Let me get one thing out of the way: I played this game at E3 and had a couple of great chats with Rushy and some of his developer colleagues on location. They explained many features and talked about Evolution Studios' vision on racing development. No Doritos or Mountain Dew were involved
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It sure does look, feel and play a lot like PGR, while maintaining its own identity. The set-up is great: not just the way you can join clubs (max. 12 people each), but also how events work. Aside from racing for positions, you can score a lot of points at certain points on the track, like achieving a high average speed, taking the best line through a set of corners perfectly or achieving a high drift score. The system for this can be compared somewhat to PGR's Kudos, except it constantly gives you a target in the form of a friends'/rival's score to beat. The best thing about this is that you can contribute to your (team) score even when in last position, but simply driving with style! Sounds familiar?
The demo track was a circular route consisting of actual roads in Scotland, connected in a triangle shape, forming an all-round track with long straights, a hairpin, some fast combinations, a chicane and two devilishly hard to judge final corners. The selection of cars ranged from an Audi R8 and a Pagani Huayra to a McLaren MP4-12C and a Hennessey Venom GT. It's not really hard to get a feeling for the handling, though you do need to focus to really get it right. Estimate braking for the next corner, turn in and the right time and time the throttle input to either stick the tail out or dash off cleanly. There's great force and visual feedback (noticeable by the lack of sound in the noisy demo room) to get a feel for your car, such as the way the camera gets a bit closer to the action when braking (like your head would in a real car)
It's an arcade racer in the same way PGR is - easy to pick up, but to get the best out lap times you'll have to respect the realistic core of the driving physics and each car. For instance the McLaren allowed for much higher cornering speeds than the Hennessey, which was in turn a lot faster in a straight line. One point of criticism, though: the crashes appeared to be a bit samey - whether I came at a wall with 80 or 150 mph, full frontal or from a three-quarter angle, all seemed to result in the same spin.
Still, the demo I played gave me a taste of something I would buy a next-gen console for: an accessible yet challenging arcade racer with an emphasis on stylish driving and multiplayer, while showing off killer looks - high-polygon cars, truly realistic lighting. I went over to a GT6 pod later that day and it just didn't feel as convincing in terms of looks. Sure there's the difference of generations, but it just goes to show what a strong sensation Driveclub delivers.
I want this game in my life, now.
