Rate the Sims: Community Edition | RaceRoom Racing Experience

[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... RaceRoom Racing Experience!

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!

 

[eg01st]

7

Very diverse sim with fresh content that I haven't seen in other games, but a few things that keep it from getting an 8:
* Requirement for connection for single player. The night of update servers were so busy that each main menu screen took minute to load.
* User interface is unoptimized. Way too many clicks to get to racing or even setup opponents.
* No replay access in race. Going back to menu is too long.
* Cockpits look too old and primitive. Just give them specular/normal map at least.
* Latest update fixed physics, but some cars feel just too light.
* AI sometimes act like kamikazes, returning to track like Vettel at Monza 2019.

 

[stevem]

I'd give it an 11 if it had Automobilista's Karts and Kart tracks so I'll go with 10. It's been my fav for a long time.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Especially after Dec update, I would've given it 9, but there's still no cooldown lap. So 8 it is.

I however really root for Raceroom, and hope to see cooldown lap and further developments (hope for rain, safety car, with those it will be 10+). Absolutely best content model, real series based conent. Keep pushing guys.

 

[Ami_M3]

Before the update it would've been 8, I was going to award 9 to AMS only.
Sector3 offered this amazing update however, quietly, bringing this title to higher standards. Sure there are some things missing, but there is no perfect sim atm, and R3E is among the best now.

Two years ago it was quite behind AMS and rF2 for me, today it's one of my faves, gets a solid 9
They've come a long way and I have a feeling are not done yet

 

[stickdeath1980]

8/10
Raceroom is a great simulator that can be had for not a lot of money. It lacks some features other sims have (day to night transitions is the most glaring one) but the quality of the cars and tracks provided makes up for it.
Mind you, do not buy any DLC from steam without a discount. The full game content can be had for cheaper using vRP and for the price of a AAA game, you can get all the content in game right now. All of it. For much less than that you can get the starter pack which will allow you to get your feet wet in a bunch of amazing series (including DTM which is my favourite sim racing series right now) and you support the devs. Sure, this game is not F2P to get the full content but the constant delivery by the devs makes the investment worth it.

The Good:
Variety of series - This title offers some unique racing series not found elsewhere which are amazing!

FFB - Once set up properly, it is really good in my CSW v2.5 Mind you, you will need to tweak it a bit but there are plenty of sources online for inspiration.

Sounds - Best in the industry imho. Like seriously good.

Adaptative AI - Ensures you always have a challenge and you will have great racing in single player.

Custom Championships - You can create your own custom championships where you can select series, tracks and rules which coupled with the adaptative AI makes for some of the best Single player experience in sim racing!

Consistency between content - All cars and tracks feel really well made and are consistently good in feel if not sometimes in detail.

The not so good:
No time transition making endurance series a bit of a non starter.

Graphics can look pretty dated especially in VR where you can look into every nook and crany.

Requires some setup to get the most out of it - FFB is good but it needs to be tuned properly to get the most out of it. Some of the default settings make no sense.

Shop is awkward to use. In order to get the most out of it you have to jump a couple of hoops. In game shop is cheaper than steam and getting vRP is the cheaper way to get content.

Inability to win vRP in game - An option to add some vRP per race if you race clean and do well would go a long way to boost this game imho.

Lack of a structured online racing system - SRS (free iracing) has 3 series using R3E but some form of safety and skill rating in multiplayer using the game launcher would not go amiss.


All in all, a very solid title that could use a couple of changes. Day to night transitions and an organized online racing system (more than hotlap challenges I mean) where people could get quality racing on the hour every hour would be excellent. SRS covers a bit of this need but it is not perfect as not everyone knows about it.

 

[aka2k]

Latest patch was amazing for touring cars. Physics are stellar now. And some tracks, like Brands Hatch, got a much deserved tidy up.

 

[F_B]

8/10

+ great cars (especially historic content like Group C, GTO, Group 5, DTM92 etc is worth alone the money)
+ tracks which you don't see in other titles
+ good AI
+ custom races/championships
+ sound fx
+ new physics
+ VR

- still DX9 and therefore quite problematic in VR
- FFB has too many options (not as bad as in PCars 2 but still too much)

 

[Ghoults]

I have not tried the last patch with allegedly better physics but for me raceroom has always been the one that felt closest to the original rfactor and and not in a good way. Physically it is way behind the other sims and even with the same physics engine automobilista is just so much better. The game feels really out and outdated to drive. Raceroom feels more like a little less serious game too. Like it was designed to have little bit of more of a mass appeal (no tire pressures for example) but because it did not work out (the bankruptcies) they are now steering the ship slowly towards more serious. Out of rf2, ac, ams it is still by far the least serious contender pretty much on all fronts except the prices where things get very serious.

There are lots more negatives but the game has some some really good positives too. I think the car selection is really really good. There is a lot of variety and historical content especially. I love that they have added some of the group a touring cars, the imsa gtos, the 911 carrera historic cup car.. They have a ton of modern gt3 and touring cars too which I don't really care about but I don't mind it either. The track list is also very impressive. But nothing is laser scanned. The content list altogether is great. The sound is fine too. I would not rate it as totally above anything else because the samples have quite a bit of repetition which at least for me is noticable every time I drive anything.

Then there is a huge list of negatives. The convoluted credit system is just horrible system. Claiming to be f2p doesn't help it either when it is not free2play. It is a demo where you can buy extra dlc just like live for speed. The testing feature is nice so at least props for doing that. But they are selling skins ewww. Overall the prices are just too high and the game all in all just is not worth the hundreds of euros it takes to get most of it (with discounts). Even just a quick race or two can quickly become more expensive than the price you can get something like automobilista, assetto corsa or rf2. And those other games have more content too. And better content (Sadly no historic imsa gtos). Then the game has this stupid online-only requirement which means you can do nothing with it without constant internet access. Their method to adjust ffb is also in the full moon weird category with pcars 2 where you get loads of settings which all should be the mechanical properties of the steering linkages and suspension geometries.

I see that the game gets a lot of free publicity because raceroom seems to be giving out the full game to any streamer who is willing to play it. A fact that sadly and weirdly is almost always forgotten to be mentioned by the said streamers which due to its high price tag should deserve a mention. Yet if the streamer does a short stream with say 3 car/track combos that basically means every viewer who wants to participate has to buy like 6-10€ worth of content for each race. $€£. It is obvious why raceroom do it and I don't really even see anything wrong with it from their perspective. But you also have to ask how many of these streamers would play raceroom if they had to everytime get the credit card to drive a new combo. I'd say not a lot considering how rarely they play it when there is no new hotness to show off.

I rated the game as 6/10. On surface it looks like a nice package but it quickly becomes a big meh as soon as you look at what it is and how it does it. It doesn't do anything particularly well, it feels outdated to drive and worse than its competitors. The pricing model is awful in every way. I'd say the biggest positive is that you can download the demo for free, try any car you want and then get out of it without having to go through a refund or spend a dime if you did not find appealing. Or stay and buy the portion of the game piecemeal you care about.

 

[CrimsonEminence]

8/10, second most favourite Sim for me. Hop in, drive a session, have fun, still much development, pretty underrated sim.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

+Great way to buy content
+Great content
+Physics have been improving and devs are dedicated, in a good path
+Best sounds
+Good UI

Still lots to do
-No 24h cycle
-No Weather
-No Rejoin
-No Working race rules
-No colision in pits
-No swap
You know racing sims already lack a lot of immersion, cant spend time in sims with even less of it. Hope it's a sim to join in near future

Actually in case you were not aware, flag system in R3E is probably one of the best (so great job here S3). But there's no SC phase and formation lap etc, that harms immersion quite a bit. No collisions in pits is nasty one as well... But oh well, nothing is perfect I personally not going to reinstall it until cooldown lap is added, but I do hope it will.

 

[Dr. Death]

Other than LFS it might be the only free mainstream sim game, that also offers multiplayer for free players, and has people playing. Solid 9, but i only take a point off because of some outdated graphics and because its slow to implement things. That being said their customer service is top notch.

 

[TrumpetReich]

The only things holding me back from giving it a top score are a few quirks in the multiplayer. The cut-track penalty system has never been ironed out and can be very frustrating. Going wide and slowing down to avoid a wreck only to find yourself penalized is just unacceptable. Add in the crazy amount of rammers who see this as a demolition game and I struggle to complete or enjoy probably 4 out of 5 open lobby races. Can't really blame Sector 3 for that, but I wish they'd create a better system for ghosting guys who are driving backwards or full speed into turn 1.

 

[BernL]

The wrecks and the physics behind the wrecks , or lack there of is what made me give them an 8 overall .

 

[Terry Rock]

I gave it 7/10 but should be 7.5/10.
Cars still feel way too vague out of the box.
I was told the numerous steering and FFB adjustments were to cover the massive variety of cars.
That feature is not something I want to constantly spend 30+ minutes tweaking before I get a single lap in.
Make default base profiles which feel close to the individual models...the user can tweak from there and save time.
I too, also hate the paid skins concept.
If I buy a car, don't nickle-and-dime me on skins. Its annoying.

 

[Emery]

Unfortunately its getting less and less time from me.

That's how it has been for the past 1.5 years or so for me, but this latest update has put it back in circulation.

 

[roadyroad]

Well, it's a 8 for what it offers, great cars, great tracks, amazing sounds, excellent FFB, having lost 1 point for the lack of updates of the old content and another for the lack of different weather conditions.
I think the latter point should have made the game lose another point, but it's too late, and it's still my most played sim...

 

[david92tm]

+Great variety of cars/class
+tracks well detailed
+Sound
+Can test the car before buy
+VR is not bad at all


-Graphics looks old
-Difficult triple monitor setup
-Menu not intuitive( so many clicks until start)
-FBB difficult to setup
-stuttering in all configurations for me

 

[Isaac Chavira]

I wish I could win the Power Ball. I'd donate $20M USD to help fund these guys. I wouldn't want anything in return.

 

[2stains]

8
Still room for improvement.

 

[Fabio Aragão RD]

GTR3 ?