Project Cars Review: Bringing Up The Rear

The world of car-racing games has been in dire need of a true simulator experience given the majority of games released in 2014 have been a mix of arcade and sim. Project Cars is developed by Slightly Mad Studios, which was founded back in 2009 to create their first racing title, Need for Speed: Shift. Since then, Slightly Mad Studios has developed several titles since then with Project Cars being its first realistic driving simulator. After racing through countless tracks around the world and finding myself behind the wheel of a wide variety of vehicles, I can safely say that only realistic driving simulator aficianados need apply. 

Eye of the Beholder

On a powerful PC, Project Cars is visually stunning as many aspects of the game have a high amount of detail to them. Weather effects, realistic vehicle damage, and cockpits are just some of the details I couldn’t get enough of. There’s nothing more beautiful than the setting sun shining in through my windshield as I attempt to overtake other racers to get into a higher position. It looks even more beautiful when I’m leading the pack and I’m able to enjoy the scenery without any distractions.

But if I learned something in my 30-something years on this planet, it’s that beauty is only skin deep and Project Cars is quite shallow in terms of what it offers. Upon logging into Project Cars, I’m presented with the option to start my racing career, partake in a free race, jump in or create an online race, check out community events in Driver Network, or race ghosts in Time Trials. Out of all of these options, the one that took the most of my time was the career mode. I either gained notoriety when I succeeded, or sympathy from my fans when I had an off race. I started in the humble beginnings of kart racing, which then lead me to race super karts and continue moving up to bigger and better vehicles.

Career races were pretty easy to understand at first. I completed a qualifying race to see where I’d place in the actual race that would take place afterwards. The qualifying race also allowed me to tweak my vehicle to perform to my taste, although Project Cars doesn’t offer a tutorial as to what changing each aspect of my vehicle will do. For example: I could increase or decrease the air pressure in my tires, but I have absolutely no knowledge how that would benefit me and I really shouldn’t have to conduct research on the Internet to find out. My pit crew would offer advice from time to time, like recommending getting my tires hot so they’d have better grip, but these tips felt sporadic and weren't catered to my needs.

As I progressed through my career, I was then able to take part in a practice race in addition to a qualifying and actual race. While it allowed me to better prepare for my big race, I found having to partake in so many races to prepare for just one to be more annoying than anything. It also didn't help I would, at times, speed through a track over and over again with no real end during both my practice and qualifying races. I would often result in simulating each race's end, which would mysteriously put me in last place, regardless of my performance.

Accurate to a Fault

There are over 70 vehicles available to drive in Project Cars, and they all look and sound accurate to their real-world representations. I could only assume they also perform just like the real thing as I have never sat behind the wheel of any of these cars, like the BMW Z4 GT3 or McLaren P1. All of my previous video-game driving experience went out the window as I needed to rely on real-world driving mechanics to succeed in Project Cars. Instead of keeping the gas pushed down for the majority of  the race, I needed to ease off of it a lot more as I finessed my car through the twists and turns of each track. I also needed to make sure I didn’t accelerate too far into a turn or else I would find myself sliding off of the track.

Because of that, I feel Project Cars won’t receive the mass appeal games like Forza Horizon 2 or DriveClub have received. Instead, only those who are really into realistic driving simulators may flock towards Project Cars, although they might get bored easily considering there really aren’t any unique game modes either. It carries a sense of realism in spades, but there isn't much under the hood. At least it supports VR headsets, so I could also see those looking to get that level of immersion within their racing games giving Project Cars a shot. Outside of those target demographics, Project Cars will most likely frustrate mainstream racing fans with its real-world driving mechanics, but may entertain realistic driving simulator fans who know their way through similar games. One thing is for sure: Slightly Mad has created one beautiful racing sim that highlights the look and feel of high performace vehicles.

This review is based on a PC Steam code provided by the Bandai Namco. Project Cars will be available in retail stores and in digital marketplaces on May 7 for $59.99. The game is rated E.