Rate the Sims: Community Edition | rFactor 2

Paul Jeffrey · Dec 23, 2019

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

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!

BernL · Dec 23, 2019

The Wreck Physics are really not there......but I still like it. The should subcontract the wreck physics to the team at WRECKFEST to get it right. I would pay an extra $20.00 American for that or maybe more if really done right. I gave it an 8

eg01st · Dec 23, 2019

7 from me.

Best FFB, most pleasant driving feel of all sims, only AMS comes really close.
Not an 8 or more because of bugs and bad usability which looks like will stay that way after latest beta release.

M D Gourley · Dec 23, 2019

10 from me.
As the FFB / Physics / Audio in new cars and general / Graphics - looking great on my system / and the ability to do good looking screen shots with DOF, this one is personal preference....so rF2 gives me personally everything I need to enjoy this Sim immensely.

Mike Smith · Dec 23, 2019

rFactor 2 is like a crazy on-and-off girlfriend to me. Just when you think you're done with it, it does something that reminds you of what COULD be, and you're back in it for a while.

I'm about 700 hours in, and that's been in waves. Just when the clunky UI and lack of features that appear in most other sims makes me think I've had enough, they release a great DLC, and I invest another 50+ hours.

I could list specifically what I like and don't like about it, but anything I'd say about rF2 has been well stated by others above. Suffice it to say that it holds huge potential and shows moments of pure brilliance, but for me it hasn't been able to sustain that brilliance.

Two suggestions moving forward for Studio 397 would be to improve the online experience, and to sell an Ultimate Edition on Steam, which would include all, or at least most, of the official content.

eg01st · Dec 23, 2019

BigMike8 said:
Two suggestions moving forward for Studio 397 would be to improve the online experience, and to sell an Ultimate Edition on Steam, which would include all, or at least most, of the official content.

It would be great if that was possible with current DLC system. It probably is. RaceRoom has interesting model with their Premium pack which states "all content at the moment of purchase". Which means any new DLC you still have to pay for, so developers keep earning from their ongoing work. That could be good for S397 too.

Cote Dazur · Dec 23, 2019

The all mighty RF2, for some it is the holly grail of SIM racing, they say nothing else drive like it.
For most it is just a SIM, when it was launched in 2013, it had a lot of issue, spring forward to 2019, the expectations are a lot higher and RF2 is basically still the same.
By the noise it generate here, you might believe it is much bigger than what it is, in reality very few people drive it for all kind of reasons, I believe mostly because they have more fun driving something else.
RF2, apparently, is not about fun, it is about accuracy of calculations and challenge having race cars even finishing a single lap, to each is own and merry Christmas to all.

PS, I felt generous in those holiday period and gave it a 6/10.

pcraenme · Dec 23, 2019

I own all the current racing sims and rF2 is still my favorite. Each time I play rF2 after I just played any other racing sim, I ‘feel the difference’. The way the physics and road feeling are fed back through my G27 are better than on other sims. AMS and some of the better cars in AC come close, but are still not on the same level. But most of this is personal preference of course. Something else I do like on rF2 is how active they are on certain forums (not their own, but this RD forum or the Dutch tweakers.net forum for example). Marcel Offermans is actively taking part in threads about rF2, always on a positive note and answering questions. rF2 always gets a lot of heat on the graphics department, but in that area, a lot of progress has been made. I played AC (with Sol and custom shaders patch), ACC, RaceRoom and rF2 over the last couple of days, and... I prefered rF2 graphics.

rF2 is not perfect, but it still got a 10 vote from me.

ermo · Dec 23, 2019

Majuh said:
Poll title is wrong.

@Paul Jeffrey ^ (FYI It says Rate Raceroom Racing Experience)

Peter Kerényi · Dec 23, 2019

If I rated R3E with a 6/10 I have to rate rF2 a 5/10. As somebody else said, too little too late.

It's a paid game with very little quality up to date content. If you want the best it has to offer, you have to buy the game and buy additional content separately. Yes, they have to make money, to keep up the development. Giving a car free from a pack would probably encourage more people to buy the rest. Or a test-drive system based on R3E.

Physics-wise it's considered to be the best. It does feel good to drive, but I cannot comment on its realism.

Content-wise it's hit or miss with varying quality, and free content you buy the game with is getting left behind paid content in terms of quality.

Graphics-wise it's a generation behind on average... the cockpits are nothing spectacular, maybe a bit better than R3E, but dashboard fonts are a big problem (especially for premium price content, just look at ACC), the post-process effects are blue, the tracks can be good, however more often than not the art style makes them look worse than they could be. Based on videos I like how Le Mans and Sebring look, but not the Nurburgring.

The UI, I haven't tried the new one, but it's funny that after years of teasing and development the community does not consider it to be good, "it's still beta". More importantly the HUD could be remade to be more minimalistic. Last time I tried it it was infuriating that I couldn't get information about my fuel level from the in-car dashboard, I had to turn on the tachometers overlay to get information about it.

Again, I hope Studio 397 the best, to continue their development, and I am hopeful the sim will fit my needs better in the future. For starters, more advanced and accurate (and multi-page) dashboards would mean a lot for my personal immersion. I am still following it, but no longer playing.

thepharcyde · Dec 23, 2019

700 hours invested into it (since Steam migration) highest of all Sims I play.
However it's the title that could smash them all, but S397 are soooooooo sloooooow.

I will give it 8 out of 10.

Fernando Zart · Dec 23, 2019

6. It shines on FFB, though. The reason for a 6 is that they totally ruined the MP side of things with their "package" approach. If this was kept under the older system where if you've got the car and the track you would just join and race, then it would easily be a 9 or 10.

Stig Bidstrup · Dec 23, 2019

A Simulated Christmas Fairy Tale.

Rfactor 2 was "The Natural Born" racing sim due to its heritage ( Rfactor ) when it arrived some 7 years ago.

Over the years it got updated with Boxmasters and ATV s -sometimes strange combinations of cars and tracks-
"The Natural Born" started to lose its sense of direction , And the consumer couldn't really figure out what was going on.

Hard core simracers ( those with WW2 helmets and cigars ) could tell you that FFB and Physics were in a class of its own. The average consumer didn't really knew what to think, when they looked at screenshots from the game.

Suddenly "The Natural Born" was left at the roadside by its parents ( ISI ) like a stranded kitten.
Some of its DNA was even given away to others in this period ( Automobilista ).

"The community was holding its breath at this point".

"The Natural Born" was - with no guidance or sense of direction - seen wandering around in the old part of SPA, when it was picked up by a good samaritan called Studio 397.

The new parents have nursed , groomed , and guided the simulator for a few years now and given it some self confidence. Rfactor 2 could finally be ready to conquer the sim racing world. ...by the way it's a 10

bflorezruiz · Dec 23, 2019

6. Has (had?) the potential to be a 10, but at the moment it is not. I have all the sims, except iracing. rFactor 2 is the one I have dedicated the most hours to. But I abandoned it about three months ago. Too many bugs that never get fixed (freezes, strange behavior of AI at the corners, eternal loading times, etc.). In addition, I have the perception that S397 is focusing on online and esports, at the expense of single player drivers. There are no custom off line championships.

mibrandt · Dec 23, 2019

I dont believe it Will ever reach its potential sadly... the new UI is a result of 3 years constant work from these guys and its not even remotely close to being a solid and polished experience. Probably at least a couple of years work still before UI is out of beta. I cannot even imagine how long it will take before we get our hands on the competition system. which is strange because allegedly the massive delays were because they wanted to release new UI and competition system together... I gave it a 5

Matheus Machado · Dec 23, 2019

As I have seen someone saying, it feels like a victory every time I get the game to run.

Either way, it seems to be the highest paying esports platform after iracing, condemasters and F1, so maybe it will get better over time.

williang83 · Dec 23, 2019

No modern game deserve 10, simply as that. Speaking strictly about rF2:

- AI => 4, first of all no single modern sim has a good AI (although i have hopes on iRacing approach). In rf2 they are fast but that's it, they are dumb as ****. Anything that goes beyond follow a racing line as fast as you can does not exist in rF2. No slipstream overtake, no strategy, no sign of intelligence and sometimes unable to drive official tracks without consistent spin.

- Track => 7, new interesting tracks selection that satisfy my taste.

- Cars => 7, they could be 9 but after the BOP, they messed up everything when it comes to oreca and gte

- Physics => 9, their best feature

- Tires => 6.5, sure they are very dynamic but let's be real for me they are far from being realistic. The logic is far from realistic, again very dynamic but not realistic. Compound, pressure and temperature action and reaction does even mimic real life, there is no clear working range. In my 25 years of simraces i've seem tire models way simpler behave in a much more credible way.

- Racing Simulation => 1, rF2 is a great driving simulator but when it comes to racing it simply sucks. Meh MP and THE WORST SP. Not even there is no career but there is no championship. Opponents selection is nothing but poor and even when you pass over everything races are unstable (eg. illogical pit under rain, run out of fuel, etc..).

So for me the overall package is no greater than 5 due to the WORST SP EXPERIENCE but i'll give it a pass and say 6, just because others are also far from 10. For sure as overall package there are more than one product better than rF2 by miles.

Amir Vodokotlic · Dec 23, 2019

I can't stand the graphics.

Its like playing game from 2005.

for todays standards its by far the ugliest game on the market.

new UI took forever.

and its still 1 year away from being stable (if we take into account how long it took to just make it alpha)

online is dead.

DLC are being pumped out monthly it seems.

Just to keep the game funding going.

Jugulador · Dec 23, 2019

6/10

I aways felt the rFactor series as a racing engine... and a very good one. The first rF was one of my most played sims, but rF2 never cached my attention.

When rF1 was on it's prime there was a huge amount of online leagues and huge modding community support. I never felt something like that with rF2, that was obscured by better packages/communities, like AC and iR. Even Automobilista, that runs on an older engine, is more attractive to me.

There is some attractive content to rF2, but the business model pushes me away.

I hope that, for rF3, ISI invest more on the out-of-box content and on the gaming aspects (like a better online and, if possible, a modern career mode).

Jason Mullin · Dec 23, 2019

BigMike8 said:
rFactor 2 is like a crazy on-and-off girlfriend to me. Just when you think you're done with it, it does something that reminds you of what COULD be, and you're back in it for a while.

You have time for a girlfriend Mike with all these great sims and your fantastic YouTube channel?
Man you must be drinking those power smoothies infused with red bull.

Tony 93 · Dec 23, 2019

RF2 is good but VR is poor in places
If they were to improve VR and the cars no fading to nothing in a distance of 2 -3 car distances it would be good