Project Cars: Game of the year edition Review.

By Sam Coles:

There are games sometimes that you play and you don’t expect to like them, well I’m on a quest to play games in genres I wouldn’t usually invest my time and money in and I’ve started to warm up to genres like J-RPGs and of course racing games. It’s nice to play a game where I’m not dispensing lead into someone’s face. Project Cars is a brilliant game which was made for gamers by gamers with a huge selection of cars, events and tracks that will keep you entertained for hours.

Like most racing simulation games you start from the bottom with go karts and can I say that go karts are the most annoying engine sound in all of motorsport it’s like a mix of a lawnmower and a moped. I digress you start off in the go kart leagues and start to gain notoriety with other racing teams and then eventually you can get behind the wheel of a mean machine. You take part in seasons and you can select them via a calendar in the menu and you can choose which ever league you want to participate in, depending on what cars you own and what team you’re a part of. This system keeps everything nice and fresh so it won’t get stale like it does in other racing sims.

The controls do take a bit of time to get use to because I don’t play racing games often and if I do they generally have an arcade control scheme where you can drift around the corner at 90 mph. I eventually got use to the physics and it became immensely satisfying when you nail that corner perfectly, but then the game throws a curve ball at you and changes the weather to a downpour and you then spin out straight into a wall. It keeps you on your toes because you may be familiar how one car handles but then it gives you a super car which can be a challenge drive in torrential rain.

Graphically the game looks superb as it runs at a stunning 60 frames per second, it’s not often that you get a game that is graphically intense with a smooth frame rate, Doom is another example of this case. The fast races really work with the smooth frame rate as you see the rain fly off your windscreen as you wipers are struggling to keep up with the downpour. The car models are beautifully detailed with the glimmer of the sun reflecting off the bonnets of cars to the rain drops rolling off the windscreens.

Overall I was ultimately surprised how much I enjoyed Project Cars as it’s not a genre I tend to seek out but I’m starting to warm up to racing games. If you missed the game last year I would highly recommend picking up this version as it has all the car packs on the disc. It’s available on PS4, Xbox One and PC so get out there and hit the track.