Rate The Sims: Community Edition | Automobilista

[Paul Jeffrey]

We are looking to crown the 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite' racing game - get your votes in now for our next game on the list... Automobilista!

Our dear RaceDepartment community. You folks are the most mighty fans of sim racing, often displaying an immense amount of understanding and depth of knowledge when it comes to our favourite hobby.

With sim racing and eSports in such a wonderful boom period of late. Gamers looking to have some fun with their virtual racing machines have never before had such a wide and robust variety of software to enjoy.

Now occasionally I've been in a position to rate new racing titles that have come my way, and almost every time I've received a wide variety of folks agreeing, or strongly disagreeing with my own opinions.

Opinions are great, but sometimes the opinion of one person, with their own likes and dislikes taken into account, can often give a bit of a skewed picture (intentional or not) to the greater cause in which said person is trying to explain.

As such, rather than doing one myself, and in the spirit of engaging some interesting community discussion, I thought it could be fun to let our own community rate each of the key sim racing / racing games available today.

As always with these things, please do try and respect each other and their opinions, and let's try to see if we can give a fun, but fair shake of the stick to each of the games included in this poll.

For transparency, I'm going to be featuring the following racing games over the next weeks:

• Assetto Corsa
• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Automobilista (AMS)
• DiRT 2.0
• F1 2019
• GT Sport
• GRID
• iRacing
• NASCAR Heat 4
• PCARS 2
• RaceRoom Racing Experience
• rFactor 2
• WRC 8

I'm going to launch the article each Monday evening, and keep the poll running for a full week until the next new article is pushed live. So get your votes in quick!

Once I've completed the full list of games, I'll publish a final results feature, and we can award the winning developer the lofty title of 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite'!

Have fun, stay sensible and let the voting commence!

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[captaindick]

It's an Uno and it is better than everything else you mentioned

Handles like a schizo rollerskate powered by several sacks of annoyed wasps.

Maybe it was snobbery or blinkedness that stopped me from trying the Uno and the Beetle (Fusca) before but I should have sooner. Both great fun to drive, ‘nother score for AMS.

 

[Marc Collins]

2. I just hate (like rF) the setup building in those games. There are far to much options you have, and i just don´t have the time to spend 2 hours just in training sessions to be able to compete at least against good AI. Therefor i play R3E or AC lot more because of the "easier setup bulding".
Many may love the realistic aspect of AMS in those catregory, but i jsut want to be a driver not an engineer.

7/10

Unlike rF2, AMS default set-ups are almost always perfectly acceptable to race competitively against the AI at 100% strength. Unlike rF2, the AI at 100% are fairly consistent from one class to another, so no need to fiddle for hours to set the AI every time you want to try a different car.

If you don't have the skills, just dial back the %. No need to do any race engineer work to enjoy racing.

 

[Kevin Troschinski]

Well it‘s your opinion its ok. But for me - with most of the cars its almost impossible to drive at the limit without addjusting the Setup. However i am looking forward to AMS2

 

[Marc Collins]

Well it‘s your opinion its ok. But for me - with most of the cars its almost impossible to drive at the limit without addjusting the Setup. However i am looking forward to AMS2

It's not an opinion--it's relative to the AI at 100%. Your definition of "the limit" won't be the same as mine or anyone else's. All I said was that you don't need to fiddle with set-ups to have competitive races out of the box, unlike 90% of the cars in rF2.

Of course, if you want to maximize performance, you will want to adjust set-ups because that's the whole point of racing--to adjust the car to your own preferences to be able to beat others who are doing the same. Which is why it is odd that you think it is a burden to do so.

 

[Alex72]

9/10 for an incredible sim that is only lacking a bit in modernity (a bit older graphics and sounds) but the driving is still really really good because of the engaging physics, FFB, tight racing package and because Reiza has worked so hard to squeeze out everything they can of the title. AMS will always hold a place in my heart because it gave me such great racing.

 

[Gelly916]

I did not rate the sim as I do not own it because of its lack of support for VR. I hear a lot of good things about it though and I am patiently waiting for AMS 2 to release. Very much looking forward to that title!

 

[Vicitus]

It's an Uno and it is better than everything else you mentioned put together

I don´t want it

 

[Damien van de Velde]

I missed the vote on AMS but it would've got a 10/10! Love it. With RF2 these sims are non stop playable. The aussie club makes them fun too!

 

[Jugulador]

A perfect sim should be produced by Reiza, have AMS plus AC content, graphics made by Polyphony, a multiplayer like iRacing or GTS and a NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona like career mode.

As a standalone package, AMS is by far the best. It's the only simulator that have done, straight from the box, a compilation of very different categories, from kart to Formula Truck, passing by trainers, F1s, off-road and a lot more, without getting generic.

I remember to play Codemaster's TOCA Race Driver 3 on my PS2 and how that game felt out of consistency or any deep. The same goes to Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport and every other "plural" sim. Even Assetto Corsa (my second most played game on Steam, have passed 800 hours and only getting behind Civilization V, for now) can't hold up the consistence of it's vanilla content. But Reiza make me believe that their models drive as close as possible to the real stuff. iRacing give me the same feeling, but it's too expensive for my taste.

Soooooo... it's a solid 10/10. It's not a perfect game, but it's the best we can get... until iRacing, Kunos, Reiza, Polyphony and Monster Games join forces to deliver us the game we deserve.

Cheers!

 

[Hawk600]

+1 on lack of VR support.
AMS is really great game but I feel development will be abandoned with AMS2.

 

[Marc Collins]

+1 on lack of VR support.
AMS is really great game but I feel development will be abandoned with AMS2.

You don't have to feel that, it is a fact. AMS 2 brings the end of development of AMS. There might be one more small update of AMS, but it is finally at the end of its road.

 

[Pawgy]

1 terrible. Awful AI . woRst of all my 30 or so games.

 

[Zuffenhausen Weiss]

The devs tried to squeeze everything they could into a DX9 sim. Though okay if you like spec racing but if you want a varied amount of cars, it'll cause the software to crash
As with AMS2, by not going the modding route, the devs are shooting themselves in the foot - it was what made GTR2 a success

Give it a 7

 

[Abgefahren]

1 terrible. Awful AI . woRst of all my 30 or so games.

Seriously: What car/track combo are you talking about?
I did a mutlicass AI race on Brands Hatch with Boxer Cup, Lancer EVO RS and Mini Cup and the AI did a VERY good job not only overtaking themselves but also being able to maneuver through traffic with all 3 classes. Never seen it that smooth in other sims.

 

[gamer19]

People often play with AI dumbed way down then complain about them making too many mistakes or being painfully slow. Either playing with AI way too high then complain about them being uncatchable.
Another note about sound being not so realistic -
If I remember correctly... default sounds volume for EVERYTHING except master slider and maybe menu music is on ridiculous 25 % !?! Yup. It's 25. Dunno why.
Try up everything somewhere between 50 and 80 for a start. I personally crank my own engine at least 10% higher than everything else. And sounds are far from being "that bad that I play with everything on mute" lol.
What a champ that guy is, really.

 

[Emery]

Seriously: What car/track combo are you talking about?

Pawgy's AI needs are different from most people's.