Review: DriveClub - Holy Daddy of Diesel

DriveClub is finally upon us, well, for North American’s at least. The UK and Europe still have a short wait ahead of them, but what better way to wile away the time than by reading our DriveClub review?

Evolution Studios’ PS4 exclusive has been a long time coming, after being delayed for months it’s finally hitting the track with all four wheels planted firmly on the ground. So, is it worth the hype? Does it deliver on all the promises and expectations and most of, is it worth your money? Head down below to read The Games Cabin’s DriveClub review.

First thing’s first; the game looks incredible. Seriously. There’s nothing quite like DriveClub on any other console right now, at least in terms of sheer graphical quality. The attention to detail is mind-blowing to say the least and you can easily get distracted and end up smashing your ride because the sights are so photogenic that you want to look at them forever. Well, maybe not forever, but they are damn fine.

Whilst the cars are obviously the main attraction (it is a racing game afterall,) it’s the environments that really bring the game to life and show off the just what can be done when the power of the PS4 is harnessed by the right kind of talent. Mountains from miles away are crystal clear, sweeping alongside fields and drifting around tight, snow littered corners all looks fantastic due to the attention to the background as well as the players primary focus, the car.

The cars look great too, but to really appreciate the obsessive level of detail you really do need to be playing with the cockpit view. The interiors are something else completely. The little dials and speedometer that reflect what’s actually going are nice features that just add to the realistic feel of the game.

Unfortunately, that’s where the realism kind of ends. Cars handle beautifully, a little too beautifully. It’s definitely a lot more accessible than one would have previously thought, but it doesn’t harm the gameplay that much, but it does make the powerful cars feel tamer knowing that they all handle very similarly.

Car handling is an important feature of any racing game, so to get the balance right between hardcore simulation and easy to play fun is difficult. Thankfully DriveClub does have options to cater for both types of players. Casual racer fans will naturally migrate towards playing in the third-person view, whereas those looking for a more grounded play-through will be inclined towards the first-person cockpit view.

Aside from the cars feeling a little arcadey in their handling, the actual racing is tons of fun, but you will get frustrated. A lot. You’ll be crashing hither and fro, you’ll get rammed off the road by the A.I which at times seems to be a complete dickhead just for the sake of it. You can be going toe to toe with one of the A.I cars along a nice stretch of road, you’ve gotten up to a high-speed and you’re only 200 feet from the upcoming bend where you’ll surely be able to tuck in tight on the corner and push past into first when BAM! The A.I opponent has seen fit to randomly smash into the side of you, causing you to spin and flip your car over and lose the race. Frustration at it’s finest ladies and gents.

The A.I doesn’t do too much wrong, to be fair. Yes it occasionally smashes you off the road and acts a little too aggressively, but for the most part it’s actually pretty good. It’s no fun being able to breeze past opponents with ease, it’s much more rewarding to be made to fight for first place and take a few scrapes along the way. It’s the best way to learn how to drive in DriveClub to be honest. For the first hour or so I was constantly over-steering or over-correcting my corners, forcing me to replay the same racer over and over because I’d always cock it up so badly that I knew that there was no chance of redemption. But when you finally get the grip of how the cars work and which ones will do better at certain tasks, it’s a great sense of accomplishment.

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DriveClub also features some customisation options, though not nearly as detailed as some would have liked. Personally, I don’t really care much for chucking garish decals onto my digital cars, so I left it well alone. There are options to pimp your ride a little, but only visually, no performance tweaking here which is a big shame in my book.

You do however get to choose what your driver looks like, and guess what? If you’ve ever had dreams about being a female racing car driver but have always had two balls too many, then DriveClub will let you follow your passion without prejudice. OK, that’s just my fancy way of saying that you can choose your gender. Again, there’s not much you can do here in the way of customisation with a few pre-sets to choose from it’s lacking, but it’s better than just being given a faceless driver as your digital muse.

There’s a lot of content for you to indulge in too, don’t you dare think that all the budget went on the fancy graphics! You’ll be racing across many a locale, from the Scottish Highlands to the Canadian mountains you’ll be in for a visual treat. Oh, and the tracks are nice to drive on too… No seriously, they are. The actual racing can only be as good as the tracks you race on, and DriveClub has some of the finest. Tight roads and smooth corners are a joy to drive on, the sense of speed you experience is immense, something that’s not done quite as well in other racers.

There’s around 50 cars to choose from, so you won’t be running out of challenges any time soon, especially with more cars being pumped into the game after it launches.

As with most games these days, online play is being pushed harder than ever before. Here though, it’s not a bad thing. Connecting online and getting into a game is as painless as you could wish for due to easy to use menus that have been well designed, even for clumsy people like myself who are prone to hitting the wrong buttobdnsdf at times.

Personally though, I’m all about the single player. I don’t know what it is about driving games, but I personally find that playing them by myself in a quiet room is much more enjoyable than playing against others online who are prone to stupid behavior, i.e rage quitting and racial slurs. DriveClub is a game that encourages online play, but I find that such a mature racer should be savoured and enjoyed greedily by oneself. But that’s just me, obviously the majority who buy DriveClub will be jumping straight online, leaving the single player offering out in the cold.

All in all, I’d say DriveClub was worth the wait and more importantly, worth the money. It delivers exactly what you could want from a racing game; fast fun, sexy cars and lots of replay value.

DriveClub is out now in the US and will be releasing on October 10th in UK. You can pre-order your copy today from Amazon UK.

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