We all know that racing games are one of the hardest genres of gaming to introduce something new and groundbreaking. DriveClub doesn't deliver that racing experience that changes the game in any way but it does provide a solid racing experience in its barebones state but it does those aspects right.
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| The game types you can play. |
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| The racing events you can participate in. |
The game features three gametypes of which are Tour (single-player), Single Event and Multiplayer. The Tour gametype brings you into a screen where you are greeted with many events of which have a completion challenge in all of them. Simple challenges ranging from 'Finish in the top 3' to 'Beat the top speed face-off'. These challenges are what earns you Stars or Medals which allow you to advance to the next bunch of racing events. It works it the way that if you haven't unlocked enough Stars, then you can't play the next level of races until you have completed enough challenges. This may sound daunting but the developers were nice enough to make most of the challenges achievable on your first race in most cases. The only hard challenges which require a lot of skill mastering every corner and speed straight is the time trials which boast some ridiculous times to beat if you wish to earn gold in the event. But aside from that I found myself going through the events without having to repeat any to earn those extra challenge stars. I did find myself, though, restarting races many times due to my mistakes or because of the AI which will be touched upon later. Overall, the single-player experience was solid and I guess I didn't completely finish the single-player as I have 1 more event to complete before I can do the Legend race.
The game features a leveling system alongside the Stars system of unlocking races. The levels in the game help you unlock cars. The highest level I found within the car unlocks was level 40 of which I'm currently only level 27 after nearly finishing the game meaning that you need to play a lot of races from single-player to multiplayer in order to unlock those exotic high level cars. Some other cars require you to have a Club Level which can only be achieved if you join a club, hence the name DriveClub. You are free to choose whatever club you want to join and along with those other racers in the club, you do events to help raise the total points so you can advance to the next level to unlock better cars.
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| Options you have in single event. |
The Single Event is as you would assume, a single race. You can change the map, weather, crowd size, AI amount, AI difficulty and the gamemode from Race to Time Trial to Drift. The Single Event is self explanatory but note that there is no splitscreen gameplay which I would've liked.
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| Me on the red team. |
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| Finally connected to the servers. |
The Multiplayer is where the real talk comes in. On release multiplayer was not working at all as no one could connect to the servers. Two weeks down the line and I can say that multiplayer is functional albeit with a lot of disconnections and issues. One of the issues is that you are paired with racers from around the world as I've found myself racing Americans to Europeans. This doesn't really affect the gameplay a whole lot compared to FPS games where the ping matters because Evolution Studios were smart in making players with higher ping become ghosts so that you won't collide with them. Out of the 5 multiplayer games I've played (busy with university) I've thoroughly enjoyed them all. Races can either be every racer for themselves or it can be split into teams. The way teams win is obviously to the amount of points each team earns through their ranking in the end. The main reason multiplayer is fun is that there are the really good racers who can do turns properly and then there are those really bad players that just crash all over the place, just before writing up this review, I started at 9th place which is last and managed to get myself to 3rd place before the race finished. I guess the multiplayer aspect of the game just has a good way of ranking you among the players based on how well you do in general. Although racing online can be enjoyable there are still disconnects and a few issues related to the menu and long load times of lobbies in multiplayer but those are issues that Evolution Studios can fix and here's to hoping that hopefully soon, the game will be smooth as butter and everyone can enjoy the game because it is solid.
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| Hard to steer and take a photo. |
The gameplay is a mix between realism and arcade. The general speed and control of the cars resemble that of a simulation racer but the drifting and as well as speed control in general feel really arcadey. You don't find yourself slowing down to a halt around corners compared to those of simulation games as you can glide through corners at relatively high speeds perfectly fine. The handling is smooth on all cars, the range is from controllable drift to cars that just feel like they're driving on ice. There isn't much to mention about gameplay as it's what you would expect in a racing game. It's just mixed between simulation and arcade. You have the options of switching between third person to hood view to cockpit view. The cockpit view is really immersive and represents the scenes really well. With the joystick you can look out the sides of the windows at your opponents. But I mostly used third person.
Gameplay then brings me to AI which is one of the biggest complaints I personally have about the game. The AI don't really act or perform realistically. Sometimes you and the opponent turn around the corner at the same speed in the same car but somehow they manage to gain a large speed boost advantage over you and zoom ahead. I've found that to happen more than once and not only in turns but on straights as well. AI usually don't go around corners at high speeds so you expect your speed devil corner skills to be advantageous of the AI who turn the corner slowly but no, they manage to outrun you in straights even though you know your car is much faster. AI are also extremely aggressive, I guess due to the lack of a damage model the AI can be as aggressive as they want with no penalty which is annoying. Though the AI are aggressive and makes you wonder why they are, multiplayer is where the real aggression exists. Everyone is just bashing into each other but to me multiplayer is more fun to be in with players that are aggressive because it's more fun for some reason. But finally, it also brings me to the somewhat broken penalty system they have with collision. You get penalised if you collide heavily with another car but you also get penalised if the other car rams into your rear which is unfair, Evolution Studios say they are going to address this but I'm still waiting.
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| McLaren |
There is a total of five tiers of cars starting from crap hatchbacks to the more extreme Hyper cars which I like the most for obvious reasons, GOTTA GO FAST!! Each tier has a fair amount of cars to choose from going through all the popular car brands such as Ferrari to McLaren to Maserati and so on. There is a lack of Lamborghini which was disappointing. BUT the cars do like amazing and they all handled differently. Even when you're playing against AI you tend to choose the car you are most comfortable with in the tier as you find yourself performing much better with a car you like than to those you don't know the controls to. There isn't a lot of car details on performance but those bar graphs are enough to help you understand the basics of what the cars are capable of.
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| Customization |
There isn't a lot of customization options within the game which is rather disappointing to many but I'm not too fussed on big customization options such as spoilers and alloy wheels. There is a relatively detailed car paint system that allows you to add multiple decals to your vehicle to make it look shiny and colourful.
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| Snow |
The graphics is where the game really shines. Although it's just a car game, it does look superb. From the reflections to the general landscape and the day and night cycles. Sadly, as of writing this review, there is no weather in the game because for some reason it wasn't ready at launch at they need to patch it in. But regardless of that, DriveClub is one of the best looking racers to date and the damage models, though not really damaged more scratch models, are detailed and nice to look at at the end of the race to see how much you've damaged your car.
Overall, the game is a solid racer that doesn't deserve the hate it's getting. People on the internet like to rage at anything and everything so if you're put off by the ragers saying that this game is bad don't be because it's not. The single player experience can keep you going for a while until you unlock nearly everything because it's all achievable and by then you can go online and face the hordes of crazy racers from bad to amazingly bullshit. I've enjoyed my experience with the game so far and I'm looking forward to playing online more as they continue to fix all the issues that plague it but I'm not too fussed. If it isn't working one day, I'll go do something else and come back the next day.
The game is definitely worth a try at best but there is the PS+ debacle that hasn't been solved yet but I can't complain about that because I have the full game. It caters more to an arcade style racing game so if you like simulation racers you shouldn't get this game, wait for Gran Turismo. If not then get this game because it'll be a while probably until another arcade racer comes by.
6/10 - Not worth a purchase at the moment. The content is sparse at best with very little amount of actual game modes and cars to unlock. The career is straight forward and far to easy to really enjoy a lot. Should wait for more content to release before considering purchasing this game. There is great potential for the game's driving mechanics.
(Don't compare this to Forza Horizon 2. Unless you own both consoles you can't compare them. If you only have a PS4, get DriveClub. If you only have an Xbox One, get Forza Horizon 2. Stop comparing.)
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