next weeks:

• Assetto Corsa
• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Automobilista (AMS)
• DiRT 2.0
• F1 2019
• GT Sport
• GRID
• iRacing
• NASCAR Heat 4
• PCARS 2
• RaceRoom Racing Experience
• rFactor 2
• WRC 8

I'm going to launch the article each Monday evening, and keep the poll running for a full week until the next new article is pushed live. So get your votes in quick!

Once I've completed the full list of games, I'll publish a final results feature, and we can award the winning developer the lofty title of 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite'!

Have fun, stay sensible and let the voting commence!

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[Terry Rock]

AC has always been my sim of choice. I give it a solid 8.
The base pack has just gotten so much better over time with all the excellent mods.
There is nothing more rewarding than taking a car...any car, around Mugello for a good lap.
It still has a few issues but then again which sim doesn't.
I wish they'd fixed the 'auto brake' issue on entering the pit-lane at circuits like the same Mugello and Monza.
I would then have been able to give it a higher score.

 

[Ben Lee]

I have something of a love/hate relationship with AC. I love all what is in AC, but felt frustrated at some of the things “left out”.

For me it still has the best feeling FFB, no other sim communicates what the car is doing as well as AC. The sim also performs really well, and I think still looks reasonable from a visual point of view.

My interest in the sim was piqued when I learned that two things would be included, laser scanned tracks and Ferrari. I don’t think at that point Ferrari had been in a proper PC sim for years, maybe GTR2 was the last title to feature the marque. As soon as the AC Tech Preview was announced I jumped on it (I think it involved buying NetKar Pro – but it was fairly cheap). I loved it from the first moment, the feeling of the car, the way the track surface was so detailed and undulating with microbumps etc. However I sucked at it and my lap times were awful. I think my driving technique has changed over the years and I am now a lot better "sim driver" for it.

As I mentioned earlier, it was a shame that the wet weather running wasn’t an inclusion, particularly when they seem to have hacked together a fairly convincing version of it with the shader patches. A shame also that the title now is essentially abandoned when other developers have continued to develop their similar aged title(s).

For me, I love it, and if I were to grade it out of 10, id give it an 8.5, but that's not an option so I will give it an 8.

 

[Shuffy]

ac and sol is life

 

[Boby Kim]

Why no Need For Speed and the Grid franchise. Or Wrechfest or My Summercar?

 

[Jempy]

Giving a rating for "sim" or "game" will always remain partial ... according to the use the driver means to make of it and to the points which he finds important or not and sometimes details that can make him grumble
(NB: I never use a "career" or "private championship" mode and only use offline practice or race as preparation for an online event .... never on lobbies but only leagues and Racing Clubs )

As AC is my main sim since its very beginning and still today and might still remain the main one for some time... this will be a 8. ( 10 should mean perfect and it isn't as all simracing games, 9 should mean rather complete without too many missing features ).

Rather incomplete at the start, the modding community has made it nearly complete with high quality cars and tracks ( and less quality also as it is the case for any modding supported game ) ... and other important features as weather, night, rain etc .. with Ilja and Peter Boese ...
Add to it all features missing for leagues + hud tools and many other utilities made by other modders.
Thanks to all of them who made what AC is now ( and tomorrow ! ).

Surely a sim that will have the same longevity as GTR2 and RFactor had and still have...

NB: I don't blame Kunos for "leaving" its development as what should have been done is already done by modders.

Good FFB without having to search among too many settings is one of its + .... the worst con will remain ( in my opinion ) a rather poor collision handling.

 

[MarcG]

8 (Eight) Ate

Err yeah, I loved my time with AC and those first few moments in the cockpit in VR will live with me forever, it was just bloody superb!

Before that it was just a very good all round Sim, I was never that interested in Street cars so I mainly just raced the race cars but the AI was never that great (it got better in the final few patches must be said but never quite got to levels of other Sims). It became a nice Sim to drop into every now and then but i found my dedicated racing in other Sims.

With the arrival of VR however it breathed new life into AC for a short amount of time, driving those classic F1s with the sounds and incredibly detailed cockpits was just absolutely immense.

Unfortunately due to a lack of SSD space i eventually uninstalled as i raced other Sims more in VR, it's remained there collecting Steam Dust but i will return to it one day (perhaps at my next HMD upgrade) and take a look at the much hyped Sol patch.

I have very fond memories of this title, Kunos did a superb job on it.

 

[F_B]

Solid 8

+ tons of mods (still being developed)
+ physics & ffb
+ all kind of cars
+ good VR support & performance

– weak AI
– online only GT cars and the same 3 tracks
– not being developed anymore
– some race options/rules are missing

 

[racingdud3]

i am waiting for the rf2 poll, lol. Depending on s397 delivering or not the new UI and multiplayer system on time (before the RD poll) it could get a 3, a 9 or a 7 .....we dont know!

I love rf2 physics but racing on cave-communities kills my experience. AC is the full package....not the best on physics (below ams and rf2 ) but the community support already chose AC and thats what it makes AC the overall best by now.

Needless to know that as i am being sincere so i dont expect my positive rating go so hight on RD , SO its time to emo-rate my comment!

PD: If S397 make a good work with UI and multiplayer races they will get again a supporting fan . Enjoy your sims! ( even more iracing if you have spent half of your wages on it )

 

[racingdud3]

– online only GT cars and the same 3 tracks

may be you should use the free online platform that i can not mention here that has hourly races? Many tracks are used....yeah not all we would like but at least not only 3...Cheers! Regards Henrique Alves!

 

[F_B]

– online only GT cars and the same 3 tracks

may be you should use the free online platform that i can not mention here that has hourly races? Many tracks are used....yeah not all we would like but at least not only 3...Cheers! Regards Henrique Alves!

You mean the one with the three letters? I have taken part there some years ago. Perhaps I'll take a look at it again. However when it comes to organized and structured MP I rather choose Iracing.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

For what it was intended, delivered and then got upgraded by mods by, it deserves an 8.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

It's a 9 from me. Before AC I had dabbled in LFS and RBR, but neither of these titles sparked much in me. Then I bough AC on Early Access and I was hooked! My DFGT took a beating in the early days, and then once I discovered I could try and make my own tracks I realised AC was the only sim I needed.

The physics model feels convincing enough to me; I don't know how accurate it is, but it is consistent across all cars. The graphics engine is good enough so that the aesthetic quality of my tracks is limited by my PC spec and my imagination rather than the game itself. The amazing number of available mods, both free and paid, some average quality, some equal or better than original content is what keeps this game alive for me.

I voted 9 rather than 10 because of the lack of 24 hour transition and dynamic weather out of the box (even though if AC had both of those I would invariably end up racing at about 5pm with a slightly cloudy sky )

 

[F_B]

It's a 9 from me. Before AC I had dabbled in LFS and RBR, but neither of these titles sparked much in me. Then I bough AC on Early Access and I was hooked! My DFGT took a beating in the early days, and then once I discovered I could try and make my own tracks I realised AC was the only sim I needed.

The physics model feels convincing enough to me; I don't know how accurate it is, but it is consistent across all cars. The graphics engine is good enough so that the aesthetic quality of my tracks is limited by my PC spec and my imagination rather than the game itself. The amazing number of available mods, both free and paid, some average quality, some equal or better than original content is what keeps this game alive for me.

I voted 9 rather than 10 because of the lack of 24 hour transition and dynamic weather out of the box (even though if AC had both of those I would invariably end up racing at about 5pm with a slightly cloudy sky )

If AC had rfactor 2s AI (if done right it is really good) and more race options it would be at least 9.0 for me.
The modding is what keeps AC alive and imo it is the modern rfactor 1 which was also kept alive by mods.

 

[Sharpy Bonfire]

8 points for AC
10 points for AC with mods

 

[madhopz]

I gave it a 7. It needs better FFB. Mods are fine but you run the risk of really bad ones screwing up your installation. The audio is really good as far as I am concerned. Like the rest, it just a game, not a religion.

 

[Nicecuppatea]

Strongly agree that modding is what elevates AC above other sims for me. I never understand why companies don't see that modding vastly extends and enriches a game's life, granted it won't turn a bad game into a good one but AC doesn't have that worry.

 

[manu68]

I take assetto corsa as a robust platform.

In the past I was more "addicted" to grand prix legends, but know that i have a more limited time for online racing, assetto corsa is perfect.

Of course CM and SOL are both fantastics.

 

[redoer]

1058 hours with AC, I have to give a 10

 

[Fat-Alfie]

I think @Carl Hungus has a stutter on his mouse finger when it hovers over the 'disagree' button

Mouse-Tourettes Syndrome, anyone?

 

[David Wright]

Kunos are losing big by abandoning such a successful title.

AC is still selling well so Kunos are still benefiting from it. To move forward with AC would mean breaking existing mods and a huge amount of work updating the game engine,and all the existing cars and tracks - for which you can't charge again.