An easy access 'serious' sim?
Ah. Bugger. This was somewhat unexpected. You see, I was expecting a choice of cars and courses, some form of open play and perhaps a career mode or two. Well the career mode is here alright and I’ve a choice of two: Formula 1 or Sports. Damn.In fact, this feels more like Gran Turismo than anything else as, picking out Sports as my chosen career, I’m presented with three ‘starter’ cars which are, well, erm… utter pants. No really, your initial cars are complete dross. I suppose it’s my own fault for expecting too much but in my first few races I felt like I was chugging along in a 1L Nissan Micra basic as every other bugger on the track roared past in hugely powerful souped up beasts.
Ok, so this is the early part of the game and for sure, unleashing me on the track in a 500bhp tarmac eating monster with a body kit that creates so much downforce it sucks up manhole covers is probably not the best idea. Yes, this is a serious sim so a lack of an arcade option is entirely forgivable but come on, I’m getting trounced in every race. Yes, I know that the cars going past leaving me spinning like a top in a Wiley Coyote cartoon style are in a different group and so overall placing has less impact but this is like racing one of those electric shopping carts against a Golf GTi… I’m getting creamed in every race.
Click for larger imageIn fact, to avoid being black flagged I’m spending just as much time looking in my rearview mirror as I am looking out the windscreen… You see, these power beasts are lapping me at least once and if I don’t yield the racing line I get flagged or worse, rammed up the arse taking me out of the race. Limping back to the pits having taking a good shunt up the tailpipe is not my idea of a winning strategy so, certainly until you’ve got a few races under your belt and a bit of cash in the bank, you’ll be more nervous than a new driver attempting the Hangar Lane gyratory in rush hour.
Fortunately, through placing well and taking as little damage as possible, you earn money and experience, which happily counts in both the single player and multiplayer modes, and you can then spend the dosh on turning your heap of a car into a steroid powered, flared wheel arch, opponent eating race demon. This does have the downside of making you feel like all you’re doing is racing for cash and does take the competitive edge off of the racing itself.
Now despite what may seem as a bunch of negative points, I can see why ISI designed rFactor this way. If they’d given you access to the powerful cars from the start you’d spend more time over-booting it and either spinning off before performing a series of impressive but useless doughnuts or just drift off at every corner into the gravel trap… if you don’t take most of the field with you at the first corner.
Click for larger imageSo starting off in a, by comparison, ice-cream van is a very good idea as you haven’t got the power or speed to do too much damage and, as you convert your ice cream van into a racing beast, your skills should improve as well.
The handling on the cars is, as a far as I can tell, spot on. One of the key factors in racing games in giving an impression of speed. It’s all well and good giving me a speed readout, what gear I’m in and what my revs are but am I going to check these before each and every turn? No. In real life you don’t approach a roundabout and think “Ooh, what’s my speed? Hmm, 70 is a bit quick, let’s slow change down, hold it on the revs, brake, turn in, hit the apex, accelerate smoothly, get the car straight, dump the gas and a change up…”
Ok, you might do that but you’ll have a heavily endorsed license. My point is, most of the time you gauge your speed by your surroundings and the feel of the car. You know that a roundabout can’t be taking at 40 without a bit of a white knuckle moment… which is why a sensation of speed in a racing game is so important. Otherwise, all you’ve got is a bunch of cars gliding about on a black track whilst you read the speedo and hold the racing line which to me is as much fun as reading a spreadsheet.
Fortunately, rFactor has the feeling of speed just about nailed. I have to say that Colin McRae DiRT on the PS3 is a superb example of conveying a feeling of speed and, using the cockpit view on my big ass LCD TV, it can be a lip wobblingly scary ride. rFactor doesn’t quite get that immersive, and I put it down to the fact it’s more track based than DiRT and track naturally have less around them to flash past the car… a bit like doing 70mph on the motorway feels slow compared to 60mph down a tight country lane.
That said, rFactor makes a sterling effort and though for the majority of the time the details are further away, there’s enough there to clue you in to your speed and after just short while you’ll have the hang of how fast things move in rFactor.
Of course, a huge factor in car handling is how the car is set up for the track and to be honest, this will always be very much down to the driver and their driving style. I like a brake bias more to the rear, maybe as much as 70/30 so I can hang the car on the brakes and turn in late. Of course, this means I lose breaking efficiency as the weight of the car is thrown onto the less effective front brakes… but that’s just me. The trick is to tinker and tinker and tinker and for some people this is where rFactor will shine. So if you idea of fun is spending all weekend in a pair of blue overalls with a grease gun in one hand and limited slip diff in the other, you’re going to be well chuffed.