Rate the Sims: Community Edition | rFactor 2

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
We are looking to crown the 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite' racing game - get your votes in now for our next game on the list... rFactor 2!

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:


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!

RD Community Favourite-rF2.jpg
 
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My fav sim, the only I play, the only choice if you want more imersion into a race since it's the one with more features when is about that part. Best tire model, great physics, the sim with more potential among all others in the market.
The only sim that offers almost all of what a real life series needs (like Blancpain... ahem)
But... I'll give it a 2
Bugs that take forever to be looked into let alone fixed, stupid limitations that should have been solved long ago, too much bad dev choices, low quality on most content, physics dude is just bad (I dont mean Borda, he is still great), art choices are just all over the place, no consistency, and many times when suggesting something all we hear is "it's easy, do it yourself", dafuq...
Should have rebranded and released a new sim when they had the chance.
My 2 cents... together with my 2 score :D
 
All sims have something to offer. I like to drive. I want that driving to feel as close to a real car as possible. RF2 has no peer as far as I am concerned when it comes to driving. The graphics could be more modern, but if I want knock em dead graphics, I go to PC2. Everyone complains about the UI, but for me it's a non issue. It has a lot of flexibility and I don't need a Windows-like experience in everything I do.

The recent additions of tracks and cars is much appreciated. Nurburgring feels more real in RF2 than any other sim that I have. I like the feel of the ring in ACC and it comes close. AC and PC2 doesn't even compare. The sounds of the cars in RF2 sound really nice to me to.

I hope they continue to improve the product and not weird out and try to make it something for everyone that seems to be the trend. I believe that is why ACC is very good. They concentrated on one thing and hammered it.
 
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For me a 10 when it comes to real driving
the pure driving psygics (nobody even comes close) and everything else only gets better with a little patience. What seems to be difficult for many people .. How studio 397 brought the old Rfactor2 from almost dead to dx11 and VR ... things just take time! Sebring ... Le mans .. Nordschleife ... love this tracks laser scaned!!! the Porsche cup car the best in town
my opinion. real fun to drive

and Marcel who often shows himself on the forums. Wish them all the best for 2020

 
I enjoyed the driving and took to it like fish to water but having to tinker with ini files, poor UI and explanations, inconsistent VR performance, glitches and such put me off. Sim racing is a relaxing hobby for me and rf2 just adds a lot of maintenance that sucks the fun out of it.

I rather my time be spent driving than making the game run. Thus I haven’t gone back to it for months.
 
rF2 is one of my favorite titles and I rate it very high in terms of it's simulation aspects. Of course, it remains a WIP title that can seem like very slow progression but, I have no doubt that the updates being made present a challenge for the studio. I'm very glad to see development continuing and hope that the drive-train modeling and audio also receive substantial updates in the future, along with overall attention to the single-player experience.
 
Bought it the day it came out ages ago because I really enjoyed rFactor. Never quite got hooked, haven't had it installed for many years now, got my lifetime account transferred to Steam on the last possible day, that's the last time I dealt with it. Maybe one day I'll give it another go, atm iRacing, ACC and Dirt Rally2 cover all my needs and then some. So: no vote from me, cause it's too long ago I played it (feels like 6-8 years? is that even possible?)
 
Where to begin? Well it's my most raced sim of them all and generally has been my fave since 2012 (and rf1 before it), in that time I've thoroughly enjoyed racing it, but...

The ISI "not so golden" Years:
I got it, it was more of a tech release for them as they clearly didn't have much of an idea on how to take the Sim forward, unlike the whiners & groaners on the forums I understood what they were doing and just got on and enjoyed the ride. But it wasn't without frustration, they made advancements in AI but never delivered a simple Offline Championship which was there in it's predecessor, DLC whether Free or Paid was all over the place in terms of Quality and the Online Infrastructure was non-existent alongside the Paywall controversy. Features got added half-baked and never finished, bugs remained without any hope of eventually being fixed, it all felt....unloved.

Then came the end, they went deafly silent for a few months before Marcel came along and started to "save" the Sim.

Studio397, onwards and upwards?
They started off grand, DX11, VR and an outline to just improve the Sim in most aspects. Unfortunately the DLC (free/paid) Quality was still all over the place, Car Packs being released without Skins, minor Bugs never fixed or took and age to get fixed. But the background work had started to shift the Sim back to the top of the pile. The one thing they didn't need to change was ISIs brilliant FFB and overall Driving sensation and now in VR it just became bloody awesome. Instead they focused on Shaders and making it look "better", the never-ending UI which recently released is just fine but not an essential area IMO, the need to concentrate on the Online Experience was necessary but it's been painfully at the expense of the Offline side of the Sim which has simply gathered dust and doesn't look likely to be "cleaned" anytime soon....and this worries me - severely.

On the flip side DLC (free/paid) has gotten some Quality Control over time, but it still could be better, often the odd car looks like it's been rushed, tracks however have simply been brilliant with the odd exception. Sebring & Le Mans are two of the very best racing tracks in the Sim World for me, just a shame they haven't popped to AUS' to grab some decent tracks (like most Devs) as that would be the icing on the track cake for me.

So with the awesome FFB, the VR which is perfectly fine performance wise for my tastes and the AI - which is still good - it has remained my Go To Sim for many years, but I fear this is about to change soon. The ongoing Online Bugs, the lack of any focused development to Offline, the UI that's taken far too long to get where it's at now, the simple fact that other Sims are ahead and in some cases by a long shot - I really fear for RF2 in 2020 and beyond, but I've certainly had my fun with it and still do to this day. It's lacking Polish, something that was leftover from ISI, it's like there's a need to get things done but at the expense of other areas (Offline....have I mentioned that?!), Reiza are the Polish Kings and their Car/Track Pack did breathe new light into RF2 for a brief moment and it really showed S397 how it should be done.

Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything Marcel and the team have done, they are wonderful chaps privately and I've been lucky enough to help out from a closer angle than many, they did rescuse and they did improve the Sim in many aspects overall which cannot be denied.. Whilst I may not totally agree with their choices it is THEIR choice of what to do, at least they have a vision unlike ISI seemingly had, they're doing their best to take it forward - but in my opinion it's taking too long and I think they need to step it up in 2020.

It may not be the King any more, more a retiring Prince perhaps. 6/10
 
Gave it an 8.
To be honest it depends on the content (I have not checked the latest update yet).

Sometimes it feels like an easy 9 or even close 10, like Nurburg or Le Mans in one of the new cars, to be pulled back by the less than stellar GUI (see part about latest version) or old car / track combination.
 

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Online or Offline racing?

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