Product Reviews

It’s hard to believe, but the GRID franchise is 22 years old. If it were a person, it could legally buy you a beer.

If 2017 was the year of circuit-based sim racing, and 2018 was all about arcade racers, rally is undoubtedly in the spotlight this year.

Sometimes you need a change of scenery. Really, it’s the season for it.

I think after this weekend we can all agree on one thing: this F1 season is boring.

Here at the beginning of summer, Assetto Corsa Competizione sits in a rather unique position. It has the spotlight all to itself, at least until F1 2019 touches down later this month. While we first got to know it with our hands-on preview last year, we’re now back to put our spin on the retail release.

If you read my last review with the Thrustmaster T150, you know I’m new to playing sim racing games without a controller. I’m so new in fact that I had to mount my wheel to a TV tray in order to use it with my PS4. This isn’t exactly ideal.

When it comes to sim games, to say I enjoy more lowkey titles is a bit of an understatement. Titles like American and Euro Truck Simulators, Mudrunner, and even Pure Farming often catch my eye. So when Stillalive Studios offered me the chance to check out Bus Simulator 18, I couldn’t resist.

Last autumn I started the journey of fatherhood. If you have kids yourself, you know what this means. If you don’t though, the best way I describe it is your entire world gets turned upside-down in the best way possible.

The debate is never-ending: is rally the hardest discipline in motorsports? To many real-world drivers it is. Talk to any long enough and you’ll get some variation on the “track racers drive one corner 1000 times, rally racers do 1000 corners once” line.

The Grand Tour trio is nothing if not persistent.

Last year, Eden Games brought its mobile racer, Gear.Club Unlimited, to the Switch at a time when Nintendo’s platform desperately needed some racing representation.

Audio. It’s an integral part of sim racing, but it’s safe to say it often takes a backseat to visuals, physics, and input devices.

“Where do they go from here?”

Jeff was right. Damnit.

If I had to choose one word to describe my approach to sim racing hardware, it’d have to be “minimal.” For the vast majority of my make-believe career, I’ve plugged away with nothing more than a controller. When a brief stint with iRacing forced me to use a wheel, I snagged a Driving Force GT and improvised a rig using a folding dinner table, along with a large stack of books behind the featherweight pedals to keep them from sliding.

There’s a long history of officially-branded Gran Turismo wheels. Starting out with Logitech’s GT Force way back in the days of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Polyphony moved to a partnership with Thrustmaster almost a decade ago. The latest fruit of this collaboration is the wheel you see here, the T-GT.

Does your car have a heads-up display?

When word arrived that Evolution Studios alumni would be joining forces with Codemasters, racing game fans were intrigued by what would come next from the studio. With a portfolio that includes various original IPs and some of the best WRC games ever, Evolution brought serious talent to Codies that could be used for its various existing IP. However, in November 2017, the wraps were taken off OnRush – a brand new series that looked deceivingly like a certain Sony exclusive franchise.

Sim racing games are fantastic. Being able to drive everything from Japanese Kei cars to Italian exotics keeps me coming back again and again. However, like most of you, I do enjoy various other games, which is why I’m taking a look at a new farming simulator from Ice Flames.

Burnout Paradise is 10 years old. Let that sink in for a second. A title that was the darling of last generation has officially been around for a decade.