Start your engines!
I recently got my hands on a copy of Project Cars 2 for the PlayStation 4 from the friendly folks at Bandai Namco and it gave me the need, the need for speed! Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, Project Cars 2 picks up where the first Project Cars left off, in the fast lane. There is a lot to cover, so drivers start your engines!
The game looks and feels like you’re an actual race car driver and let’s face it, this is the closest most of, if not, all of us are getting to the race track. Sorry if I just burst some of our reader’s bubbles but I have to be a realist here but back to the review. Anyway, the graphics of the game look amazing.
The racetracks are authentic to their in-real-life counterparts and in an interesting twist; the track will be affected by the actual weather/time of day at the track at the time of the race. For example, if you’re racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speed Way at it’s raining there in real time, there will be a really good chance that your race will be affected by rain. You’ll be able to drive on some of the most famous racetracks in the world and they’ll be realistic enough that it will feel like you could say you’ve been to their locations.
Project Cars 2 wants to be one of the most realistic racing games around and as I’ve mentioned, it does a great job with that with the racetracks. It also does a great job with having a wide range of racecars for you to race with. There are plenty of name brand vehicles in the game but one thing I wasn’t expecting came in the Career mode. You have the ability to create your own racer and sign your first contract on the racing scene. The bigger surprise came when you have options where you start out in your career, the minors or the big leagues. The minors were go-carts and this was awesome! There were some minor control issues with driving where the brakes didn’t feel crisp/tight enough and the exact opposite was true with the gas pedal. The gas felt like if you pressed it just a little bit, your car, no matter what type, went way too fast and it was out of control.
There are a lot of community events to keep your eyes on as well while you strive to be the best racer in the world. They range from eSport events, time trial events or the basic online racers where someone sets up a lobby and everyone joins in. There were plenty of options in terms of races to join when I was testing out the online features of the game but a piece of advice, learn the controls and get really good. If you don’t know the controls and have a good head on your shoulders, you’re gonna have a bad time! Another minor issue I had was the load times for the game. The load times were a bit long and usually the PlayStation 4 doesn’t have that issue for their games or at least the games I have played/reviewed on it haven’t had long load times so this might just be an anomaly.
On the plus side in terms of controls, you were able to reset your car in the middle of the track with a simple touch of the touchpad but not if you were going fast or near other racers. At this point, I think the mantra of “beggars can’t be choosers” applies because if you need to reset your car a lot then you might need practice and there probably won’t be any other racers to deal with anyway.
The controls didn’t do it for me in Project Cars 2 but the custom features and realism as well as the social interaction make up for it. I’m giving Project Cars 2 for the PlayStation 4 an 8.5/10. I would like to thank Bandai Namco for the review code.