So Driveclub is one amazing game...

I have to admit launch was rocky and uncertain. But to that notion no one reviewer even mentioned the server problems. I respect Jeff but he and many others simply let their emotions carry them into a fantasy land where this game isn't any good. It's near my GOTY and for good reason: it has everything I have ever wanted in a racer with a kick ass online component that allows me to intimately race with other people and challenge their skills at will.

I have played just about every racer on the market including sims, simcade, and pure arcade on all of the systems and a PC for good measure. I honestly haven't had this much fun since GT3 or Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. The frequent patches and attention to the community is almost second to none. There are a few things that can still be worked on of course. It is not perfect. But I'll be damned if this isn't near my GOTY this year. Along with FH2 I am in racing heaven and not even my PC is getting this much racing attention by any shot.

I don't really find any problems with the AI. In fact I love them. It's dynamic for sure but they never go past their speed limits. I crash into them on occasion and they do the same to me. It's tough but not near as tough as the old Pacific Rift game. Handling, physics, weather, and everything else seems spot on. The graphics in this game, I must honestly say, are the best next gen graphics on any console to date. The lighting engine needs to be driven around every Sony dev out there. The new weather patch was possinbly the most glorious patch since added into a game. Yeah, it should have been there day one. Shame on you Sony for releasing this without weather!

Challenges, now working, are innovative and a lot of fun. Racing in a club has never felt this immersive imo. Sure, it should have launched with these things but you cannot win them all I suppose. As of now the game is a centerpiece on any PS4's owners mantle. I personally love the 'offline' component. I enjoy racing other people's best times and it has literally never been more immersive to engage people I have never met. Online is there and working well. Some may not like the visceral moment to moment tension, where can and will be crashed into by anyone from a noob to a pro, but I have had fun coming last or first because of the challenges that pop up giving you something to do even if you are not winning.

I cannot understand for the life of me the low reviews just on the racing alone either. It's absolutely fantastic and the DRIFTING, my god, is the best part of this game for me. I simply fell in love with these mechanics from the start. I can't believe sometimes that I drift more than I race lol. At any rate what does the G Bomb community think about this game now that it has had some time in the oven?

Those other people aren't wrong; they just have another opinion from you.

There's been some balance patches since launch, so keep that in mind. That includes the time penalties for driving off the track, some fixes to the AI etc.

I played the game for some hours when it came out. Good-looking game, but I largely agree with Jeff's review in that I didn't really like how the game handles. It's too...sticky.

Driveclub's low scores by and large came from people who don't really like racing games. Jeff's in particular sticks out as one of the most unhelpful to driving game enthusiasts. At some points he just gets stuff flat out wrong (in the review I believe he says you can't change your car's paint color, but you absolutely can). Also aside from Jeff, I don't think any other review took issue with the handling, and from nearly everyone else I've heard from that has played it, the driving is supposed to be best in class.

Poor reviews from people with warped expectations coupled with Driveclub's horrendous server issues seems to have really hurt what could have been a cool, community-driven series.

Fortunately it seems like with the latest weather update people have been giving it a second chance, and I'm once again hearing a lot of positive things, so I guess it's not over quite yet.

I think when they're saying Driveclub is a bad game they're straight up wrong. I can understand if someone felt the way the game handles wasn't their cup of tea, but I think Driveclub, as a single-player game, at least, is a very well made game and actually quite a damn good racer. It's also nice that in a genre where your games are essentially either Forza or Criterion Need for Speed that Driveclub strikes something of a PGR-style balance.

I took a chance on the game at launch and was actually pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed it as a racer. I think the handling model is excellent and the game's progression is pretty great, it felt accessible early and the difficulty curve as the game went on caused me to drive better and approach corners much more intelligently. The game's collision and corner-cutting penalties didn't bother me at all (outside of one or two very specific corners where it would kick in when I didn't even realised I'd cut a corner) and for the most part I found them fairly lenient. It's also nice to have a game that handles this way that doesn't have a goddamn racing line - the corner flags were a great idea, my only complaint is that they're not on every track. And honestly, I appreciate that its structure is something of a throwback. I don't need every racer to be an open world, in fact I'd probably rather they weren't. I really enjoyed making my way through the various events.

It's a damn shame Driveclub's launch was a disaster, and it's fucking crazy that it's still recovering today (though I haven't played it much lately to know how much of that stuff still has issues), but the core game itself is honestly great. It's really a shame the Plus version couldn't have launched alongside Driveclub (without any server issues), because I think we'd have seen a lot more people play the game and realise that, hey, this game is actually pretty damn good!

I didn't really mean to say Jeff's opinion is wrong just that his overall assertion, and please he made it clear in abundance with his crazy rants on the game in podcasts, that DC is a bad game is clearly wrong. It isn't bad in away shape or form. ASSCreed Unity is generally a bad game with horrible performance and issues with story, controls, and sound.

Everyone I talk to in the racing community seems to love DC or at least respect it. Newcomers even seem to love it and the general change in consensus since the weather patch has been pretty amazing. What is not amazing is the hyperbole leveled at this game from the start. You would have thought they totally bungled every aspect of the game and it is clearly the furthest thing from the truth.

Challenges are amazing and innovative for a racing game to me. I love them and I love competing against my fellow racers in such intimate style. Jeff couldn't even find the customized colors in garage so yeah his review was just a teensy bit out there. Match that with his general and sometimes weird disdain for the game and it makes me think he just had no idea what he was saying or playing in general. I still like some of his reviews I just don't think in any way that one was fair since no server issues were even mentioned. Weather alone did not make this game good. Challenges and the lack of these were non-existent in his review and that was mostly the biggest thing besides online races.

As for the driving model being bad that's just hilarious. The driving model in this game is top tier and it's quite easy to see that after spending one afternoon with the game.

@khronikos: What if he didn't like the driving model? It's not like any review is trying to say that something is objectively bad, it's just an opinion.

Jeff has pretty clearly behaved as though Driveclub being bad is a fact.

@khronikos: It's strange that you choose to defend one game by using the same exaggerations and semi-correct generalizations on another. There are plenty of people who think that Unity is mechanically the best game in the franchise, or best since AC:2 anyway. Apart from performance hiccups and some occasional AI tomfoolery the game worked as intended.

I might as well say Drive Club is generally known to be a bad game with poor physics, bad controls and uninteresting design. Of course that is all hearsay that I picked up from the internet, as I haven't personally played the game. It's great that you're passionate about DC, but lets all make it a better world and defend the games we love on their own merits without putting down others. Sorry for the rant but this bothers me to no end when I see it.

Eh, it's still just an opinion. Jeff talks in extremes sometimes for comedic effect, but it's clear that it's still just his opinion on the game. He shouldn't have to say "in my opinion" every time he says something, because that should be clear to everyone listening/watching. It's just as ridiculous to say that his opinion is clearly wrong. He might have gotten the paint change wrong, but his point about that still stands: There's very little customization in the game. If you care about that or not is of course up to you, but that's still a fact.

Anyways, it's also pretty dumb to say, like @berserker976 did, that Jeff (or any other reviewer) who gave this a bad score "doesn't like racing games". Jeff clearly loves all kind of arcade racers, and racers that are a combo of arcade/sim (Forza Horizon), like I guess Driveclub is going for. He's also a fan of the Forza series, but not that much of the GT series. To say that he's not a fan of the genre is just an easy and inaccurate way of trying to dismiss the review.

Well jeff is totaly right. It doesnt handle as an sim game and it doesnt handle like the usual fast paced arcade driver. If you like that then enjoy but i agree with Jeff that its very dull indeed. For me the cars has to behave realistic unless they are just comic relief like in a gta game.

Jeff was right, it was poor at launch, even taking into account the online stuff working. But they've done a good job of addressing the worst AI and penalty problems, have added new stuff including tracks, cars and weather dynamics, fixed the online stuff.

It's at the point now where it's a damn fine, playable racer for PS owners in anticipation of Gran Turismo.

Sure, there are parts still a little vanilla but for a progression racer it could be a lot worse. Only the elite games better it. It's a solid 7/8 out of 10.

As a racer, it handles 10 times better than The Crew.

Kind of hoping it wins best looking game in the GOTY awards. It's a stunning thing, especially with the weather included.

This kind of bothered me too, i've yet to play either of the titles but from my own friend group most peole reckon AC is okay but glitchy whilst Drive Club they all hate. Its good you are happy with your purchases and you are passionite enough to defend them but you are doing the exact same thing you are accusing Jeff of doing.

Didn't Jeff say you can't customize your cars?

I haven't played the game so i might be remembering that wrong but if it's true that would be a deal breaker for me alone. How do you not have that in a somewhat simish game? The lack of features and with the broken game at launch I can see why Jeff just gave up on it.

All cosmetic customization falls under your Club livery and there is no tuning system.

@corevi: more important there is no setup system.

[citation needed]

Guess it deleted the last post. TLDR Asscreed runs at 15-30FPS still. A broken game, objectively, in the sense the framerate is not anywhere near where it is supposed to be. The only such thing about DC in this way was the servers which were clearly not mentioned in the review. Jeff has so far not even said anything about them and pretty much to anyone who has played the game that is the ONLY concern. So yeah, for me that review was embarrassing taken along with his antics on the podcasts, which in all honesty, tried to portray the game as some kind of travesty. As a racing fan much higher on just about any leaderboard than Jeff will ever be, I wholeheartedly want to ask him what kind of racing fan he actually is.... I have and enjoy Forza, FH2, Project Cars as a supporter, numerous PC sims, and just about every game released having to do with racing on the PS systems. You'll have to excuse me for thinking Jeff has no idea what he is talking about for that review.

You guys can keep defending the review like it's relevant but....

You brought it up, I'm not sure anyone was defending the review before you made this topic.

Come on dude, that's a poor way to judge if someone is right to review a game. Jeff doesn't have the time to invest in any game for too long so his leaderboard times are not going to be good. Also, the idea that you can only review games if you are good at them is complete crap. A good game is good regardless of how good you are at it. For example, I'm fucking terrible at Halo multiplayer but I acknowledge it as a great game. More importantly, despite being bad at it, I still have fun with it. Jeff stated on the podcast that he wasn't enjoying the handling of the cars which will kill a racing game regardless of how good the rest of the package is.

@khronikos: well as a big fan of both racing games and the AC series i can say they suffer very similar problems. Both games onlineparts where utterly broken on release but the main problem is that they are very dull uninspired games. The way DC was announced on the ps4 event is nothing like what it turned out to be.

Well, I could argue Asscreed Unity is inspired for what it tried to do. I have no doubt those artists worked their butts off in the time constraints and were just obliged to obey their masters. The programming is of course garbage because it seemed they just rushed it out. Creed is inherently broken on the performance end though. Something not even close with DC.

Saying DC is uninspired lol. Has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. No other GAME has a better lighting engine out right now. No other game has that much detail in the cars nor does any other game entail the same sense of speed with the extremely detailed weather. IMO your idea of uninspired, a word you have used over twice now to describe it, is pretty ridiculous but I guess to each their own. What exactly would you have a racing game do that would be inspiring?

I also did not say Jeff had no right to review the game. Even after reading the review I wasn't quite sure what to think. After playing it yeah I think Jeff is insane. But coming from quite a lot of experience in racers I don't think he is really qualified to crap on a game like he did and ACT like he is in fact qualified to do that. His review came off to me as perverse. The guy above me probably hasn't even played the game, yet seems to have quite an opinion on it. I'd love to see how many hours you have in DC while saying the artists and programmers there were all pretty dull and made an uninspiring game. Everyone I know seems to think the game is pretty damn inspired in its ability to give racing fans exactly what they want: extremely fast and competitive racing with absolutely astonishing detail and sound effects matched by no current game in the racing genre.

Furthermore, as a vet of just about every racing game out there who the hell cannot adjust to handling models? I have played 15 racing games in the last two years and adjusted just fine to every single handling model. I don't get this complaint, especially when I think, and so do many others, that DC has the BEST handling model in a simcade ever put to retail.

@khronikos: I feel like me and others in this thread are going to go in circles with you. Jeff has played a bunch of racing games of many different types throughout his career so he's not lacking in experience. He just didn't like the game. It's perfectly fine to have a different opinion on the game but to say that his opinion is "Dead wrong" is why people are defending his review. This thread could have been a way to present what you loved about Drive club, the GB community is far more inclusive of people with differing opinions to the staff than other sites. For example, this Dragon Age review by @yummylee where he was pretty negative towards a game which one of the staff enjoyed greatly. Instead it's turned into people defending Jeff's review which is probably not what anyone wanted.

They are free to defend it. I've defended reviews of his before. It's not a big deal. My biggest deal is calling the game uninspired which to me is pretty damn weak criticism considering all the game does right. It just doesn't gel well. It's like calling a Ferrari uninspired because you don't like the way the trunk looks.

Dead wrong? Maybe a tad hyperbole? After Jeff's rants on podcasts? Not really....

This thread is still a way to present what I love about DC. Arguing over a review doesn't change that. Maybe people need a thicker skin as it has become obvious some are concerned more about the comments on Jeff's review than most of what my post was about.

More or less the community seems more interested in defending Jeff than actually saying anything about DC other than the normal hyperbole which in all honesty doesn't even make any sense anymore. That I can't change. I guess if people here haven't played the game much then that would be hard. At any rate I'm fine with the thread and its debate. I wasn't looking for a slathering of unconditional love and googly eyes for DC really.

@khronikos: I have spent about 20hours in DC and every race feels like the trailblazer events from the dirt series. Just long straights with mild turns and the cars seems to be on rails. Its no problem to adjust to the handling as it is super basic and very close to pure arcade racers. The sense of speed is there in games like whipeout aswell but its not becouse there is any real sense of speed its just an arcady smokescreen. A real sense of speed you get when you drive your car at the very limit and the slightest mistake will make you crash horrible, there is nothing of this in DC.

The way the game was presented as an as an rival to GT with car porn and attention to detail for petrolheads there is nothing of that in this game. I had this game preordered with my PS4 and it sure was a let down when it finally arrived.

The graphics didnt seems like something aweinspiring but that may be becouse i was so unimpressed by everything else and got in a bad mood. I havnt tried the game since the weather patch so i wouldnt know about that but as for now i will have to look to my previous generation console for good racing wich is a first for Sony.

Well that is a good summary of how you feel instead of the last paragraph. I would disagree. I do think the weather has added a lot to the game and so has the extra DLC for sure. Evo's plan, or Sony IDK, was definitely messed up and deserved a lot of criticism.

But I cannot hate Evo for that. I'm having too much fun with the game, especially with the most overlooked part that is drifting, which is the best part of the game for me in many ways. I can see how people tired of games in general don't really have much affinity. But then again that would mean the same for other games like FH2, which does in fact get pretty boring at some point, and also Project Cars, Forza, GT, etc. I was pretty burned out myself on racing games before the PS4.

The new lighting engine I would say really does the game a lot of favors alongside its sense of speed. Usually I play 60FPS racers and DC has held up much better than I ever thought it would. The long straights thing IDK. Some of the course but that to me brings out the fun in online racers when the pack is dancing on a long line. There are plenty of curvy courses though too imo. I expect Japan DLC to have a lot more as well.

Uh, Jeff's profession for damn near 20 years now has been video games. It doesn't get much more "qualified" than that.

@khronikos: Jeff never calls it uninspired in the review and I don't recall any 'rants' about the game on the podcast. Whenever it was mentioned, he would quickly dismiss as if it was not worth really talking about. I can understand how annoying it can be to listen to someone criticize something you enjoy every time it is brought up but I doubt there will be any further discussion on the podcast about it.

I think it was just the way it came up on one of the podcasts and his absolute disdain that shocked me. I just couldn't believe I was listening to a professional without an agenda. I'm over it. I hope maybe someday Jeff comes around to not hate the game.

This was a good read. Thank you. I never thought I'd see a thread defending THIS game so vehemently. Care to go more in depth on Jeff's "agenda" to bury Driveclub? Is he in cahoots with the Forza Horizon devs perhaps?

Hmm, interesting. I haven't played it yet because they never released the free version.

@handlas: Have you played the game, in order to provide a reasoned rebuttal as to why one would not defend this game?

This game got mixed reviews, it wasn't outright panned. The other reviewer that I checked, who is pretty much a car game guy liked the game quite a bit.

I don't think trying to pretend the launch of this game wasn't objectively disastrous is doing you any good.

The game was near enough unable to be played as intended for a month.

It was not playable online for two to three weeks. Sporadically it was mediocre to good for the next two weeks. From then it was mostly okay but without challenges. It deserved some criticism and harsh at that. The problem: no one reviewer actually mentioned the server problems.

At this point in time the game is fantastic. NEW DLC today for US folks. Season pass holders finally get a vintage vet and two more 45? star events! One at least with all the new weather.

If publishers are going to shove day one releases and incentives down the throats of press, and the highest interest in reviews and coverage are on release day, then of course a buggy and broken game at launch is going to burn up a lot of good will. That said, sometimes patched up games end up landing on their feet and become very good games well after the fact, but you won't and shouldn't hear about that because a game that gets pooped out to hit a release day doesn't deserve redemption for being good well after the majority of potential fans got shit all over.

On i sidenote i think its hilarious that they state they wont release the PS+ game becouse "they cant guarante the best online performance" but they sure as hell can take money for the game in that state.

@khronikos: 2 months for the plus version!? That's ridiculous. That was supposed to be day and date. And you're saying they are also releasing DLC? That's just unbelievable to me and not something I want to support.

I bought this game on its release. Sold it the following day. In my opinion not the worst driving game, but not something I wanted to play. I didn't like much of anything about it. The first time I tried to pass on the inside of a corner and one tire left the track and I was penalized I turned the game off.

@khronikos: I'll play it when its free. I'd say that is the biggest reason this game gets such a bad wrap. They said they were giving a free version of it to PS+ subscribers day of release. When that didn't come out and the game had a bunch of server issues at launch people weren't really willing to put 60 bucks down on it. If they release the free version than people can try it and make up their own minds.

That's what the hivemind tells me to think anyways. Jeff is my overlord. I must support him at all costs. Long live the new flesh.

Well let me just say bud you WILL get your chance, and by that time, the game will be better than it ever would have been at launch. So you can make up your mind then. It will come just be patient. They had to redo over half their server code. Game was always 50 bones if you upgraded from plus though like most people did. It does have a very healthy community at least. I have no idea how far they are along. For all I know they could be done at the end of January.

You're right. You can paint the car. 10/10.

@lukeweizer: Oh you snarky guy you. What is good though is that India has been improved and that is what people will get with PS Plus. India + Rain is godly imo. Most realistic rep of India I have ever seen.

@khronikos: If they have to redo 50% of the code just to get it working wtf. where they smoking when they made the game in the first place?

This alongside the Halo collection continues to baffle and amuze me every single day that passes. You have sparked my interest however, i will redownload the game and see what the fuzz with this weather patch is all about.

One of the biggest bummers for me initialy was that they locked some of my favourite cars behind club levels and it was impossible to even create a club at that time. Hopefully that will be fixed at least.

How does one upgrade from that which doesn't exist?

@spraynardtatum: Anyone that bought the game I mean.... not just the free version. You bought the game, with a PS Plus sub, and it was 50 dollars for all those people. The game also just had a heavy retail physical sale for 35 on Amazon that put it well over a million sold total. No one knows how many were digital but educated guesses say around 30-60 percent were digital. Big gap but it's hard to tell.

As for the guy above you nothing is locked in clubs as long as you join one and unlock them. They are yours to keep after that. You should join a club or start your own though even if it is just you. You'll unlock the Bac Mono in no time and it's not really a concern anymore imo.

Also, It's more that they didn't have the foresight to see that their extensive online component would buckle under the massive pressure they were about to put it into. The game really is very online centric in that way. Redoing all the code is just a matter of the code simply not being useful for what they found to be their problem, not that the code itself was poor. The management and foresight was poor. Again though, these guys have imo went above and beyond. Anyone who buys the full game gets a bunch of cars, three tracks and 90 extra stars to earn for that fuckup. It was only us first day guys really that were affected much. Of course PS Plus people have been dangling on the wire for a year but what can you do? PS Plus is an excellent service. Releasing this game half-baked would have been terrible.

India really benefits with the weather so quite honestly it's a win win for eventual PS Plus owners. They will try this game at the peak of its level and can decide for themselves if it is worth it. All I know is this game has the best sense of speed in any racer I have played. Add in that lighting engine, and maybe some future improvements to AA or filtering, and this game is a starstruck beauty. Photomode shows you what it can look like on a high-end PC for sure, but the actual game is not that far off anymore. I am sure a PC game will surpass it but for now I cannot say any game does weather this realistic, for better or worse.

I always say hey if you don't want to race all the time try the friggin' amazing drift mode, my personal favorite mode in the game. I have spent hours trying to get top 50 times. It's like an addiction you cannot put down until you at least have a top couple hundred time. Anyone is game for it too. No special skills needed. Just keep at it and it becomes a thing of beauty to watch your car do the perfect slide into the next corner.

Evolution certainly has fallen since the release of Motorstorm

Actually, they have improved massively since then. This game is 5x the game Apocalypse was. Not only that their AI is a shitload better with absolutely NO rubberbanding where the AI goes past its actual speed limit. The only AI banding is really to help the drivers that fall behind to have a decent race.

This comment is a little rude but to each their own. And the graphics lol..... um yeah they improved just a TEENSY bit there bud. Programmers at the studio as well as the artists are wizards. This coming from a full bred PC whore lol.