On June 25th, 2015 Sony made good on one of their first promises made to PlayStation Plus subscribers during their E3 2013 Press Conference. The DriveClub PlayStation Plus Edition was announced as a means to soften the blow of the now required Plus subscriptions in order to utilize PlayStation Network features for online multiplayer on the PlayStation 4. Unfortunately for Sony, DriveClub fell prey to delays, a common symptom of new console launches and something that was particularly noticeable when looking at the PS4's diminutive catalogue of games in the weeks after its launch in November of 2013. DriveClub would not see its release until the following October and would be released in a much compromised state. The game's highly-praised weather-effects that had been on display at press events in the past were absent and the social aspects of DriveClub that had been the crux of much of the developer's messaging surrounding the game were by almost all accounts a complete disaster, mired in network issues. These problems resulted in Sony's announcement that the PS Plus version of DriveClub was to be put on indefinite hold until Evolution Studios, DriveClub's developer, had resolved the issues with the game.

Now, a little over eight-months after the game's largely unappreciated release, the PlayStation Plus Edition of DriveClub has been made available. The game begins with players being sat in the seat of a Mercedes-Benz AMG GT S and thrust into a two-lap race in one of the games primarily rock and ice Norwegian settings. The game's visuals are quite striking, with the same apparent attention to visual detail in the modelling of the car's interior cockpit and exterior bodywork that one would expect to see from Forza and Gran Turismo. Playing with a DualShock 4 controller instead of a racing-wheel often leads to finicky controls when it comes to racing games of this stripe and the aggressive nature of the AI drivers who share the track with you can be frustrating as you attempt to adapt to how DriveClub, well, drives. Throughout many of the races in DriveClub the environment is dictated by an accelerated clock, where transitions from dusk to night or dawn to day unfold over the course of a relatively short race. The rapid change in time often comes with a rapid change in weather as well, and by the second lap of that opening race the snow begins coming down and melting upon the windshield of the car. With this change in weather the car's wipers activate, and if you remain in the in-car perspective the game defaults to, you are treated to an impressive simulation of water moving across the windshield as it is swept by the wipers.

Upon completing your initial race the game drops you to its home-screen, where DriveClub's features are broken-out in a tile format, similar to the menus seen in much of the EA Sports games of the current era. The game's primary racing mode, "Tour," is limited in the PS Plus Edition, with the, "Startline," collection of the events as the only ones available in the free version. Here you compete in a variety of racing events that are much the standard for the genre, time trial challenges, drift challenges, sprint races and a few championship series are available for you to compete in, with more unlocked as you earn stars by completing objectives presented in the individual events. While the number of events in the Startline Tour is limited, it does serve as a nice sampler as to what is available in the full-version of the game as well as giving players a look at what is available in many of the DLC tour packs that have been released over the past eight months.

For those who want to play in online races there are a decent number of online events available in the PS Plus Edition as well. The multiplayer events menu presents the player with a number of online races, with those available in the PlayStation Plus Edition denoted with a yellow banner. It's a simple interface, with events beginning at set times shown from the menu, making it easy to get in a race without needing other drivers to ready-up. My experience with the one online race I participated in was positive, opponent cars moved smoothly, without any stuttering that I've seen in past racing games where connection speeds with other players made for a less than enjoyable race.

As you complete races and move through the progression in DriveClub, the PS Plus Edition does remind you frequently that you are playing the PlayStation Plus Edition of the game and that not all rewards earned by increasing your driver level are available to you. Over my weekend with the game I reached Driver Level 10, and of all the cars I had unlocked at that point, I could only choose from four if I wanted to compete in single-event races or online races outside of the game's Tour mode. This is not a great concern as the Startline tour allows you to use cars reserved for the full-game and some from the DLC tour packs. It is worth noting that it was not possible to buy DriveClub digitally as a PlayStation Plus subscriber since the game's release, and if you so choose you can upgrade the PS Plus Edition to the full game for $24.99.

DriveClub is a mostly stripped-down racer when compared to its contemporaries, but it makes for a simple experience that I found enjoyable. The lack of car-tuning options that is sacrasanct to most fans of the Forza and Gran Turismo series, creates a more level playing field and prevents you from messing up a perfectly fine car because you screwed up the toe-angle of your wheels and set your gears too long in the transmission. DriveClub isn't concerned with any of that, the game wants you to choose a fancy car from its list of highly exotic makes and models and get to racing. This is where the game succeeds, and if you want a simple, yet challenging racing game the value of the PlayStation Plus Edition of DriveClub has some easily justifiable fun in store for you.

If anyone besides myself is reading this, well, I think you're lost.

I'm writing this now so that I'll hopefully come back to it and put something of what I hope I at least will consider substantive. I've been playing video games since I was four years-old, and that was twenty-eight years ago when my dad bought an NES that, at the time, I thought was for me, but in hind-sight I think it was more for him. A little aside here, but the scariest thing I've ever experienced in video games was when I was playing his Final Fantasy save and got the entire party killed. At the time I thought that I had ruined his game, but of course I hadn't saved anything he came home from work later that day and everything was fine. Man though, that sense of dread, I can still feel it to this day.

***I'll come back to this later***