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!

 

[Nick Hill]

No brainer 10 for me. It's a very close call between R3E and AC for my all time favorite sim.

I could write a novel about R3E, but I'll just keep it to the highlights:

- Really good AI
- Great spread of content (stuff from both on and off the beaten path)
- Sounds are exquisite (best ever, IMO)
- The leaderboard competitions are a blast for someone like me who has an unpredictable (and limited) schedule for sim racing time

Most of all though, it's the driving experience. It's you and the car vs the track...so many sims feel more like you vs the car and track, not so in R3E. You really feel a great connection with the cars. You can overdrive and save it, but without ever requiring suspension of disbelief (a la simcade).

I'll lap in R3E till they turn off access (or come out with a worthy sequel). And all this from a sim that, when I first tried it 5+ years ago, I really couldn't see a good reason to play it. Sector3 has relentlessly improved the sim and I don't think they get the credit they deserve.

 

[Jonathan Young]

I’m very fond of Raceroom. It’s a great package, well put together. It’s one of the most accessible sims - you can run it on almost anything and it’s straightforward to get racing quickly and easily (Unlike, say, rf2). The car selection is excellent. Some fantasy cars, but mainly things like the open wheelers, which don’t bother me that they’re not real.

The FFB and physics are good, and after the recent patch, better still. I need more time to dial them in, but I think it’s going to be a big improvement. It’s annoying how much fiddling is required in some sims to get the FFB to feel good. I primarily play ACC which for me is the gold standard. I haven’t even touched the FFB settings since I first started playing as all cars feel excellent right out of the box. I know Raceroom has a wider variety of cars, but this kind of plug and play is what sims should aim for IMHO.

The AI was always pretty good, now it seems to be excellent and possibly class leading, but I need more time with it to be sure. And the sound is of course very good indeed. For me not quite ACC level, but very close.

But the elephant in the room is of course the aging graphics. This sim is crying out for an upgrade as these graphics just don’t cut it in 2019. With AMS2 on the horizon, Raceroom needs to up its game.

Its a solid 7 for me but with a graphics upgrade it would be a 9, even a 10. I live in hope of a sequel!

 

[Case_]

10 from me, without a single hesitation. There really is very little I can realistically criticize on Raceroom.

 

[Slapped]

I have it but I can't really give it a score as having tried it it's not compelling me to pay for any additional content, and maybe that's where the real magic is.

I already have AC, ACC, rF2 etc, so R3E is a pretty hard sell, and I'm really not a fan of the way that the developers are monetising it.

Good VR though.

 

[TrumpetReich]

I have to give Sector 3 MASSIVE props for allowing us to test the cars before buying. Every game should have that.

 

[GLePC]

I give R3E a 6/10 at the moment. I have been using R3E since Sector 3 took over I think, so quite a long ago. Unfortunately its getting less and less time from me.
Yes, the sim is being improved slowly & steadily, however even the new content look dated (especially cockpits). Meanwhile old content suffers from the "rF2 syndrome", looking much more dated. The optimization is bad, especially the CPU utilization (doesn't scale well with modern hardware). With the same amount of AI ACC looks (a lot) better, and also runs better and more stable on a Ryzen 5 2600. The AI... used to be better I feel.
R3E needs more to stay relevant in the long run I feel, but it's easier said than done, especially with their relatively old engine. If R3E didn't have "exotic" licenses for racing series (DTM, WTCR, etc.) and tracks I would not keep it installed. However, I really hope it will improve in my eyes! Excited for every update!
If the optimization was better, I would give it an easy 8-9/10. However, at the moment the game runs much worse than it looks (with AI). Kind of negating the usefulness of the AI selector and multi-class. Not sure if that can be improved, my questions about it are usually neglected. But keep up the work and good luck Sector 3 in the development!

Absolutely correct. I have the same opinion. Simply out of date. And the payment model is a joke; disadvantages regular customers very much. And by the way, also very expensive! Max. 5-6 / 10

 

[Will Mazeo]

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.

Yeah but without FCY is not complete, this thing is what changes race more and I like using it online

 

[Pasquale19]

With ACC for GT3, R3E is my go to SIM at the moment and after the last update with FFB improvements there was no need to keep rf2 in my hard drive.

Room for Improvement is known:
- ABS sounds
- realistic ABS, TC and engine maps settings
- Full 24h cycle
- Wet races

 

[Kimmo Kokkonen]

Oh boy! Previous version 10 points, current version Zero points!

It seems that I have to install my first real racing simulator Grand Prix Legends (1998) to to give me more of a challenge to drive. GPL was and still is the most difficult sim to drive, once you can drive real fast with those monsters you can drive anything.

Here's a small clip from 2005 and my Motopark Raceway GPL track mod, it was my first track project...please remember that we sim racers hate arcade cars because too easy to handle, R3E is arcade atm, modern GPL would be nice! Please do not offer me AC or rFactor2, please, it's not the same!

GPL forever!!!! Please hate me as much as you can!!!

 

[muzikant]

Oh boy! Previous version 10 points, current version Zero points!

It seems that I have to install my first real racing simulator Grand Prix Legends (1998) to to give me more of a challenge to drive. GPL was and still is the most difficult sim to drive, once you can drive real fast with those monsters you can drive anything.

Here's a small clip from 2005 and my Motopark Raceway GPL track mod, it was my first track project...please remember that we sim racers hate arcade cars because too easy to handle, R3E is arcade atm, modern GPL would be nice! Please do not offer me AC or rFactor2, please, it's not the same!

GPL forever!!!! Please hate me as much as you can!!!

Agree!! like also Gpl... best sim ever made. Maybe @ Paul a rate for the best sims all time?

 

[DND]

11/10
greenwood corvette

I can never pass up an opportunity

 

[Tony Wehrle]

they have a great ai championship mode

 

[thepharcyde]

For me, general public racing outside of free content, is actually very good, with fewer turn 1 pile ups than say AC.

Until the recent update, I found the whole FFB / handling aspect a bit alien, say compared to RF2.

I've given a solid 8 noting the recent update, else would have been a 6 for this alone.

24 hour cycle would be nice, as would additional licensing of cars i.e. Ferrari and Lamborghini.

 

[HoiHman]

8 out of 10.

10 out of 10 would be if the VR support was better and my 2080Ti was actually being used in VR, now it is almost doing nothing because the game is too much CPU limited. (even with a 9700K @5100Mhz)

I would be great if they would move to DX12 in 2020 to solve this.

 

[manu68]

I just discovered R3E recently and will not make any bad comments.
I like the sim so far, great sound, ...
I just own some cars and tracks, but as the 911 cup is one of the best car ever available in any sim, it is not a problem for me.

I love the fact that someone can enter a race with not all cars owned.

 

[A man with a Harmonica]

10 for the interface UI (hello RF2, it's mid of December) where you can create a custom championship with few clicks where several competitors don't even allow you this simple feature (hello RF2 again)
8 for the content and the ability of racing against cars you don't own
0 for not having 24h and weather while gtr2 had in 2004
8 for good physics
8 for good graphics
9 for sounds

Bonus for the interesting pit strategy method . Average 7.5

 

[bgil66]

9
I always have a great time in the sim

 

[Cote Dazur]

8/10. I like R3E and use it regularly. It is a solid package, nothing exceptional with the exception of the sound, which was best until ACC arrived.
Everything is good and enjoyable but nothing is better than what can be found in other SIM.
The whole is better than just the sum of the parts.
It is still well supported, huge update, new cars, new tracks.
it is a good element of a balance SIM diet, I hope it keeps improving for my and everyone else sake.

 

[BrainsBush]

I also gave an 8.

Especially after the recent update it improved again and my emotional me said: "give it a nine" but my rational me said: "An eight is also very very good and gives them even some room for future improvements".

Great job! And thus looking forward to new content, updates etc etc but not too fast because I still have to test the recent stuff. Don't stress me please

 

[David Peres]

Here's a small clip from 2005 and my Motopark Raceway GPL track mod, it was my first track project...please remember that we sim racers hate arcade cars because too easy to handle, R3E is arcade atm, modern GPL would be nice! Please do not offer me AC or rFactor2, please, it's not the same!

Raceroom does not have any sixties formula car like you have in GPL and mostly specializes in modern GT cars with TC and ABS, so thats a ridiculous comparison, but...

GPL forever!!!! Please hate me as much as you can!!!

Ok, I will