Game Review: Assetto Corsa
Italian stallion worth riding on a console..
When it comes to the PS4 racing games jostling for pole position, no one car in the grid has it all. Project Cars owns mind-blowing dynamic weather. The online systems in DriveClub nail the “oi, beat my times” loop. Dirt Rally walks away with an award for best damage system with most nausea-inducing cartwheels. And Need for Speed reigns supreme for superfluous narrative overlays generously sprinkled with cheese.
Assetto Corsa – literal translation: “racing setup” – will be known as the new king of handling.
Tearing around a track in a Ferrari, teasing those apexes with said redhead, feels utterly sublime in this game. It’s also a sin to play this on anything less than a Force Feedback wheel, though staunch controller folk with no other reference points should be impressed in their own weird, thumb-jockey way. How could you not be? Thrumming underneath Assetto’s hood is a physics engine that used to be sold to car manufacturers as professional simulation technology. Better yet, those impressive lines of code have been massaged, tuned if you will, for fun.
Whether you’re doing ludicrous speeds in a Pagani Huarya or steering through your side window in a Hachi-roku, Assetto expertly communicates the physicality of the car and the level of grip feels perfect. There’s no other way to say it beyond: this just “feels” like driving a car, because the sense of weight transfer and the pliability of tires are spot on. That said, this is a dyed-in-the-wool sim, no doubts about it. Embarrassing results await genre newcomers fresh from arcadier titles who can’t bend to basic slow-in-fast-out cornering.
It’s also worth noting that the rather primitive UI of the PC version has been reworked into something much more clean and sensible. Mind you, there’s still a bit of “Gran Turismo 5 pre-Spec 2.0 update” going on here. In layman’s terms for those who didn’t suffer through the unpatched version of that game: a bunch of important options and toggles are kept in the front-end titles and cannot be accessed from the pre-race menus that are separated by a long load time. A minor issue if you’re playing solo; a pain in the arse if you like to tweak a lot, or you’re playing a bit of turn-for-turns with a mate who no bueno gear changing.
You should also be aware that the console version comes stuffed with all of the DLC released on its desktop brethren, and that developer Kunos Simulazioni has plans to keep all versions 1:1 with simultaneous content releases. There’s also an extremely slim and unconfirmed chance that this could join DriveClub and the forthcoming Gran Turismo Sport in PSVR glory. After all, the PC version of Assetto is basically used by Team Oculus as a system seller at public events. Fingers crossed.
That’s all of the great news out of the way. Assetto’s visuals, while being a buttery 1080P / 60 fps and on-pace with the bulk of its rivals, are still a few car lengths behind DriveClub. Visual damage isn’t spectacular, thanks to only minor model scuffs, though the ‘mechanical damage’ does affect your handling realistically. In terms of vistas, you can count on very faithful renditions of venerable raceways like Silverstone, Monza, and Nürburgring. Just don’t expect many attempts at life in the incidental track details.
source: youtube
Another downer: you’ll be disappointed if you go in expecting a thousand cars, fifty tracks or a career where you can collect cars and progress as a virtual driver. This is a spartan affair, fast approaching soulless if you’re not a car-nut. Only eighty cars are available to use over 26 track variations of 12 real world locations. Then there’s the barest of bones career mode, plus a smattering of special events and challenges to steamroll through in a very short time (bonus points awarded for letting us jump into the F1 stuff straight away). The more multiplayer minded gamer can expect the standard quick races and race weekends which include practice and qualifying sessions. It’s stale yet solid. We lost most of our time in the novelty drag races and drift challenges.
Assetto Corsa isn’t enough to blow the doors off your Turn 10s and Polyphony Digitals, however, the fact that a serious comparison can be drawn between the efforts of this 30-person team and those behemoths is pretty impressive. This is an upset of a title. A plucky underdog who, in its current form, has a few things to teach the frontrunners. Given time, future updates, and fan support, I think this gap could be shortened considerably. Assetto Corsa: give it a budget buy today, and mark the name for future greatness.
7/10
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