Game Preview: rFactor 2

Platform: PC
Publisher: Image Space Incorporated

Not so long ago there used to be several big-budget, very successful car racing simulation games on the shelves. But these days pickings are slim. So slim, that enthusiasts have turned to creating their own in-depth racing sims, enthusiasts driven by passion and talent.

And the end product can be very polished, resulting in massive support world wide. This has been the rFactor experience.  

Image Space Incorporated (ISI) took its decade of coding knowhow and funnelled it into 2005's original rFactor, creating a racing sim that gathered enough buzz to keep the development coming. The addition of new cars and physics as well as accurately mapped real-world racetracks have gathered a strong online community. Producing its own user-created content including Mount Panorama, Bathurst.

That same community is now hard at work beta testing the next evolution of the series, rFactor 2, which is now pushing virtual racers down digital circuits all around the world.

The rFactor2 framework provides a toolkit for the developers [and, importantly, the community] to build a wide variety of four-wheel racing worlds.

This version in particular is aimed at getting down to the real knick-knacks of what makes a race car do what it does. It's all about the physics engine...

Indeed, there is much more to this new game than the look of the car and the layout of the tracks. For example rFactor2 developers are looking at how a track changes as a race goes on, how the handling physics alter as more rubber gets laid down. Associated with that, how do the tyres themselves change from lap to lap?

rFactor2 players will need to deal with tyre deformation and flat-spots, a changing race line including how you race line alters in inclement weather and so on.  

And that is just the logarithms being pumped through the games programming code. The team is also hard at work ensuring the visuals of this iteration live up to the realism of the physics. Water and heat haze effects, HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting to simulate how eyes adjust to the change between shadow and sun and high definition particle effects are all part of the rFactor 2 game experience. If it's eye candy you want, it's eye candy you'll get. Check out the video below for evidence.

While it may not have the commercial polish of the bigger names in the videogame racing field, rFactor 2’s appeal is to hard-core and enthusiastic PC racers around the world, who just want to get into a virtual car and come as close as they might ever get to really mixing it up on a track.