In my review of the first Project Cars, I compared the game towards the kind of high-end, aspirational automobile that eschews refinement and cuts corners in search of doing one thing-speed-exceptionally well. The metaphor still holds true now, only developer Slightly Mad Studios has amped up both halves of the formula. If the original game was a daft supercar, Project Cars 2 is definitely an awe-inspiring hypercar that might singlehandedly redefine driving if it didn't burst into flames for no apparent reason every 45 minutes.
Let's begin with the positives, because I do want to ensure I give Slightly Mad credit where it's due. The simulation, the meat from the experience, the tires-on-track bit, is very impressive. It's a vastly different beast in the first game, along with a a lot more demanding one, but it works. I am inclined to be considered a little Potter Stewart when it comes to handling models in racing sims, but Project Cars 2 passes my test with flying colors. Once you make the effort, the realism ranges from formidable to liberating, especially, in my experience, with the new rallycross events, in which you essentially need to flip off all the assists if you wish to have any hope of success.
If I needed to indicate any single major shortcoming within this core gameplay, it might be inconsistency in translating the experience onto a controller. It looks like some vehicles just feel good than the others, certainly not since they are “easier” but since they are a better fit based on how Slightly Mad has abstracted away the imprecisions of using an analog stick and triggers.
To wit, I can easily post clean laps with some cars the sport lists as the hardest to manage, yet I sometimes have a problem with those the game says would be the easiest. Some are a complete dream to push to the limit, in order to push past the limit and throw around a large part sideways. Others feel like a continuing struggle to find an impossible balance between force and finesse to succeed, like you're attempting to hammer in a nail having a Fabergé egg. I get a feeling that despite a hundred more hours of practice under my belt I would still sometimes seem like the controller is a hindrance, not really a tool.
If Project Cars 2's fundamental driving experience clicks for you personally, there's an incredible amount you can do by using it, too. The sport offers a healthy choice of cars, a frankly ridiculous range of tracks, along with a wide selection of racing disciplines. I found the ultimate level of freedom in the first game to be somewhat paralyzing, however the approach works far better now, thanks in part to how many new toys and options have been put into the sandbox. You want to put IndyCars on an ice track? Go for it. You want to generate a 250-lap race that cycles from a blizzard, pouring rain, and sunshine the entire way? You can, and it'll be a fascinating experience thanks to the vast improvements to the game's dynamic track conditions.
The other major reason the freedom of the game's quick play races seems more fitting now is a beefed-up career mode that allows for a classical feeling of progression. You still don't have to fret whatsoever about unlocking cars or tracks-the content is yours for the taking, from the moment you boot up the game-but once you lock yourself right into a career you're forced to make actual choices and make up experience season after season. You can no more jump straight into a high tier motorsport, as well as once you get towards the highest competitors there are now other disciplines to try out up there.
The races throughout career mode also feel more authored now, too, with series that keep you in your toes by mixing up tracks and weather inside a satisfying way. That's equally the case with the new one-off invitational events, which offer a focus on the particular vehicle, discipline, track type, or historical era. The manufacturer drives are a little less exciting-you simply unlock these by racing in a single make of car a number of times, then get four races using that brand-but they're still a welcome way to break up the interest rate of the career.
That's not saying, however, that the career is enjoyable throughout. It isn't, and the reason why is also possibly the game's biggest single shortcoming: its AI. Such as the first game, there's an adjustable slider that allows you to control how skilled your opponents are. Unlike the first game, it seems to have a completely random impact on the actual results of the race.
I played through all of Project Cars with the difficulty around the default setting, and always felt challenged without having to be overwhelmed. Suffice it to say, that's not what happened in Project Cars 2. In one particularly painful instance, I spent four hours attempting to beat a single race-even once i lowered the problem setting to 0 from a possible 120. The following race, difficulty still on 0, I lapped every other competitor twice. I handily won every race throughout the growing season, too, though not by such a wide margin.
When another the first day patch arrived a day later promising improvements towards the AI, I returned towards the same race, despite the fact that I wrote in my notes during the first go that “I would rather have a couple of PCP and let a pack of untamed dogs bite my genitals than ever before do this again.” This time, with the difficulty focused on the default of 60, I had been in a position to win without much fuss, so I guess the patch helped somewhat. Then again, I proceeded to once again lap everyone around the following race, still on 60.
I'm unsure when we should settle for “less broken” with regards to something so fundamental towards the gameplay experience. Because of the AI, the entire career can seem to be like a total crapshoot of races which are way too difficult or way too easy. If you're at all like me, you'll spend a lot time turning assists on and off to handicap yourself and adjusting the AI difficulty to handicap the other players that it's going to start feeling less like you're playing the sport and much more like you're designing it.
My other big gripe, which I fully realize is only going to affect a subset of players, is that the driving line assist is a mess. For those of you too legit to become knowledgeable about the feature, it projects arrows displaying the perfect racing line to the track, with colors that change according to where and when you ought to be braking. The issue here is, it's completely broken in Project Cars 2. It's not only the line no longer appears on straights and delicate curves the actual way it did within the first game. As an added bonus, it frequently blinks in and out of existence on a whim midway via a turn, taking away the data you have been relying on to learn the course. It's infuriating, and it happens with enough regularity to become a significant detriment to anybody who depends on the feature.
Am I while using driving line like a crutch because I'm too lazy to set up the practice laps to understand the tracks without it? Absolutely, I'll cop to that. At the same time, if you offer me a crutch after which rip it away from me while I'm utilizing it, that's pretty much entirely your fault.
And now we arrived at the smaller sins, of which there are many. Project Cars 2is potentially the buggiest game That i have ever reviewed, using the exception of Ride to Hell: Retribution. Yes, a few of these glitches didn't have meaningful effect on gameplay, but enough of them did to make a difference within my playthrough.
I don't want to belabor my point, but I know that if I'm creating a claim like this, on the internet, I need to have exactly what the kids nowadays call “receipts.” So here are a couple of the lowlights of what I experienced playing Project Cars 2.
For this primary one, watch the standings within the top left corner to see me magically teleport a lap behind everybody else right as the race begins. It was not really a one-time occurrence.
During races, I often felt like the collision detection was ever-so-slightly off, causing me to clip things I must have (just barely) cleared. As you can tell below, on at least one occasion I wasn't just imagining things.
In mostly of the online races I was able to complete without being disconnected, I managed to be in both third and fourth place at the same time.
Sadly, I never actually had a opportunity to compete in _INVITATIONAL_NAME_.
When you restart a race, any cosmetic harm to your automobile won't be reset. The same goes for any physics objects you dislodge around the track, so you'll often see debris floating in midair, or drive into empty space to find out that, no, there is really a hidden cone there all along. I additionally discovered, accidentally, a foolproof method to extend the effect to, uh, less optional parts of the vehicles.
I'm no expert, however i don't believe this is proper protocol for exiting the pit.
This next one, I think, needs no introduction.
That happened on Imola, though, so perhaps it had been just the spirit of Ayrton Senna watching over me.
I could go on, but I won't. This is already beginning to feel cruel, even going to me.
Now, I'm fully prepared to accept that I would have exceptionally misfortune, and that your average player won't encounter as a number of these issues when i did. But I can only relay my very own experience with the game, and bugs such as these proved so frequent over the 29 hours I spent with Project Cars 2 that they became impossible to ignore. I actually felt compelled to begin documenting them, which isn't really my M.O.
Yes, Project Cars 2 has the bones of the exceptional racing game. It makes an amazing first impression, as well as when I was navigating the minefield of problems I encountered I still routinely found myself using a great deal of fun. With some love and care from Slightly Mad, the game may eventually live up to its ambitions.
But when you subscribe to the idea of a driving experience that's newer, better, and top-of-the-line in each and every respect, it's jarring to find out, several hundred miles in, that what you've really got on your hands is a fixer-upper-a project car, for a moment.
