Project Cars 2

The first game I’m going to write about is Project Cars 2. As the name suggests, it’s a racing game/simulator. Mostly it is about racing on circuits, but the game also includes rallycross. The game offers both multiplayer and single player with own career. I bought the game mainly for multiplayer, but the singleplayer has something to offer too.

The game attracts with great graphic and excellent driving model. Cars with front wheel drive behave, rear wheel drive and four wheel drive behave as they should. I still remember the amazing online event in which car groups have been randomly changed to group with front wheel drive cars seeing a number of players, used to riding exclusively with the rear wheel drive cars, ending in a cloud of smoke of oversteering and understeering slides. Very interesting is the weather and daytime model, when the race can begin on dry and gradually through the drizzle go into heavy rain or you can enjoy transition from light to darkness, when the setting sun can really unpleasant illuminate until you realize that you are racing blind. Probably the most amazing race is in the rain, at least for me.

Here’s the official game trailer:

SinglePlayer

The game offers an interesting career mode where the player is gradually opening new championships by winning championships. In the game, you can set different opponents’ difficulty in two levels. In particular you can set the level of opponents experience / difficulty and their aggressiveness. Every player can choose what suits him/her best.

But with difficulty setting I have a major problem (and I’m not alone in various reviews and discussions), where the level of difficulty is not the same under all weather conditions, not even in all parts of the race. AI opponents are driving much better times in training and qualifying than in the race. They are able to qualify for one round at world record level during the rain (with difficulty set to 110) and I doubt that world record has been set in the rain. There is completely different situation in the race when it is possible to get on the first position in a few laps (I still talk about the race in the rain) and without any problems to go for the victory. However another situation will occur in a dry weather conditions when I can not keep up with AI on difficult level 110. It is difficult to set the right difficulty because winning is good but it is not as fun as when the opponents are too easy. On the other hand, being the last in all the races is not a fun at all.

MultiPlayer

Multiplayer does not have difficulty with setting difficulty and a real comparison of your skills with other players starts. There is Competitive Racing License to find players you want to race with. Each player is ranked according to it based on three different ratings – safety index, skills and online experience.

Safety index

The security index is the letter at the top right (before the skill number). Each player has its own security index and begins with the “U” index, from which can go through “F”, “E”, “D”, “C”, “B” by a clean ride (without crashes and leaving the track) to “A” and “S” where “U” means that the player is new to online playing and must to improve or does not ride cleanly. Clean and fair ride can be expected from S-rated players.

I recommend To all online beginners who want to race (and do not ramming with others) to get to the “F” safety index as soon as possible. There are also online players who things that PC2 is the destruction of the derby and are able to spoil your race unpleasantly.

Skill level

It is the number following the security index letter. The higher the number is the better player is and the better driver/racer is. Everyone starts with 1500 with the most possible being 5000 (minimum is 100). But do not be fooled by any competitor who has played at least a few hours in online races and still has its skill level on 1500 is quite successful. For most new players, the problem will not fall 200 or more points down. At least I lost it but when I found my favourite Ferrari 488 GT3 (the most online events are in the GT3 category) I already get back to around 1500 points. I hope I will keep them in the future because competition is really big.

The skill index increases when you won, decreases when you are defeated. The amount of points depends on the oponents level and theirs skills. Usually, when a player is in the first half, points will not be took or some points can be given to you. You usually lose your points beeing in the second half, but this is not the rule. Once I got points I was even far away from the first half.

Online seniority

This is a rating based on the number of hours played in online races. It is a color strip below the safety and skill index. It begins in blue and continues through bronze, silver and gold to platinum.

Rating

As a car fan and enthusiast I really like this game and I always look forward to playing it again. I recommend playing the game with a steering wheel and pedals for a better gaming experience and if you have the option try playing with the glasses for virtual reality. The experience is great. The “Competitive Racing License” rating system, which I have not seen in any other racing game, is great. The physical model is great, and the best races are in heavy rains when the puddles can be tricky and the car can get skids in each corner.

On the other hand, even a game of this format does not avoid bugs. Occasional disconnection from the server during an online race can upset but since the last update it didn’t happen, so the developers probably fixed it. Overall the game is still improving and the latest update has brought at least one very positive change – a better force feedback steering wheel, because after the update I feel that I feel much more feedback from the steering wheel and I better know when I’m on the cars limit.