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| Image is my own from Gran Turismo Sport (Polyphony) |
Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So I've gone on record as saying over the past few months, I have been obtaining new racing games, being F1 2017, Project CARS 2 and Gran Turismo Sport. Full disclaimer, I know there's also Forza Motorsport and Need For Speed Payback, the reason I am not listing them is because Forza is an Xbox exclusive and I don't have an Xbox, as for NFS, I'm not into that type of racing game, the only times I ever bought into the franchise were the Shift games.
Anyway, for the purpose of this article, it's F1 2017, Project CARS 2 and Gran Turismo Sport. All have their pros and cons, and I'll be going through them all one by one to let you know how I feel about all of them. Offering perhaps a perspective into what you may want to spend your money on, maybe even hopefully having the developers of these games see what they must improve upon. So here goes, starting off our list in chronological order of release, F1 2017.
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| Image is my own from F1 2017 (Codemasters) |
Ever since the F1 titles moved over to the next generation of consoles, the driving feel has always felt very off. On top of that, a lot of the F1 titles made by Codemasters have had a lot of potential and never quite lived up to it for one reason or another, but for what the 2017 title is, it's by far the best F1 game both in terms of quality as well as quantity.
Immediately what puts 2017 up there is the inclusion of classic cars. Along with all the 2017 teams and cars, there is also Ayrton Senna's '88 and '91 McLaren (Though just so you know, the 1988 McLaren requires you to buy it separately, the only one that requires that of you), Nigel Mansell's '92 Williams, the V12 screaming Ferrari from '95, Damon Hill's '96 Williams, Mika Häkkinen's '98 McLaren, Michael Schumacher's two most dominant Ferrari cars from '02 and '04, Fernando Alonso's Renault from '06, Kimi Räikkönen's '07 Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton's '08 McLaren and finally, Sebastian Vettel's '10 Red Bull.
Having originally been introduced in F1 2013 on the Codemasters titles and having been absent ever since, but it really should be a mainstay of the F1 games as it does add so much to what is essentially a copy and paste yearly game pretty much. What was done with 2013 and is expanded upon in 2017 with the classic cars is that you are allowed to race them, and in 2017 the '88 McLaren and all the cars from the 90s are all categorised into a class separate to that of the cars from the 2000s since the performance gap is that much bigger.
Also with the typical track selection, you also get shorter versions of tracks such as Bahrain, Silverstone, Suzuka and USA. Slightly disappointed that we have these instead of classic F1 tracks that were in 2013 but I still find a lot of fun in them, in particular the short version of Suzuka which takes about 40 seconds to lap in a 2017 car, what I like to do is load up a multi-class race with the classic cars, get in a slower C1 car and try and take advantage of the traffic that forms from the C2 cars.
On top of that also, I really love the Championships mode where for example, you can do a Sprint Series where there are two five lap races per meeting with random grids, one-make championships or a Classic Season with classic cars on an F1 calendar reminiscent of early 2000s seasons. Along with that, you unlock invitational events that can include such modes as Checkpoint Challenge, Overtake Challenge and Pursuit, there is so much included that really do make it more than just the F1 drivers, teams and races, before we even get into career mode.
To a further degree than in the previous instalment, the career mode in this game is incredible. Along with unlocking the invitational events, the career mode is heavily invested on developing your car via the resource points you earn for participating in practice programs, where you can improve aerodynamics, the engine, the chassis and overall sustainability. You're always looking to keep developing your car, keeps you invested.
This is before I get to talking about the driving, it feels so much better than the previous two instalments of the F1 game. Putting this into context, I use a Logitech G29 wheel for my car racing games but I did play with the controller for F1 2015 and F1 2016, getting my wheel last year and I did so some driving on F1 2016 and I have to say, the handling model was appalling on those games. On F1 2017, you actually feel the weight of the car all around and you know where your wheels are, it's not just understeering and has absolutely no lack of feel at all.
Of course though I must address the fact that this game being an F1 title, it's not as free as something like Project CARS 2 or Gran Turismo Sport in regards to what it can do and include, but as far as an enjoyable racing game goes then it's definitely up there and I'd highly recommend it if that was what you were seeking. I have some very minor tweaks I'd like to see with the next F1 game, they're relatively small.
One of them is, a bit more authenticity with the way our drivers are presented. If I could point out the photo I used for the top of this section talking about F1 2017, that is an image of myself in a Ferrari next to Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes. You can tell it's me because the race number is 56, and Ferrari's drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen's race numbers are 5 and 7. But my helmet is a copy and paste, my red and yellow helmet isn't branded as it should and I'd love to see that worked on in the next game.
What I mean by that is, if I raced for Ferrari then my red and yellow design would be coated with the Ferrari logo above the visor, with Santander and Shell V-Power along with all the brands that sponsor Ferrari that you will find on their current driver's helmets. But if I switched to Mercedes, their badge above the visor with Monster Energy on either side and Petronas on top of the visor too etc. you get the point. It's a small detail but I'd love to see that, I'm amazed it has not already happened yet.
Same little details go for the driver identification. On a lot of the F1 cars are the three letter abbreviations for drivers, and you're asked to type out yours when you create a driver, I use LMR as mine but on Ferrari's car they don't show it. However if I drove for Renault or Haas, I'd like to see LMR written wherever they have the three letters, which is very nit-picky I know. Moving on.
Other things I'd love to see improved or reintroduced, on F1 2012 and F1 2013, there was the young driver test at the Yas Marina circuit, which acted as a demo and whilst I don't believe it should be forced, maybe have it as an option once you have created your character. It could give you incentive to do it by giving you resource and career points, and perhaps have it forge paths and narrow down team selection. I know there's a system in place on the current F1 games that teams will look at you and think higher or lower of you depending on what you do in races, maybe depending on who you drive for in the young driver test depends on what teams are more likely to be interested.
Something I've blabbed on about for a while now in regards to F1 games, I miss that incredible atmosphere that F1 2010 brought. It always looked so amazing both with how refined the graphics were when you were placed in the pit lane, teamed with the soothing music, I really do hope that the main menu in the next F1 game is reminiscent to that of F1 2010, I want to feel like I'm in the F1 world.
Final thing they need to re-add, split screen. They made a big deal out of it in past F1 games, it needs to return, and with Rocket League allowing split screen online as well, I believe it's necessary as my friend Matthew will often pair up with me on Rocket League and we will go online. Whether it be on my PS4 where he's labelled as my PSN ID with a (2) next to it or if I'm at his place and we are on his Xbox.
If you lot want an overall final conclusion for F1 2017 as to whether you should buy it, here's what I would say. It is the ultimate F1 enthusiasts game, it aims itself as being accessible by everyone but to truly appreciate it, you really have to be a Formula One fan, going off how the development influences your performance in career mode and the selection of classic cars, if it had none of that like F1 2015 then I would not recommend picking it up. But F1 2017 is the best F1 game that Codemasters has produced so by all means, F1 fans, pick up your copy of F1 2017 for Christmas.
Now onto number two, and one that I'm still conflicted over, Project CARS 2.
I really enjoyed the first Project CARS, it was catered more towards the motorsport enthusiast but I did understand a lot of the criticisms that it was met with. The handling model feeling too stubborn and that you couldn't drift, which I rarely did but I can respect those who do want to, so along with all of the content carried over from the first game as well as more features and promised major improvements, I was very much ready to play the follow-up and was convinced it would be the go to racing game. How is it? Well, as you can tell I am very conflicted.
Firstly I must say all the good in this game. There's so much in here, real-time weather along with a whole range of weather conditions to drive in (Including snow!), track condition evolution, rallycross racing, IndyCar and ovals (Which I have a whole new found respect for after racing them), and a career mode that really is reminiscent of a real life motor racing driver's just like in the first game. I also cannot speak the praises enough of the ability to have preset rules for all forms of motorsport to allow authenticity, and the ability to create and save online championships that can progress on for as long as you want, which is a huge step forward for us motorsport fans.
Of course there are road cars for those who love road cars (myself included) but Project CARS games have always been catered more toward the motorsport enthusiast and for the most part, it delivers and then some. However what does let this game down is the handling model.
I've been getting better as of late but it's very nervous and vague even when you're not trying to go so quickly. Personally I do find the braking to be very difficult, even with anti-lock braking I still find the tyres to move around when I am trying to slow the car down, and it makes it difficult to push. Plus saying earlier that the cars felt heavy on the first game, they feel like they've gone too far the other way on this version.
Not only that, but I can't really speak for controller players that much since I don't play Project CARS 2 on the controller but I've been told that the promise to make the handling on the pad easier for this version was not delivered. I did play the first game on controller for the longest time and I found it to be decent, but I haven't done that for the new game and I don't plan on doing so. However one thing that continues to plague this game, is user unfriendliness.
Something I personally criticised the first game for, there's so much that you can change and do to the cars that it almost feels a bit overwhelming. I know that when I raced on the first game, I couldn't set up a pit stop to have my pit crew do what I asked them to do in time for my car to pass my pit box and go back onto the track.
Overall, the game is awfully twitchy and having been getting somewhat the hang of it over the past couple of days, I still can't fully get my head around the handling model. Another really off-putting thing it tends to do is if you turn too hard, you get your side tyres developing a fuck tonne of smoke (I get this a lot in IndyCar oval racing, infact it fixes the tyres often in place), and depending on the car when you're braking for a hairpin, the car will squirm and lose mid corner torque. All very complicated stuff, and it would be considering the scale of this game.
I don't know if this game can have a quick easy fix to its handling model or not but what I can say for a fact is that Project CARS 2 is not for the casual consumer. This has the potential to be the perfect game for motorsport enthusiasts, being essentially a motorsport simulator, but aside from the major criticisms I have, there are things I'd love to see in the next game.
Something that Gran Turismo Sport has is a livery editor which I'll touch upon later, along with overalls and helmet colouring, this is something I believe could be expanded upon in Project CARS 3. Again with Project CARS' motorsport centred focus, this livery editor could perhaps work in a way that would make it possible to have your own team and you create your own custom liveries for the cars you race.
Again I cannot stop talking about the motorsport centred focus of the Project CARS games and its career mode in the first game was the best you could have in my opinion, and the follow-up did also include it though I must say, again as is the case with these games, there needs to be a balance.
The first game, I could not get the hang on the karting circuits and I did very much rush through the karting phase in the first game, though trading that for what you get in Project CARS 2 is no progression at all. If you wanted, you could just jump straight into the top of the motorsport tree rather than have to climb through the smaller ranks. I would very much prefer to begin in Formula Rookie, Ginetta Juniors, Renault Clio Cup etc.
Speaking of the progression system, small nit-pick but the choice to remove the Formula B car was a pretty bad one and to have the top of the single seater category be IndyCar when you had not only Formula A but also Formula X. I do think the single seater ladder needs some tweaks as IndyCar may very well be single seaters but not on the exact same ladder as the Formula championships.
I've already gone on about it before but for a game like this, I'd love to see a racing school that would perhaps place you in certain scenarios such as, when is the best time to change from wet tyres to dry tyres on a drying track or how to save fuel approaching the dying laps of the Indy 500 when everyone else is pitting and winning it like Alexander Rossi did last year. I know that Project CARS has a great toy box to pick from and the potential for this could be game changing, since it's no secret that the majority of the gamers aren't all motorsport diehards. I'd love to learn a lot about these things, rather than the boring cone slalom challenges on Gran Turismo games.
Overall, as much as I want to recommend Project CARS 2, I can't. Especially to the casual consumer, give this a miss but if you're like me with a force feedback wheel and a big motorsport enthusiast then you can work with it and I do hope it would improve, even though I expected it to be great from the start.
Last but not least, we are now going to talk about Gran Turismo Sport.
If you've followed by blog for a while, you'll be well aware of how vocal I was leading up to the release of GT Sport which I will get to. Now I will say that whilst Project CARS 2 was a very difficult driving game for any casual gamer, GT Sport's handling model and online racing system does make it that much more appealing and accessible to the casual gamer.
Okay let's just talk about what I don't appreciate about this game, that I have been complaining about for quite a while, and that is? The lack of circuits, both real and original. The reason why this annoyed me was because in the last GT game (Gran Turismo 6), we had a whole bunch of great top-line FIA real world circuits like Le Mans, Spa, Monaco, Silverstone, Monza, Red Bull Ring, Fuji etc. and considering the FIA is collaborating to create online racing championships with this game, you'd expect GT Sport to have these tracks. But it doesn't.
Not only that but there's a considerable lack of GT original tracks, some of which I know would have been incredible with the racing that can happen in this game. This incredible racing coming from a sportsmanship system which will match you up in races with people who are as quick and clean driving as you, and couple that with the categorisation system that GT Sport has (Which I will get onto), it's just a shame there's such a lack of circuits.
That categorisation I just spoke about, is incredible. I remember back in the day, I really wanted to put together a racing championship between my friends and I but we lacked any sort of major racing category that would make it interesting, we only had Japanese Super GT's back on Gran Turismo 5 and it never sat well with me having them race on circuits that they wouldn't typically race on. If I still had that ambition and all my friends remained in touch, GT Sport would be the perfect game (If it had a decent amount of tracks).
But back on topic, you have the stock production cars labelled as Group N and are all split up via their horsepower into their own individual divisions. So any car you have that develops let's say around 300 horsepower are placed in the N300 class and only cars with any sort of figure of horsepower around that will be able to race alongside you, which can open itself up to allowing a load of cars pushing the edges of the horsepower whilst being extremely light. Road car races aren't that common but they happen and if you want to use your Subaru Impreza road car and make it as fair as possible, you are at least capable.
Then we have the racing cars. This includes Group 4 which is very basic modified versions of production cars, Group 3 which is a universally beloved category and a step up from Group 3 in terms of car model modifications and performance but still retaining the shell of production models. Both are very balanced and feature a variety of models, some of which are real life GT4 and GT3 race cars and the others which the manufacturers that create the models don't have a racing version of in either of those categories.
Other than that you have Group 1 made up of Le Mans Prototype cars, Group B which consist of Rally cars and finally the Group X category filled without restrictions, any car that doesn't confine to any of the regulations, everything from safety cars to the bonkers 400mph SRT Tomahawk X. You also have Vision Gran Turismo cars, a set of cars that were made in collaboration with the makers of GT and car brands, including that SRT Tomahawk car.
One major criticism though of GT Sport is the lack of single player content, since this game is mainly focused on the multiplayer aspect. However, as of November 27th (My birthday!), the game will include free of charge, new content to satisfy that corner of the community, and by corner I think I mean near damn well the whole room. I've said it before regarding the circuits but this is something that really should be in the game from day one. It seems like these days that games really are not complete and then tacking on extras, but more pieces of the puzzle are dished out every so often, mostly for a cost. Polyphony are doing great here in regards to adding content, Kazunori Yamauchi has promised that all content added to GT Sport is free and I do applaud that.
But this game as of now, isn't complete. I am obviously glad with all that is in this game and how incredibly accessible and easy on the user it is, but it does feel like a lot of what should have been in the game from the start isn't in it, just the basics, not anything extra.
Though with that being said, the social features in this game are great. You can create liveries for cars and share them online for other players to download, which I have been doing with my friends. I helped my friend James create a black and green livery for his Group 3 Lamborghini Huracán, along with my friend Charlie with an incredible chrome-blue livery with an immense arrangement of decals on the rear of a Group 3 Audi R8, and finally my other friend Ahmed who loves Mercedes so if he gets GT Sport, we created a Group 3 SLS livery consisting of his signature grey and orange colour scheme. Couple that in with my red and yellow McLaren 650S Group 3 car and I know we are going to have some great races. (You can actually see my McLaren, Charlie's Audi and James' Lamborghini in the picture at the start of this article)
I can say without a doubt that GT Sport is worth buying, and it's Black Friday weekend so it's on discount on the PlayStation Store so get it while you can if you want to have great and fair, balanced online racing but bare in mind that this game really doesn't have everything. You do run into a wall very quickly (not literally), plus the cars have to be bought with currency that you win whilst racing unless you win them on a lucky spin after completing daily mileage of completing a challenge (though I can say from experience, it can be bullshit sometimes).
But overall GT Sport is a great game and by no means am I saying that it's the best one to have in every circumstance and category. F1 2017 has great racing but is in its own little bubble, Project CARS 2 is immense and vast in scale but you need to be precise, isn't as user friendly and you need to be very into the complex side of racing.
However, I say this for you non PlayStation users, GT Sport is a PS exclusive and the Xbox alternate Forza Motorsport's latest entry is apparently very arcade-like in its handling physics but still maintains a slight sense of realism. It also utilises a very controversial loot-box system that have been mentioned in the same breath as Star Wars Battlefront 2 and the recent Call Of Duty titles, and I am going to write an article in the coming weeks about such a thing so stay tuned for that.
I can say for PlayStation users that GT Sport is by far the best game to pick but of course it all depends on what you like, and for Xbox users then Forza is probably also your best bet but don't quote me on it. We are all very deprived of range, really.
Let's say that on a graph, the left is arcade-like racing games and the right is very much simulator style racing games, where do we put these games on a scale? At least for console peasants like myself, you PC master race people with your iRacing, Raceroom etc. can shush for a moment. Need For Speed is very much on the left and it works for what it is, Project CARS is the right and a bit to its side but still on the right are F1 2017 and Gran Turismo Sport, then we have Forza Motorsport 7 which is slightly in the middle riding that line. There are different consumers for these different games.
As we are on Black Friday sales weekend and we are coming up to Christmas, take all of this information as you want but above all else, enjoy racing and enjoy it with your friends or whoever you meet in racing communities.
Alright! Thank you all for reading and I do hope I have helped you out here. If you are new here, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or put your email in the 'Follow By Email' option in the top right if you're on a computer version of this site as appose to a phone. Hope to see you all back here very soon.
So until we meet again,
Luca.
