Project Cars Thread of Speed

Project Cars is almost here!

It releases next week the 7th and 8th of may on XONE, PS4 and PC.

Are there any GB users that are going to play it?

What are you excited for?

EDIT:

Most appealing features (to me at least):

• Large amount of tracks (101 variations)
• Dynamic weather
• Complete Race Weekend (Practice, Qualifying and Race)

EDIT:Full car list: http://www.projectcarsgame.com/cars.html (at the bottom of the page) or video

Locations:

I've been after a sim racer on PC that scratched my Gran Turismo/Forza itch. Most games seem either to be arcade racers or super serious, super dry sims. Hopefully Project Cars is the middle ground.

Not been following its development that closely but it's close to the top of my Steam wishlist and I'll probably buy it next week.

@dave_tacitus: Do you race with a wheel?

@t_havok: Driving Force GT, nothing fancy but it gets the job done.

Have you been in on the Beta? It had already gone Closed by the time I decided to have a look.

@dave_tacitus: No I don't have a gaming PC. I didn't follow the development to closely, because I couldn't play it anyway. I will play it on Xbox One with a wheel.

Moved this to the Project CARS forum - BROOOOMMM

@rmanthorp: Thanks!

I've been in the beta for a year or two, and also have a Driving Force GT. Game feels absolutely fantastic on it, and has a wide enough range of assists for it to go from Forza to quite a heavy sim if you want it to.

@bollard: How do you find the AI? Are they aware of your position on the track?

I'm grabbing it. Been keen on it since it was announced but the little delays have made me a tad wary. Hopefully the PS4 version is up to snuff. That platform needs a racer.

@bollard: Thanks mate.

Is there a career mode?

I think that's what I miss most in PC driving games - Earning cash and buying new cars. I messed around with iRacing and rFactor for a while, then bought Assetto Corsa and driving feels great in all three, especially with assists off, but I miss the middle ground of the console sims.

I liked Shift and Shift 2 (same dev I think) but only on PC where you could mod the handling.

@shindig: The videos I've watched were mostly PS4 gameplay and it looked pretty stunning to me.

If it reviews well, I'm picking up my PS4 pre-order copy at GameStop. #DriveClub just didn't do it for me at all. It was pretty but I really didn't like the gameplay.

@dave_tacitus:

You don't earn cash and unlock cars. You get contract offers from different teams based on your performance to race in championships.
The spectrum of racing is really broad: from karting to Formula 1

@t_havok: I can live with that. As long as there's variety in the racing. ;)

@t_havok: have you played Grid 2? It sounds similar to system for unlocking cars. It was pretty enjoyable.

@l4wd0g: Yes I have played it, but I did not really like the physics and handling of the cars.

I've been in the closed beta development testing group for 2, nearing 3 years now. The group that was selectedd by the initial closed crowdfunding. I've seen this game change massively, some good, some bad things. If any of you want to see a car/track combination I can record a lap tonight and post the video.

Overall fun game, I'm still not 100% ok with the current career mode ui, perhaps there is still a big update we're not seeying for final release altough I doubt that

The AI has gone through a variety of phases, from incredibly aggressive and basically blind, to pretty considerate. The AI is pretty customisable (at least I think they left the sliders in), not only can you change the difficulty from 1-100 you also used to be able to tweak things like aggressiveness from 1-100 too. In general the AI will try and avoid you if you cut them up or are on the racing line, but they also aren't afraid to dive down the inside on corners if they think they can overtake you. This means sometimes they will wipe you out, but at least it's more exciting.

As someone else said, the career mode basically has multiple classes and disciplines. You can choose to start as low as karting and work your way up season by season, or jump right in to F1 cars or LMP1 if you like. There's no buying cars, and if you want you can start a single player or multiplayer race at any time using any car on any track.

I'm most curious about the handling model. This is the team who made the NFS Shift games, and if you didn't own a racing wheel, those games were an absolute nightmare to control.
I'll likely check this out because I'm dying for a good sim-style racing game on my PS4, and it will likely be another decade or two by the time the next Gran Turismo is released.

@spitznock: Without the assists off, the handling is somewhere slightly above Forza, coming close to Assetto Corsa. Not quite iRacing or rFactor levels.

I think the game is decent enough (backed it in 2011) and it's maybe the first game to scratch that Forza/GT itch on the PC, like someone already said. One thing that bugs me though is that some promised features from the initial pitch are completely missing (co-op career) and they cut a lot of stuff during development that was almost finished (historic tracks, all oval tracks) so...I expect those to be DLC at some point.

I totally didn't even know this game was coming out on consoles, crazy. I put money into it years ago and kinda forgot about it 'til recently, didn't know it was out so soon though, nice.

I'm by default interested in any racing game that comes out and more so if it's more simish than arcade. I'll probably get it at some point, not necessary right at release.

@spitznock: The handling is ok from my experiences. If you have a wheel definitely turn off all assists or put it on 'realistisc'. This will make put ABS on if there is ABS in the car you're driving.

It's in the simracing department for sure; people always mocked Project Cars for being too arcadey, ofcourse it's not realistisch as when I'm drivign in Iracing or Rfactor but it does a good job and I've enjoyed Project Cars the last years.

What the game 'lacks' in physics it makes up in visuals/sounds and tracks.

Think it looks good so I'll be picking it up... maybe Xone.

@handlas: If you need someone on your leaderboard add: twaninho

Added you. I'm katsgomeyow.

It's a bit of a mixed bag depending on the car and track. I've found that the AI generally is aware of you, and do try and stay out of your way if appropriate, or overtake you if they have the opportunity, but that their driving lines sometimes are not great - I would hope that these would be updated either before or immediately after release. The AI is definitely much improved from even a couple months ago, and they do make realistic-looking mistakes, although I've also seen them drive perfectly over the dirt in situations where you'd lose control. In the career mode they also seem incredibly slow off the line, not so elsewhere, so that's probably just a little tweak that needs making.

Using a G25, I feel like some cars are very enjoyable and you have a lot of good feeling, and others don't drive as you would expect, but they were tweaking all these up until recently and I've not had chance to go back through them all. The driving isn't going to get close to rF2 or Stock Car Extreme, but I would say, in most cases, it's close to Assetto Corsa, take that how you will.

The most impressive thing for me is the lighting and the weather conditions and change of time, coupled with the "real weather" on track wherever you are racing. I think the lighting is subtler than you might expect, and when the sun is setting and you're trying to pick your braking spot when driving into it, it does feel very much like the real thing - I've caught myself putting my hand over my eyes a couple times to shield the light, which I don't think I've ever done before with a game. Of course there's a bunch of different areas with the graphics where things should be better, such as the rain effect (especially compared to Driveclub), but I really hope they'll continue to work on it. The tracks are pretty. The replays are, in my opinion, the major disappointment with the graphics, the cameras are terrible - hopefully that's something they'll revise. Looking at the static cameras on Assetto Corsa, and the range of options you have in general, and then pCARS makes me very sad.

Anyway, I've seen a bunch of tweets from GAME over here in the UK having demos set up for people to play on XBONE / PS4, so if you're interested you might be able to find a place to have a spin. It's definitely worth checking out and I would say if you enjoy car racing at all then it's close to being a game you need to own on console due, of course in part to the lack of much else, and because it is a good game overall, and even though we're very spoiled at the moment for simracing on the PC, some of my most enjoyable moments recently have been with pCARS. This is turning into a bit of a novel, but two examples would be driving the Ginetta Juniors at Donington in the rainy fog, and realising when the sun came out and dried the track out a bit what a difference that made both in terms of game atmosphere and to the driving, and the time I started a 15 minute qualifying session in the sun, went to get a drink, got sidetracked, came back after about 7 minutes and it was starting to rain heavily, which meant that those who hadn't put a lap in (me and a couple AI) were going to be starting at the back of the grid.

@handlas: Mind adding me as well? : "Alibambam" First time I'll be able to compare times since the beginning

@alibambam: I added you too (GT: twaninho)

I was super looking forward to this, but I'm now just going to be super cautious before I pick this up. If the feedback and reviews are good, then I'll pick it up.

Following you now. Add me! The more the merrier.

Does anyone have experience with tuning setups in Project Cars or in other race sims? I never bothered with it in Forza, but I think I will try it in Project Cars.

I have a bit of a nagging fear that this is going to tank. It's targeting the middle of nowhere-ness (some narrow void between the raft of hardcore simulations and more 'approachable' racing replicators currently available that have well-established userbases) and seemingly doing nothing extraordinary (dynamic weather is the exception, however that's more of a novelty, and furthermore, doesn't look especially great, graphically-speaking*]. It's making a belated entrance into a crowded marketplace. I hope it impresses me somewhere down the line, but it's not an attractive proposition right now.

*Compared to, say, Drive Club.

The new consoles are desperately lacking in racing games so I'm really looking forward to this. I have it on pre-order (I had a bunch of credit with nothing I wanted so threw it at this) and I'm pretty excited now. I like the 'contract offer' method of moving through a career so I hope this delivers well on that. I feel like 'GRID Autosport' was criminally underrated on the previous generation of consoles and this seems like a more hardcore version of that so lets hope for good things.

Delays never result in a worse game so hopefully since this game has had so many of them we are in for a quality experience.

@newfangled: I agree with you that it targets a very narrow niche and won't be a huge seller. However I think they will be profitable, because of how they developed this game (partially crowd funded). They kept it fairly straightforward and will keep building on a (what seems to be) solid foundation. I think if the game could do very well on PS4, because no GT has been announced yet and a lot of people were disappointed by DriveClub.

Is this a joke?

I think this is going to sell well on PS4, like @t_havok mentioned, just no GT yet. I was on the fence between waiting for this and getting Assetto Corsa and from everything I've heard I went with AC, but if you're looking for a sim racer that's only realistic enough to still be accessible and fun, this game sounds like a great fit for that.

@alexw00d: The only thing that looks better in DriveClub is the rain.

@t_havok: @alexw00d: pCARS looks worse in motion than on the screenshots and if the thing about the console versions being on medium detail is true, Driveclub may actually look better on PS4.

If you put the PC Version to medium there's some real nasty pop in on objects.

I've pre-ordered a copy on the Xbox One. I've kind of exhausted the Forza games on the system, so I'm excited to get my hands on this.

Not right at launch, I'll wait and see what kind of reception it gets, the list of tracks does seem pretty enticing though.

@alexw00d: No.

I've been playing the game since October 2011 and it's amazing. My favorite Sim in a LOONNNGG Time.

Looks pretty awesome, I have got the PC version on order. Anybody else picking it up on PC?

Video Showing of the FOV settings on the console.

Its very much a product aimed at the quys who want a hardcore racer for console. Its a small crowd that's rarely catered to when compared to PC. It looks great and, with ex-Simbin guys being in control, it definitely seems like a derivative of their previous work (GTR, RACE, etc) so I'm fine with that as we'll probably just get this one shot this generation.

Games like that are all reliant on a smaller community being active enough to keep interest in the game prolonged. As for the marketting support this game may or may not have got, I actually think Sony's done okay by it. Playstation Access seems to have a fair bit of stuff about it which, when you consider the weak state of racing games on the platform, is probably reasonable. At the same time, it's not a first-party title and Sony would be wary of plugging any racer heavy-handedly after DriveClub.

I'm hoping this does well, relative to how many copies Namco Bandai intend to ship. If nothing else but to encourage Slightly Mad that there's a market for this that'll sustain them for other projects. I think putting it on on a lengthy PC-beta helps as that market is a lot more crowded than on consoles. Plus it helps shape that product through feedback before it hits stores in a more rigid form.

I think my biggest problem with the game yet is that the tracks are just so wrong. After playing identical laser scanned versions in multiple sims, you notice how breaking points and elevation changes are way off in this.

I'll respectfully disagree on a few points. The PS4 is definitely lacking in racing games at the moment, but the Xbox One has Forza 5, which was a good game, and Forza Horizon 2, which was a terrific game. Also, delays often result in worse games. Watch_Dogs and Destiny, while serviceable games, were arguably worse than they should have been or were billed to be. Then you have Driveclub, which was seriously delayed and somehow still released broken. I'm not saying this will be the case with Project CARS, but saying delays never result in a worse game isn't accurate.

I really hope Project CARS delivers, especially for the PS4 guys. I was a huge fan of the NFS: Shift games, which managed to capture the feel of driving a car better than most games. The cockpit view in those games was as good as it gets. Project CARS certainly passes the eye test, and if they can combine that with the feel of the old Shift games, the game will deliver. On a related note, when is a game going to get COTA as a licensed track? Maybe Forza 6.