Extreme race graphics3/31/2023 ![]() Not only they feature an interesting mix of terrains, which often forces you to adjust suddenly or end against a wall, but they feature plenty traitorous little bumps that will send high powered cars flying, and a very interesting variety of track widths. ![]() All the tracks are fictional, which means they're created on purpose to be fun, and they are. Succeed, and the next time you'll be pitched against a better opponent, pushing you past your usual limits.Īnother element that makes the gameplay definitely interesting is the environment itself. Those challenges, named "Face-off" form the basic aspects of the game's social gameplay, as you'll actually be pitched against the performance of other players, and not about artificial times and scores set by Evolution. You can ignore them, and at times you'll even have to ignore them in order to win a race, but they provide a constant stimulus that turns boredom in a rather alien element in Driveclub. It continuously drops challenges on you to encourage you to improve your times and performance. The whole racing experience feels very solid, and very dense in the way it stimulates the player to improve. Experience and instinct are everything, especially in some of the circuits, where the flags are absent and you have to use your own judgement. A measure of help is provided by the differently colored flag (red, yellow and green) placed on the side of the road and indicating the severity of each corner, but that's only a safe estimate, as I found myself managing to nearly floor quite a few "red" turns by taking the perfect line and shifting the car's weight just right. It appears only when you're performing a face-off (and even in that case, it'll hardly be the best line), but you're otherwise left to your own devices in devising the best line for every turn and the best braking point. This leads us to a rather interesting design choice: there's no racing line in Driveclub. Learn the braking points of every course, and you'll be well on your way to the top. Newbies to the genre will find "safer" cars that will lead them to grab that platinum with relative ease (besides a couple slightly more difficult trophies that can be achieved with patience and some luck), but enthusiasts are provided with plenty cars that will challenge their skills and driving instinct but will provide great satisfaction when mastered.īraking performance (with ABS, as there's no brake locking) and weight shifting are especially well simulated, and considering that they are the most important element in a racing experience, they add value to the whole game. Yet, I can't remember a single occasion in which I lost control where I couldn't exactly and immediately tell what I did wrong. Tail-happy rides will spin on you if you don't respect them, and horsepower requires practice and patience to be truly mastered. The way each car handles just "feels" right. Higher powered supercars and hypercars are a challenge to tame. ![]() Driveclub is not a simulator, but its inner workings are definitely based on realistic data tweaked to be more fun, but not excessively forgiving. Handling and physics feel extremely tight and solid. There's one word to describe Driveclub's gameplay, and it's "tight." You'll read this word repeated a lot in the next few paragraphs, in both positive and negative ways. It's good for those that like it, but what you really should listen to is the sound of the engine, and I can't agree more with Evolution's choice of keeping the score off by default. Besides the fact that it's not really my taste, I turned it on for a few minutes and immediately switched it off again. To be honest, I'd be a liar if I told you that I know much about the soundtrack. More importantly, the sensation of speed perceived from inside the car simply cannot be traded off. The game's cars are downright lovely, but their cockpits are simply amazing, modeled and textured with painstaking and loving care. At times they are hard to distinguish from the real thing, especially in some lighting conditions. ![]() It's not that the external views are bad. Speaking about that, you really want to play Driveclub from the cockpit view. ![]() The sensation of speed and danger is just amazing. Driveclub wants to make you lose your bearing at night, as you keep your eyes peeled on the small area illuminated by your headlights and the world almost literally hurls itself in your face. Sunrises and sunsets seem to come straight from postcards, while nights can be pitch black and scary, exactly like nights should be, avoiding the usual habit of making them brighter to help players keep their situational awareness. Since the sky is dynamically generated, with clouds that move around without a pre-calculated route, it's hard not to want to just sit there and watch as time progresses and light and shadow give way to each other in a never-ending and ever-changing cycle. ![]()
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