PC2 Rate the Sims: Community Edition | Project CARS 2

[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... Project CARS 2!

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
• Wreckfest

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!

 

[avenger82]

Like others said, on paper it's fantastic game. It has so much content, LiveTrack 3.0, advanced physics engine, graphics multiplayer rating system etc.. Yet, as most "hardcore" simracers I play it rarely. I care about physics and handling accuracy and it mostly doesn't feel right. For instance I noticed odd behavior with trail braking, high ABS in some cars. But generally maybe we are just influenced by other's opinions. For instance AC also didn't felt right for me at first, as it's so different from rF2 for me. But I heard people saying AC is quite realistic, so after some FFB tuning and getting used to, it felt much better.
Of course on SMS forums people defended PC2 physics each time when somebody said something is not realistic. Often giving pretty good arguments a car is actually meant to drive like that, or at least that it's a matter of a car's setup. SMS itself claimed each car was build using real data, tested by real drivers and tuned based on their feedback. So it's hard to really tell. I can surely the same cars handle quite different from the same ones in AC. I know I'm repeating common opinion, but I think with so many cars it's impossible to make all of them right in such short time. Same with tracks, some are laser scanned but some have way off.
Anyway, people who are not "serious" simracers often say it's real fun. Even Nicki Thiim said it was best fun he had after he tired it for several hours (although he didn't like the handling, of course).

 

[avenger82]

Or is it worth picking up now when sale comes?

It was very cheap on sale, so it's big bang for buck. Has many advantages like LiveTrack 3.0 , many disciplines , road cars, rally cross. Depends what you're looking for. If you have time to invest then I guess it's worth it.

 

[j_troc_71]

I had fun with pcars2 for a while. Its the game that got me into sim racing. The content and features of this game are impressive, but the driving experience is far less impressive. Once I started playing iracing, rf2 and others I realized that pc2 fell well short on the actual Driving experience. But its a game you can have fun in. If you are grading it on the basis of Ian Bells comments that its the most realistic sim ever made, then it doesn't score well for me because Ian is nuts. But for a game to fire up and just have some fun, it does that well I think. I'd give it a 6

 

[madhopz]

5 out 10

Good:

• Visuals
• Cars
• Tracks

Bad:

• Car sounds
• Replays
• FFB
• Dead development or patches

I really wanted to make PC2 a favorite, but it's really bad sounds of cars just kill me. I actually turn the volume down when I am playing. The lack of replays is another big killer for me because that is how I improve my driving in the sim. The visuals are stunning and the track/car selection is outstanding.

I had one hell of a time getting the Fanatec DD2 to work somewhat well with this game. More so than any other game that I own. I actually found that using a Fanatec CS V2.5 or a Logitec G29 was better out of the box. Maybe the DD wheel just finds all of the flaws in the FFB, but it was a beast to get this games cars to feel decent. It is in no way close to even F1 2019,, let alone RF2, ACC or AC. Just as an experiment, I spent a day where I would drive each sim for 30 minutes and then switch to another sim for 30 minutes. Of the games I own, PC2 was the only one that where I couldn't switch from or to and expect to perform decently. Even with specific settings for each game. Never happen.

 

[Reynaldo Luna]

Still racing in it every chance I get.

 

[Ian Navarro]

I voted a 3...
- 1 point for content and tracks
- 1 point for having dynamic day/night cycle
- 1 point for graphics

None of the other expectatives have been matched in my case

 

[gamer19]

First top score from me. I simply love PC2. I know, I know... it´s not a fashionable opinion these days, but F... it. PC2 is pure fun, pure immersion, GREAT game. FOR ME!!! Not for most, I acknowledge that, but I hey... I am entitled to my opinion, and there you have it.

Agreed.
Love it and - ashamed about it.


Duly give it a 8.


Ok, it was 9 actually, like I said... not so proud of it.
It's not as C00l as said "I'm a fan of Ass.Corsa"
isn't it.

 

[gamer19]

I really wanted to make PC2 a favorite, but it's really bad sounds of cars just kill me. I actually turn the volume down when I am playing.

What ? Sound is not as nearly that bad, to turn it down while playing.
You are a diva of motorsport sims, aren't you. Wish you're old enough to play racing games in this and previous century we had to play earlier, nothing but strange vintage pc buzzing as a bad attempt to represent one racing engine.
Does the birds in background sounds wrong to you too ? I believe they mix up nightingale and common sparrow.
Somehow.

The lack of replays is another big killer for me because that is how I improve my driving in the sim.

What a **** again ?!?
LACK of replays. What kind of ...lack. Which replays ?

 

[Kevin Troschinski]

Hi

probably all has been said already about the game.

+ content (a lot of tracks, a lot of cars)
+ visuals
+ something like career
+ night, rain ...

- ffb with jack spades mod at least enyojable with some cars, even very good with few cars but also stil terrible with the most of them.
- Physics wise the driving is too forgiving, too easy. Besides some awful FWD cars... No chance against AC, R3E, AMS; RF .....

- Same on tracks, there are some very good ones as some bad ones.

- The Balance in career mode is also just ridiculous. While struggling in some series with a AI difficulty at 80%, just next series you can dominate at 100% + There is absolutely no balance and you have always first find out which difficulty to choose.

- Another thing is that you qualify half of the time at the last place, and will catch all others in the race to become winner. Just like NFS or similar. Its pretty unrealistic and immersion killer.

I don`t use VR or Multiplayer so there no rating

6 of 10

 

[blueferrari]

I gave it a 9, simply because this game could well be the best ever sim racing package, if not for the lack of good quality FFB. It is a beautiful game with great content.

 

[Damage Inc]

gotta love the "armchair drivers" physics experts!!

 

[General_Failure]

***If pcars2 had the physics and force feedback of RF2, it'd be the BEST sim on the market.***

That's the point, will see what happens with AMS 2. All hardcore racers are currently spread between AMS and RF2 and they are hungry for fresh and good content. Most big modding groups migrated to AC and they are just selling cheap conversions based on illegal content from other games.

 

[Typ190]

its a 7/10. its a jack of all trades but master of none. its probably one of the better "overall packages", one of the more sim newbie friendly games but id never use it to have any serious racing done. it does nothing terribly but it also does nothing very well either. i play a lot of sim games, in fact i play a lot of racing games, i have a steam curator page dedicated to racing games around 5k followers, however, out of all sims, even racing games, pc2 has one of my lowest hours played in my entire sim library because i could not get myself to play that game that much. it lost me pretty quickly. if i want content, there are thousands of mod in AC, if i want good multiplayer racing, either SRS or iracing is the way to go. if i want good single player races against AI, i go to AMS or RRE, if i want some fun hotlapping challenges, i go to RRE or AC. PC2 unfortunately fulfills none of my sim needs but hey, a 7/10 is still a solid game on my personal scale, its definitely not a bad game and somebody who isnt as hardcore into sims as me and many here are, you can very well have a great time with that game

 

[BrettSinclair1]

Overall the best racing sim since GTR2

 

[madhopz]

What ? Sound is not as nearly that bad, to turn it down while playing.
You are a diva of motorsport sims, aren't you. Wish you're old enough to play racing games in this and previous century we had to play earlier, nothing but strange vintage pc buzzing as a bad attempt to represent one racing engine.
Does the birds in background sounds wrong to you too ? I believe they mix up nightingale and common sparrow.
Somehow.

What a **** again ?!?
LACK of replays. What kind of ...lack. Which replays ?

I assume this is the point where I am supposed to get offended because you called me a diva. So I will be offended and reply that you are probably deaf and have never actually heard a real race engine except on TV. Ok, your turn. Oh wait, I have to call you a name like you called me one. Hmm.................................... Jackass seems appropriate. Ok now it's your turn.

 

[gamer19]

I assume this is the point where I am supposed to get offended because you called me a diva. So I will be offended and reply that you are probably deaf and have never actually heard a real race engine except on TV. Ok, your turn. Oh wait, I have to call you a name like you called me one. Hmm.................................... Jackass seems appropriate. Ok now it's your turn.

No names, ok. Let's not be friends but let's make some constructive observations here.
Sound are, that's all I was saying, not as nearly that bad to deserve to totally be turned off.
I have watched races live but do you know how hard is to re-create those real life sounds into one computer game. How many times we actually can see developers follow those real life cars around, take actual recordings with hi-tech equipment and... still never as good as the real thing. Can't be done, in my honest opinion. Ok, some games did it better than others, PC2 isn't among those who done it the best out there but still... turn it off ? C'mon mate...

truly yours,
Jack.
(no ass)

 

[madhopz]

No names, ok. Let's not be friends but let's make some constructive observations here.
Sound are, that's all I was saying, not as nearly that bad to deserve to totally be turned off.
I have watched races live but do you know how hard is to re-create those real life sounds into one computer game. How many times we actually can see developers follow those real life cars around, take actual recordings with hi-tech equipment and... still never as good as the real thing. Can't be done, in my honest opinion. Ok, some games did it better than others, PC2 isn't among those who done it the best out there but still... turn it off ? C'mon mate...

truly yours,
Jack.
(no ass)

All you had to reply to my post was, " I find that the sounds of PC2 ok and I don't see why they are offensive to you:". That would have opened a dialogue. Which would have led to the constructive observations. Instead you categorized and made assumptions based on what you like and I don't. That is the failure of forums and Internet conversations in general.. I can't dislike what you like without one of us be a blithering idiot.

Now back the games. The sounds, to ME, in PC2 are not even realistic let alone like the cars they represent. Yes RF2, ACC and AC, to ME, sound a hell of a lot better. If you are saying it's difficult to recreate real sounds in a computer game, you are saying, to ME, that PC2 has less than stellar developers than the other games.

I also didn't address you inquiry about why I think replays are lacking. Try a practice session for a few laps and then try to replay the whole session. Never happen. Every other game has this ability. The only way to replay all of a practice session, that I have found, is to do all of the laps you want, drive down pit road in the wrong direction, get disqualified and then you can watch the whole session. The word weak comes to mind to have to do this. Practice for me is learning. Visual ques help. Without that information, improvement takes too long. There is as reason all sports film both practice and games.

Ok, let's be friends now.

 

[Emery]

So close, yet so far. Fixed a lot of the bad (very bad) in original pCARS.

Gots your Group C, some TransAm, some '50s, some '60s, some '70s, and a fabulous historic LeMans. Marvelous sounding Panoz LMP and the flashy Long Beach shores.

Then there are the clunkers... the UI bugs, the race-to-the-bottom online rating system, inflexible car classes & AI choices, first lap AI that cut corners, hopeless oval AI, etc.

If they'd taken the approach to constantly evolve it (fixing those clunkers) and sell DLC, then it could have eventually moved up the ladder. I enjoy it for what works and avoid the clunkers as much as possible, so gave it a 7 rating. Just feel sorry for anyone who paid full price.

 

[Ian Bell]

Hold on, did we win something?

 

[Ian Bell]

Never mind, I see it's a series. Nothing to see here