That makes it feel more exciting, but it also means that if you want to clock up the best times you need to work within its limits. DriveClub lets the player get more out of shape before the assists come on to help reel the car back in. This helps drivers maintain a more consistent speed. However, Forza uses assists to keep the car tighter and more under control – coming on just as the car begins to get out of shape. Despite being delayed almost a year, DriveClub looks like it'll be worth the wait.Īlthough Forza Horizon 2 is a different kind of game, it does very much the same thing as DriveClub in terms of handling – letting the user have fun without necessarily sending them spinning up the road if they're clumsy. I really like the way it works, because it encourages you to have fun by being a little forgiving at the point a racing sim would have you crash, but only so much, so you still have to drive skilfully. Which I discovered when I experimented to see how much I could get away with, and ended up overcooking a drift and spinning down the road. The action still feels arcadey, but while the game gives you a little assisted leeway to explore the limits before it punishes you, it doesn't suffer heavy-handedness gladly. I might be mistaken, but the handling felt a little heavier and more damped than last year, almost like the cars have been given a slightly more sim-like feel. Many of DriveClub's road courses are spectacular. It was every bit as exciting as I remembered. While we raced, the game constantly threw up data and challenges based around split times, top speeds on certain parts of the track, and overall lap times. It was fun to drive thanks to good visbility and sweeping corners, and it looked great too. We raced a road track that snaked its way along a verdant valley. Once again, the game was showcased as a multiplayer demo, this one against three other players. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I loved the intense action that DriveClub's inaugural demo served up. While the visuals have definitely had a good buff, the gameplay felt largely the same. Based on the small number of cars and couple of tracks I looked at, DriveClub now feels at least on par with Forza 5, and if the quality of what was on display at E3 is maintained throughout the rest of the game, it might well best it. The shadows are richer, reflections seem to glide along the bodywork, and there's no odd reflective artifacting that was evident last year. I scrutinized the car models I drove, and those too are more convincing. Distance shading is subtler, and the road surface and elevation changes are also more realistic. Its lighting and atmospheric filtering is far more effective, giving the game a more analog and lifelike look than last year's demo, which felt comparatively flat. This year, however, DriveClub's looks have been much improved. This was particularly noticeable after driving it back-to-back with Forza 5, which looked outstanding thanks to it being in a far more advanced state of completion. The overall impression was good, but upon closer inspection, the way that light reflected off the cars seemed a little dull, the car models lacked sharpness, and some of the roadside objects felt a little last-gen. Last year, the game was an absolute blast to drive, but its graphics felt a little rough around the edges. Twelve months after its debut, DriveClub is feeling smoother and more polished. It's disappointing, but based on what I saw at E3 this year, DriveClub has benefitted from its extra development time. Sony delayed the game into "early 2014," and then later pushed DriveClub's launch date even further back to October 2014, almost a year from its initial promised release. I couldn't wait to play it as a PS4 launch title. Its action was visceral, competitive and exciting, and there was an overall intensity to the game that made it highly appealing. I played all three in-depth, and while I enjoyed each of them, DriveClub was the one that I was most excited by. At last year's E3, there were three new racers on display: the long-awaited Gran Turismo 6, the fifth installment of the venerable Forza series, and surprise racing newcomer DriveClub.
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