Driveclub was one of the most anticipated racing games for the 2014 holiday season. All the demos that were shown since 2013 have looked phenomenal. The social aspect of the game was a big deal when Driveclub was being advertised prior to launch. Challenging and racing your friends online seemed to look seamless, at least from an outside perspective. So, color me excited when the game arrived from SCEA on Tuesday of last week. I had planned on wiping out an entire week and encouraging friends/reviewers to give this a go online to see what the game is really made of before writing up a review.
Sadly, when the review period began I had run into some online issues, which I’m sure you have heard about on several sites by now. From Tuesday’s launch date until a couple of days ago, I had not once gotten on the multiplayer side of Evolution Studios’ baby. I wanted to, but the server capabilities versus the amount of people trying to get on was too much for multiplayer to be possible. Over the last few days, there have been tweets from Evolution Studios explaining the issues and what has been going on (awesome that they’re communicating to gamers — some developers don’t do that in this sort of instance), and eventually the MP side of Driveclub has been slowly creeping online.
That’s where I am with this review in regards to online play. I have just gotten started, so while my opinion of it might not be incredibly shaped into a well informed opinion, I can at least give you a taste of what to expect on that side of the track. When I have spent more time with Driveclub online, I will give you a bit beef-er review of it. Until then, consider the online play a minor portion of the review score below, as I have played far more offline than online.
With all of this said, let’s get this sucker going.
The main reason why you are thinking about purchasing this game is for the visuals. Driveclub is damn gorgeous. This is probably the most beautiful racing game that I’ve seen to date. I’ve played PC racing games, plenty of console games and I’ve never seen anything more stunning in the racing game field than I have with Driveclub. And what’s remarkable is that it’s not the huge environments and the depth of the land around my car that makes me feel this way. It’s the little things in the game.
For example, I have been wowed by how the lighting in the game is accurate. Seeing the sun in my eyes as I’m driving or watching the reflection of the sun change with the position of my vehicle simply makes me shake my head and smile a bit. My jaw has dropped several times when I’ve seen the reflection of the environment on the vehicles, or how the lighting from another vehicle shines on the bumper of my car. This is on top of the weather effects, such as rain, and how the weather reacts to your vehicle. This is before your car enters a tunnel, the eye adjustment from light to dark happen and then turns into a near white flash when you’re driving out of the tunnel. Driveclub makes sure the finer details are paid attention to with its gameplay, and it’s a huge reason to pick up this game.
Aside from environments and small details, Driveclub also includes a bevy of beautiful cars to drive. From a MINI Copper to a Lotus to even driving a nice Bentley, there are some fun sports cars to get a hold of in the game and enjoy. All of the models for the cars are beautifully done and react and sound as accurate as can be. You won’t be disappointed by the look, style, feel or variety of the cars. In fact, outside of wanting to see the variety of places to race, unlocking the vehicles will be a prime motivation to keep going with Driveclub.
Having said all this, there is still some work that needs to be done in the presentation department of Driveclub. The crowd in the game, though better than Forza, needs a bit more work done to them. They look like bulky stick figures that cheer on the racers. Again, much better than Xbox One’s Forza game at launch, but still weird when you’re eyeing them before the race. I know what you’re thinking, ‘No one gives two shits about the crowd’, and in a way you would be right. BUT! If you’re going to have this gorgeous, bulky environment for the exquisite cars to drive in, at least give about 3-4 weeks to improve the crowd. Just a bit more effort on the other little things would be great.
One of the whinier complaints I have with Driveclub is how the day/night sometimes change too fast. I’m all for the daylight changing to night in a game, but not in the blink of an eye. You take out the gamer from within that ‘real racing’ mindset when you do something silly like have the sun move down to the mountains in a matter of 20-30 seconds in a race. That is neat, but completely disruptive as well. For a game that is trying to give you a cool, real world racing experience, that is an oddity that doesn’t need to be included. Start a race at the point where the sun is almost down, then that’s believable. Do not rush the sun like it’s going through a time lapse. That’s not only disruptive, but it makes the game a little bit ugly.
When all is said and done, the presentation of Driveclub is simply the best at the moment. It hits the visual curves in all the right spots and it leaves little to complain about that truly matters.
Presentation aside, let’s discuss the gameplay a bit.
The overall feel to the cars seems pretty grounded. Evolution Studios does a great job with matching the cars with controls. For example, if you’re driving a VW Bug, such as in the first part of the game, you are more grounded, there’s less sliding and it feels like a slow/non-dangerous vehicle. You’re probably going to hit 100+mph, but not feel like you’re in danger of spinning out or launching uncontrollably off the side of a hill (saw someone online do that recently and it was breathtaking — sadly, I couldn’t capture it in time).
Opposite of that is something like the Lotus. This car rides low, kicks fast and tends to want to drift rather than turn around corners. The breaking in a car like this is risky at best, so having to baby the brakes around a curve is vital to avoid spinning the hell out. The pros outweigh its cons, but it’s a much different beast than the bug, and Evolution Studios let’s you know that when you’re driving. It feels loose, fast and like a mid-life crisis experience.
Having a variety of different feels to each car, and you do, is pertinent to the accuracy and how a gamer can just absolutely dig into the driving experience. Driveclub does this very well. Although, I do have some ‘point’ reservations when it comes to driving.
The goal of Driveclub is broken down into multiple levels. You drive to meet actual goals in the game and you drive to win points to level up. The goals equal stars. The more stars you earn, the more levels you unlock in the game. If you have ever played Mario 64 before, you get the idea. Anyway, the leveling and unlock system in the game is pretty straightforward, as it’s something you’ve seen before in more than just racing games.
The problem lies with how the ‘in-race’ points are earned. You are rewarded with points by taking curves correctly, drifting at high speeds and driving as flawlessly as possible during a race. Points in a race are subtracted when you bump into other drivers, drive off the road by accident or when you do shady/ass-y things to other drivers during a race. You’re even given penalties in the time category in some instances, like a corner penalty for spinning off the road or just accidentally decelerating too fast and ending up on the side of the road (off track). At this point you’re thinking, ‘and why is this a problem?’, and at this point you would be correct — this isn’t a problem…yet.
It becomes a problem when you are bumped by another car or are shoved off the road by an NPC or actual player online. You are punished for someone else’s mishap or someone just being an a-hole. For example, when I was playing multiplayer today, I was knocked off the race track by someone speeding up beside me and I was not only subtracted points in the race, but I was also given a corner penalty, which prevented me from accelerating for 3-4 seconds. That isn’t even remotely fair. The game should determine who made the initial contact in the game and subtract points from the aggressor, not the poor fellow/gal who received the hit. It’s one of the few irritating points of the game and one that will follow you offline and online. This should and needs to be corrected.
Still staying on ‘points’, points and leveling not only propel you into better maps, but gathering points and leveling will also unlock vehicles (and other minor upgrades). There’s a good reason to be stingy over points, and my above complaint is valid because of that.
Speaking of unlocking vehicles, the customization of vehicles in the game, at least so far, is pretty cool. While you won’t find anything close to the Gran Turismo scale, you will find the ability to customize your colors, add logos that you unlock and put decals on the cars. I haven’t gotten incredibly too far with customization, as it only came online a couple of days ago, but my black beauty of a car below is an example of what you can expect.
Yes, I’m childish.
So, what the hell can you do with these cars once you have them? Let’s talk modes.
Tour mode is the main mode you’ll be playing in the game. It consists of a cornucopia of ways to race in the game. It throws you into every type of race and prepares you for online and single event modes. So, you’ll be running into drift trials, speed runs, time trials and large racing events. The great thing about the Tour mode is that you don’t have to be perfect or even good at the game to get through some of the objectives. For example, in a single race you might be asked to score a certain time on a lap, complete an ‘in-race’ trial (like drifting or setting an average speed), and/or finish in the top 3. You don’t need to actually complete all of the objectives to move on, but each objective will equal out to a star. Those stars, as I explained above, equal more maps and whatnot. So, you can go at your own pace and still have the possibility of seeing new content along the way without the maximum amount of effort or skill. I like that sort of flexibility in the game, though the Tour mode also offers up an opportunity to progress and, more importantly, get use to the cars and their abilities. You will spend the most amount of time in this mode and it will intrigue along the way.
Other modes of interest include the Single Event mode. The Single Event is what it is, a single driving event. Single Event is broken into the following:
Race – This is what you imagine it being. A single race to test your skills and polish them, if need be. It’s an ‘up to’ 11 computer controlled race that allows you to choose from different locations and your bevy of unlocked cars. It’s fun, but I use it mainly to sharpen my skills when driving.
Time Trial – I never thought I would be fascinated with time trials. For decades (seriously), I have always skipped or just glazed over time trials in racing games. The environments and the collection of cars in Driveclub have peaked my time trial interest. Beat the times set in front of you, win big.
Drift – I suck at this. I have always sucked at drifting. This is a drift race course for insanely talented gamers who love drifting. Enjoy this one.
While the single event doesn’t even remotely offer the same amount of choices or interest as the Tour mode, it does offer some good practice and skill sharpening that prepares you for a better Tour mode experience.
What about the Multiplayer/online side of Driveclub? Well, I have bits and pieces of the experience. Your club, challenges and multiplayer racing modes are all on the online side of DC. This means that I had an open window for maybe a day or so to experience it all. Creating a club and inviting your friends to join, that’s cool. Racing against players in a 10 lap race is fast, furious, gorgeous and fun (see picture below, that’s right before I crashed about five cars behind me — never take screenshots while going 79mph, as it’s simply not safe…for anyone). I only got a taste of the online modes before they went down again (still offline at the moment of this review), but what I saw really impressed me. I enjoyed my short time and I want more of an experience before I give you a full review. Until then, just know that I thoroughly enjoyed myself .
At the end of the day, I think that Driveclub is more of a success than people are giving it credit for in other reviews. It’s a fun game, it’s not incredibly deep in the garage or customization areas, but that wasn’t the focus. It seems like driving, cars and maps were the main point of interest, as well as social interaction, and for the most part it nails it. The maps in this game are huge, the driving feels real and the competition from A.I. and human players is a bit difficult (as it should be). It certainly has its flaws, online being shaky is a big one at the moment (I’m sure it will be corrected soon — I’m hoping it will), but at the end of the day it delivers in enjoyment.
