Project Cars is the best racer ever – Except when it isn’t…

I’m having a hard time understanding why many articles about Project CARS say it’s the most amazing racing sim/game ever. Then, at some point, the writer says it isn’t.

Every review on Project CARS is similar to dealing with a used car salesman, and to see this in action, you only have to read the reviews yourselves:

I get chills down my spine at the thought of people actually giving this article more clicks than it deserves. Either way; Alex Lloyd is a racer gone journalist, which you would assume makes him more qualified to write articles than the staff writers at PretendRaceCars.net. Alex tries his best to hype up pCars, but if you read between the lines you will find pure marketing and mostly thank you for hooking me up with a copy of the game and wheel to try it out with:

Early in the review, Alex stated:

I’ve now spent many hours on the Xbox version using a Thrustmaster TX racing wheel and pedals, and there are problems where it occasionally hangs or the sound inexplicably cuts out.”

And later in the review:

“…but the attention to detail is where Project CARS wins out.”

So which is it? Did SMS pay attention to all of the minute details? Or did SMS release a game where the reviewer admits that the FFB cuts out on consoles and it has something to do with the sound – something that people have been reporting on forums for about two weeks now.

“But the open-wheel machines and modern sports cars are pretty much bang on — with the exception that the braking remains less forceful than in real life; it’s as if the Formula 1-equivalent in the game is using steel brakes from a Ford Focus”

Is it “bang on” or is it not? The second sentence negates the first.

“You’re submerged into a world that no game, including iRacing or any of those PC racing sims, can replicate…”

Versus:

“Short of using iRacing or some other high-end PC racing sim, Project CARS is the most lifelike game around”

What am I even reading at this point?

And this isn’t just something we’ll pin on Alex Lloyd, no, even the big guns at PC Gamer are guilty of this:

“It’s the most polished racer I’ve played in a while, for sure.”

Only to say…:

“Playing with a Gamepad often borders on impossible…”

How is a game that ships with game-breaking control issues “polished?” How is a game supposed to display the developer’s insane attention to detail when it’s constantly crashing on the person trying to review it? Do they think we won’t notice this?

9 thoughts on “Project Cars is the best racer ever – Except when it isn’t…

  1. I’m not sure… I personally don’t see any contradiction in Alex’s article.

    1. A game can have attention to detail while being buggy. He is saying that most of the cars’ sound and physic are really close to the real real one. You know, that kind of detail. He didn’t meant to say that the game was polished.

    2.He said it is PRETTY MUCH bang on except for braking. Only if the braking was better, it would be bang on. I still don’t see any contradiction.

    3. There, he might or might not contradict himself. It depends on how you understood what he wrote, I guess. I personally don’t think he contradicts himself, but I can see how someone could think he does.

    For the PC Gamer one, I don’t know, it depends what he meant by “polished racer”. Maybe you should ask him.

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  2. A lot of game magazine-reviews are more or less jokes. I´ve read a lot and found just 2 with some serious testing and information about the technical quality of the game (for which the game was down-rated). And you could read it in their conclusion.
    Nearly every other magazine rated the game as if it was the first racing game ever and a faultless game in every aspect (LOL). Like “OMG, it´s a racing game. We never had something like this. Holy grail”.

    At the end, Project CARS turned out to be just a racing game among a lot. Nothing revolutionary, nothing new. Just a racing game mixing stuff together which has been there since ever and can be found in other racing games, too. Not even submitting an own character and identity. And it fails to serv the simulation-aspects in all areas, but just have challenging driving, but every other physics-part being a joke.

    So, I don´t understand why every magazine is so crazy about it.

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  3. Fun fact, Green Man Gaming already has the game on sale for $33 bucks. 2 weeks and it’s already 50% off.

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    1. Source? I checked greenmangaming.com, and the price is 50€, which is $53. Not than I’m buying, after having tried it ;)

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      1. Go into the VIP section, it’s a free account sign up. $33.99 USD. You YOOO-RO types may vary.

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  4. GMG sells foreign keys, in example PC was already priced at $13.97 in RU (at launch!)… so if you buy like 10,000 RU keys, you can sell them all at $30 and have an instant profit of 160,000$.
    GMG (and many other key resellers) do the same with any other game.. in example The Witcher 3 is priced at half of its orifinal price already a day after the launch (29.70€) on many web sites.
    Welcome to the game globalization! :)

    Project Cars is doing great in many EU countries, being first in the UK (and in some other countries) charts for two weeks for a simulator isn’t something that you gonna see every day!

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    1. Console release has saved this title, they are sooo desperate for ANYTHING let alone a half decent race game they’d buy it if it was 200 bux, there is exactly zero worth to any true PC sim racer that can pick between GSCE,rfactor 2, assetto corsa and Iracing, all of which smash Pcars to bits.

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  5. It’s sad situation when best sim racing magazine (you are awesome guys!) also the one which hates sim I think is least horrible.

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