Slightly Mad Studios, the British racing game company behind Project Cars, is not one of the big players in the racing genre, but the boys and girls at the studio, which was founded in 2009, are not completely unknown either. In addition to the Project Cars series, the team that Codemasters took over in November 2019 is also known for the very popular Need-for-Speed-Shift series and the disastrous Fast & Furious Crossroads (Chris has a lot to report on the total failure).
But the big figurehead is of course Project Cars, a “community-developed” racing simulator created in 2015. Five years later, the series has a big problem in the eyes of the community: the distance from its own genre roots. So it’s no wonder that fans are not very enthusiastic. With Project Cars 3 game, it almost seems as if Slightly Mad wants to leave the past behind and compete with the giants of the arcade racer drawer on the asphalt. Part three is much more a daring balancing act between arcade and sim racer – dangerous. The beating heart is the completely new career mode, which wants to convince the old and new players alike.
Okay so what is Different?
So that all fans of Project Cars 2, iRacing or Assetto Corsa know what they are dealing with: The driving behavior of Project Cars 3 game was clearly tailored to playing with a controller. The whole thing has nothing to do with a real simulation.
Even with completely deactivated driving aids, drifts are almost child’s play, the brakes are real anchors that feel much too slow and load changes are a topic that you can only deal with in theoretical thoughts, but hardly have to. The problem: The handling in PC3 is not really “funny arcane” either. In the end, Slighly Mad manages to put itself exactly in a gap somewhere between Gran Turismo, Forza and GRID, without being able to hold a candle to any of its competitors.
And unfortunately not only in terms of driving behavior. Technically, too, Project Cars 3 game is lagging behind the current racing game competition; especially on the consoles like the PS4 Pro, which was my main test platform.
This is particularly bitter because Project Cars actually began its existence among racing games as an incredibly good-looking graphics board for the time. Somewhere along the way over the last five years, however, the developers seem to have lost the graphics mojo: While the vehicle models themselves still look nice (even if not as detailed as hoped), there are problems with the effects at every nook and cranny.
Graphics
Graphically, Project Cars 3 game lags far behind the competition and even – in some respects – behind its predecessor from 2017. A tough statement, but it’s hard to put it any other way. Some vehicles and tracks look good, but most of the time Project Cars 3 game is more reminiscent of a mobile title than a real AAA racing game from 2020. We tested and recorded on the standard consoles, but ourselves on a high-quality PC, the exterior of the arcade sim racer does not turn into a splendor as if by magical flicking.
Often the vehicles are more reminiscent of plastic than realistic bodies due to their small details, actually a strength of the series. The weather system is attractive on the PC, but also looks old-fashioned on the consoles. In addition, there are graphic errors that keep tearing you out of the racing action.
Compromising physics and driving experience would be okay if clear jumps could be presented in other areas. Unfortunately, this only seems to be the case to a limited extent.
Shadows are frayed, pop-ups and fade-ins disturb the overall impression, weather effects are fuzzy or simply ugly, textures are blurry and the purely optical damage model sometimes causes absurd deformations that exude the charm of a full-blown clipping error. To make matters worse, there are also performance drops and / or tearing – depending on whether you are playing in “resolution” or “performance mode”, which can be selected in the options.
However, it is different on the PC: If you throw sufficiently powerful hardware at the Madness engine, these problems are just as fast as the pop-ups and ugly effects. Nevertheless: Project Cars 3 game is unfortunately not a really stunning eye-catcher here either.
Gameplay
But of course graphics are not everything. And the fact that the handling is now more arcane doesn’t have to be a bad thing per se. So let’s get to the topics of gameplay and content … where unfortunately I have to complain further. In terms of gameplay, for example, the AI puzzled me at times. Not only are they nervously jerking back and forth at the wheel on straights and prefer to drive in merciless full contact (also on the lower “aggression levels” that can be specified), they are also quite unpredictable in terms of their driving ability .
That means: While I actually fought exciting battles for positions in one race and was able to catch up with the leader with great difficulty, in the next – with exactly the same car and supposedly the same opponents – the entire field after the third corner will never be seen again and from it. Only to get stuck in midfield without a chance in the third race. Something doesn’t fit here.
And also with the vehicle classes into which Slightly Mad has divided a total of 211 cars, the thought “something doesn’t fit here” often occurred to me. Of course, it’s not easy to put everything sensibly into categories when you really cover everything that two-track racing has to offer, from a small Toyota GT86 to a Formula E racing car or prototype racer.
The fact that a Nascar speedster and a Ford Escort racing car from the 70s are sometimes in the same category and thus also meet on the track seems somehow strange. On the other hand, you have to take your hat off for the sheer number and selection of cars – especially with regard to the topicality. In addition to the brand new Corvette C8.R, there are also a few cars in the various classes that are only known from photos and teaser videos: for example the Lotus Evija or the Rimac C-Two.
The so-called “Career Mode”
The career structure is also not really new: After you have laughed at your first car, you start the first of numerous mini racing series, which consist of three individual events and a championship, which in turn is made up of several races. If you have achieved the or enough mission objectives in it, further series will be unlocked.
But be careful: The game forces you to buy new cars early and often through vehicle specifications for the events. If you didn’t have that on your screen and have already put all your money into tuning your first car, it’s time to grind in order to be able to play new events.
That can be annoying. But back to the events themselves: Not only classic races are waiting for you here, but also special competitions such as hotlaps or events in which you can drive wildly across the tracks to crush obstacles at the highest possible speed.
The latter mode also makes it clear that you don’t really have a heart for Sim fans anymore. Accordingly, there is no qualifying (you always start somewhere in the field) and no more pit stops. The tire temperature and wear and tear also play no role.
Together with the lack of technical damage, it is then all the more surprising that the developers have dispensed with a rewind feature, but at the same time invalidate your lap time even with the smallest collision or touching the edge of the track, which is often one of the three mission objectives during each event .
The weather system known from its predecessor, in which 3D puddles form on the track after the onset of rain and the ideal line dries up again the fastest at the end of the rain, has been adopted … just stupid that it is usually very short races with a maximum of 3-5 rounds does not really come into play. Only at the very end of the game are a few special “endurance races” waiting for you. Here the system can show a little what it can actually do.
Multiplayer
In terms of multiplayer, Slightly Mad has just as little slouched as in terms of track selection, which lacks some big names like Spa or LeMans, but otherwise many, especially smaller and unknown tracks from all over the world found their way into the game have (51 slopes with 121 layouts in total).
In order to have more fun, Project Cars 3 game relies on a wide range of races planned and presented by the developers, for which you first have to qualify in your own qualifying phases. In addition, the developers try to use a safety rating system, similar to GT Sport, to separate the “decent driving elite” from the “crash kids”. An approach that seemed to work pretty well in my first few sessions.
Also cool is the “Rivals” mode, which is located outside of the multiplayer part, but also focuses on the competition with human opponents – just not at the same time.
In daily, weekly and monthly challenges, the aim is to burn the best possible times into the asphalt, which in turn – based on the performance of all other participants – sort you into one of ten ranks from bronze 3 to platinum. In this way you gradually experience a global “rival rank”, which is noted in a leader board. The only catch here too: Once you have touched the wall, you have to restart the challenge: lap time is invalid.
So finally…
As a backer of the first part and a huge fan of the second, Project Cars 3 game honestly came as a shock to me. The graphics on the console are terrible, the gameplay is arcane, but not even close to as good as the competition, and then there are many design decisions that can only be called “questionable” at the end of the day.
Still, Project Cars 3 game isn’t a complete blow job. It has its moments … and a great scope. In the end, however, it can only serve as a bridge for starved players who have already had enough of GT Sport, Forza Motorsport 7 and GRID and can no longer wait for the Next Gen to come along with their own racers. Everyone else can skip Project Cars 3 game … unfortunately.
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