Game Review: Project Cars

The first thing that you need to know about Project Cars is that it does not play by the same rules that the majority of cross-platform racing titles do in this day and age.

To start with there is nothing to "unlock" in game, in the single player game there is no earned experience, gold, glory points or any other digital currency required to unlock content.  All the cars, tracks and options are available from the time the game is launched.

The whole aim of Project Cars was to present virtual racers with a sand-box of tools to compete and play with to their racing-glove-red hearts content.

There could be more time spent in setting up a race weekend, including practice, qualifying as well as multiple races, than the races lengths themselves. This is completely up to the player though, how much do they wish to fiddle with car setup, opponent AI levels, time of day, weather conditions and how they may change, pit strategy including fuel and tyres.

Once the drivers are out on the track, it may become apparent that more time practicing laps and less time playing with settings would have been a better option; Project Cars demands practice, followed by practice bolstered with a bit more of…. You guessed it.

Even with many of the driver aides switched on, such as driving line, steering assist and the somewhat bogus braking assist, life on the track – as it should be – requires concentration at all times.

The driving model is unforgivable, and the whilst the AI opponents skill levels can be adjusted, their close to robotic adherence to the drive line will force you to be inventive with passing manoeuvres.  Being inventive can often mean being last.

Thankfully there is plenty of time for free practice as well as abundance of tweaks to be applied to find your perfect racing challenge.

Project Cars features 72 real-world track locations (some tracks featuring multiple variants) and 65 cars.

Now 65 is not a big number in this day of Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo's hundreds of modelled vehicles, but the choices players have here are pure race vehicles. From Karts to Formula open wheels, each car available is a pure race-bred machine.

There are Touring Cars (including historic models), Road racers, LMP, prototype vehicles and a great selection of GT models to play with.

Having dabbled with the racing sandbox, it might be time to turn towards a racing career. Again, everything is available from day one. You could start your career in Karting, or leap straight into a senior Touring Car role.  Project Cars gives you everything you need to customise your race-career experience.

You could if you wanted to, set up a real-time 24 hour race featuring changeable weather, realistic tyre wear and damage, pit strategies day/night cycle.  That is somewhat extreme, but available for the extreme amongst us.

As your career progresses, in any of the chosen racing disciplines, you will receive Twitter followers (in-game only) and emailed offers to join racing teams, success breeding success.

Visually Project Cars for the most part is brilliant, the promo in-game videos look as they were taken by a trackside TV broadcaster.  In short the footage could easily be mistaken for real-life visuals.

In-game the visuals hold up with light diffusing through the trees at dusk, and water beads and worms across the screen when it rains. Pit-stops are sparse of detail however, which is jarring against the rest of the game graphics.

Drivers have a selection of camera angles, including the muffled audio of an in-helmet cam that provides the most realistic view we have seen in a video racer.

Take the game up against real human opponents in multiplayer then you will find the network code smooth and reliable. Here you can build reputation (the only real in-game currency), take on friends and strangers in online racing as the host may choose.

Project Cars gives PS4 race-fan owners a game they can finally add to confidently to their collection, other platform owners should consider Project Cars a semi-hard-core simulation sand-box of track racing putting it up against the Forza Motorsports, Gran Turismos and iRacing games they may already have in their collection.