Driveclub

  • Thread starter Waheed
  • 9,286 comments
  • 549,643 views
I remember back in the day on Burnout Paradise City being able to glitch a race so you can use bikes and cars, used to be separate only like DC. Only problem is the cars would be monster trucks and the bikes would be wrecked :lol:
I immediately thought the same thing lol. DC is a straight bumper car festival lol. Bikes on the the same tracks as cars wouldn't stand a chance! :lol:
 
If i had only one complaint about DC its that most A to B tracks are too narrow. They should be somewhat as wide as some circuit tracks are. At times the bumper-car character of the game was a bit annoying.
 
If i had only one complaint about DC its that most A to B tracks are too narrow. They should be somewhat as wide as some circuit tracks are. At times the bumper-car character of the game was a bit annoying.

If you made the roads wider, they'd lose their authenticity. As for the multiplayer, all I can say is that any online racing game will have a large percentage of people who don't understand racing etiquette.
 
Better late than never, but I finally got to try out Driveclub. Actually I bought the game + Season Pass in December, but GT Sport took too much of my time :lol: Inevitably with the lack of content GTS does gets stale, and I can only run Blue Moon Oval so many times grinding for the 20mil twins :yuck: Earlier this week I decided to fire up DC, and just immerse myself completely in it. I already completed the DC Tour, got up to level 30 and unlocked all cars up to that level. Here are my humble thoughts (wall of text incoming).

The gameplay is the best part about DC. It harks back to the good old arcade racers of the past. Easy to learn, but difficult to master. I'm not into the whole faceoff challenge and club side of things, but they are very easily ignorable. Otherwise it's just you, amazing supercars and the road. Plus a monsoon or blizzard thrown your way :lol: I think it's a love letter and tribute to classics like Outrun and PS1 era NFS - where you drive cars you can only dream of in exotic locales around the world. I love my sims, but damn I do miss that feeling of freedom and awe as a kid 👍

Driving physics is very intuitive and surprisingly deep. I mean obviously you're not required to be as precise with throttle and braking as a sim, but knowing proper technique, using racing lines and slow in fast out does wonders to shaving lap times. The infamous Venom Hotlap took me an hour to gold (even hit the replay recording limit) :crazy: Far trickier than any license test in recent GT games. And DC has attained status as the only racing game where trail braking DOES make you faster :cool: Having said that, if you're not attacking the leaderboards, you can just drive it easy and have fun. I think the best class is either Performance or Sports. Hot Hatches understeer too much (for an arcade game), and the Supers and Hypers are simply too ADHD if you're not in full attack mood :scared: There are vices however. Braking is far too effective in most cars except Hypers (should be the other way round). Also it is impossible to avoid contact while racing in close quarters due to how loose the handling is. I understand why sim racers might be put off by this, but that's just how the game is designed unfortunately.

I tried playing the early races with a pad and while it's good, I feel there's a bit of input lag in the steering. Using a wheel eliminates this. It's very rare for an arcade game to play well with a wheel, but DC is one of the few that does. FFB is too light though, even after setting everything to 100%. I suspect the game just doesn't model self aligning torque like sims does. If this is on PC I would just add damping effects to my wheel, but no such thing on consoles. Road vibration however is very good - much more detail than Gran Turismo's dull track surfaces even. Rotation wise I stuck with 720 degrees for the most part of career, but for the Venom hotlap I turned it down to 660 degrees which allowed me to take those hairpins with less turning. I've stuck with it since. Tried going lower but that makes the wheel oversensitive and you just scrub off too much speed. Also experimented with Wheel Assist - it does make the driving a but more stable and safer, but in high speed corners it limits your steering angle too much and you lose so much speed. Better without it (except for below).

Drift physics is where this game lets me down. Thankfully it's not such a big part of career mode. The game is just not sure whether it's trying to be arcade or sim. You do need to balance steering and throttle so you don't spin out, but sometimes I can feel countersteering assist so I'm never really sure what to do mid drift. One of my friends suggested Hardcore mode - it brings the drifting closer to sim side but having to exit all the way to main menu and options to change it is a pain. My solution is to turn on Wheel Assist and just throw caution to the wind really. Go in at high speed, e brake, straighten the wheel and mash the gas and hope the auto countersteer pulls you out the corner facing forwards :lol: Works well enough. It's an arcade game so I'm not going to overthink things.

AT vs MT is another tricky choice. I've stuck with AT for most of career, but MT for Venom lap so I can upshift early and avoid wheelspin. I think MT is marginally quicker, but only if you've got your lines and everything else right. I decided to stick with AT for now, just to keep things simple. I like that the game also allows you to override AT and row your own gears. The downshifts on the FXXK is heaven :drool: I love how they went in detail with implementing KERS + DRS in cars that have it. I've only tried it on the P1 GTR so far, but I like that it's a subtle gain in performance instead of a warp drive NOS button, just like IRL.

Anyway, enough with technical talk. The car list is simply amazing. I love that they have mainstream supercars and also a few quirky ones (I bet there's a few that even Forza/GT doesn't have). Must have cost them a fortune to license them all. Graphics wise I think the car models are on par with GT, but somehow in race they look a bit meh. Maybe it's the 30 FPS, or Polyphony are just wizards with lighting. Rain effects and lightning strikes are awesome. Sounds are a bit of mixed bag. Engine note is bang on but volume leaves a lot to be desired. Interior sounds are very muffled. I know there's an option to use external sounds in cockpit, but with some supercars I find it too quiet. Hypers are totally insane and fitting though (driving the Veneno is a mindblowing aural experience).

The track locations are gorgeous and reminds me a lot of older racing games and old Top Gear road trips. I absolutely love the point to point tracks, and despite the numbers I haven't gotten bored of them yet. The weather/time of day variation definitely helps too. The circuit tracks I could do without. Mostly they are pretty bland compared to sprint tracks and IMO doesn't suit the spirit of DC. I like sections of sprint tracks that are made into a circuit, but not dedicated racing circuits. You got to really learn the nuances of the surface of each track. In the faster cars, if you hit a bump wrong it's bye bye grip... One thing I don't like is shortcut detection. I find the implementation a bit inconsistent - some chicanes you can cut, and some you have to stick to the road strictly. IMO, in an arcade game just forget about penalties. If you don't want players cutting put an immobile barrier in place.

What else? Soundtrack and presentation. Menus are easy to use, if not a bit unimaginative. Not as elegant as PD's menus but they get the job done. The best part is the Tour event posters. I bet they don't take that much time to do, but it just adds up to the whole carnival experience. I love the animation of getting into your car - I wish they added an ignition sequence and sound as well. The only thing I don't like is the colour choice menu - for the factory colours I would've liked the names shown (Gran Turismo OCD, I know), also it was a bit confusing at first what all the Special and Custom colours are - I just discovered last night that you can edit them! Getting that flip and chrome paint is gonna take ages though. Soundtrack is awesome. I loved DC's OST so much I actually got it way back at release in 2014 :lol: So it's not really a surprise but still pretty epic to hear it in game. When you have a dedicated soundtrack it just fits the whole atmosphere of the game, unlike licensed thrash in modern NFS.

Club events and challenges I think I will skip. I joined a friend's club who kindly already has all the club cars unlocked, and that's about it. I also find it kinda annoying that you can't join more than one club. Limit it to 5 maybe, but only one? If you're not admin there's really no point in unlocking all the club badges and liveries because you can't use them anyways! Looking at the top clubs it's crazy how much XP they have :boggled: Nerds :lol:

Going forward, I've still got the rest of the Season Pass events to go through (it's insane how much there is to do). Also the Bikes expansion pack. I'm not a bike racer so I find the handling really hard (having to commit your line at entry with no room for further adjustments is an alien concept). But it's something new, and out of respect to Evolution I will press on 👍 Of course there's also trophies, photo mode and multiplayer (not sure if many people still play). I think I'm in for the long haul :D

Well done to Evolution for bringing Driveclub :bowdown: Shame we probably won't see a second game (not keen on Onrush - looks too much like a Motorstorm clone), but probably it's best to leave the legacy untouched, seeing how many racing franchises have steadily declined over the years. No such worry with Driveclub.
 
Last edited:
Excellent write up 👍

Glad your finding the game to your liking. I know you said you're not too keen on the online part of the game, but if you want to add more people to the list of regular names you see in in-game face-offs, feel free to sent me an invite. Personally, I really like seeing names that I know pop up in-game. I also really like the in-game tour posters. Many of them are wallpaper worthy.
 
Last edited:
Regarding physics and driving, biggest drawback for me is that with the fastest cars you have to use handbrake and use grass and off-road parts of the track to be quicker.

Those things are an issue not because are unrealistic (exagerated draft and arcady physics are unrealistic and aren't an issue regarding what Im going to point out) but because they pollute what I think it's the biggest achievement of Driveclub's driving feeling: it has all the benefits of a sim (driving line matters, focus on the driving, racing battles driving line) but with arcady physics.
 
Excellent write up 👍

Glad your finding the game to your liking. I know you said you're not too keen on the online part of the game, but if you want to add more people to the list of regular names you see in in-game face-offs, feel free to sent me an invite. Personally, I really like seeing names that I know pop up in-game. I also really like the in-game tour posters. Many of them are wallpaper worthy.

Thanks mate, I'll send an invite next time I'm on. I'm an old school gamer who grew up in the PS1 era so online is just not appealing to me. The only time I go online is to complete the trophy list :lol: Also I have little precious time to play nowadays, so I can't be bothered dealing with frustrating players online. With offline you always know what you're in for. Regardless, I'm always up for some leaderboard competitions 👍

Regarding physics and driving, biggest drawback for me is that with the fastest cars you have to use handbrake and use grass and off-road parts of the track to be quicker.

Those things are an issue not because are unrealistic (exagerated draft and arcady physics are unrealistic and aren't an issue regarding what Im going to point out) but because they pollute what I think it's the biggest achievement of Driveclub's driving feeling: it has all the benefits of a sim (driving line matters, focus on the driving, racing battles driving line) but with arcady physics.

I thought of using the handbrake to go round the tighter hairpins, but I just can't do it consistently to get the right angle (again, the weird countersteer FFB is my main limitation here). So most times I just use grip driving to play it safe. It is pretty immersion breaking, but I'm not shooting for the top times so I can just ignore it. Ditto with grass and corner cutting. As I said in my review above, if you allow corner cutting, just remove penalties altogether instead of us having to guess which corners you can cut and which you can't.

IIRC Evolution got a lot of heat for implementing overly harsh penalties in the early builds of the game? Seems like they tried to find a middle ground but it's always tricky in a racing game. The top drivers will always want to push the limits of everything.
 
Probably the best idea would be that grass and other off-track surfaces had much less grip... but that would interfere with the goal of Driveclub: being easy and arcady.

Handbrake thingy is a matter of the core of the physics, so there is no solution for that. Not even removing the handbrake, as you still could gain some time by doing scandinavian flick (not only you gain time on slow corners by drifting, but in fast ones as well).

At the end the best thing is to race like you say, ignoring those "glitches" the game has. Fortunately very few people use off-tracks and handbrake.
 
Club events and challenges I think I will skip. I joined a friend's club who kindly already has all the club cars unlocked, and that's about it. I also find it kinda annoying that you can't join more than one club. Limit it to 5 maybe, but only one? If you're not admin there's really no point in unlocking all the club badges and liveries because you can't use them anyways! Looking at the top clubs it's crazy how much XP they have :boggled: Nerds

It’s a shame you’re not going to give the club side and challenges a go.. it’s what keeps me coming back time and time again as there is always something new every day, although yeah, the single player has more than enough to keep you occupied ( apart from the bike expansion which I have no interest in) :cheers:
 
It’s a shame you’re not going to give the club side and challenges a go.. it’s what keeps me coming back time and time again as there is always something new every day, although yeah, the single player has more than enough to keep you occupied ( apart from the bike expansion which I have no interest in) :cheers:

Maybe if I've gotten this game at launch or I'm 10 years younger I would be more active, but as it stands everyone of my friends is already so far up ahead it's impossible to catch up with the time I have now to play :lol: I still look at leaderboard stats just for comparison, but I'm not looking at it competitively. I'm just gonna take my own time to explore everything DC has to offer. Who knows? Maybe a year from now once I've completed all the single player stuff I'll give the club challenges a go (if the servers are still up that is).
 
My best friend let me "borrow" this with his PSN account, and I just finished the Legend Trophy and the primary tour. I agree with much of @LeGeNd-1's write-up. 👍 Aside from what contradicts it below.

The physics are pretty solid, though they don't fit so well for the slower cars, being relatively rigid and unyielding. I've played on the default handling mode because Hardcore just seemed like a nuisance for no benefit. There's some occasional pendulum action as you try to get the steering to catch up to a tank-slapper, but for the most part it's smooth and enjoyable once you get the hang of the weighty steering response. It's more comfortable than the likes of NFS HP2010 or MW2012, that's for sure. One thing that doesn't really gel, IMO, is the fatal understeer from unloading the suspension over a crest -- given the arcade style the game is going for, it seems kind of overdone and out of place.

The tracks are pretty nice, though with more of an arcade-y theme park vibe than I expected. They don't feel like real places at all, possibly due to the overwrought post-processing that sometimes muddies the visuals and contributes to what some would call a "cartoony" look. The anti-aliasing lets the graphics down, making everything look like clay models. I just don't care for anti-aliasing.

The biggest problem I have with this game is its insipid car list. There are too few cars that I care about, between the holes in the lineup and the serious lack of older cars. Most modern performance cars are...blah. :indiff: I would be more enamored with the game if it had more 20th-century vehicles. If it had a car roster more like a PGR game it could have been something pretty special.

In all, though, I'm happy to have this on the PS4 HDD as a pick-up-and-play alternative for something modern and weather-rific, next to PCARS2. 👍
 
The physics definitely make way more sense than any NFS in recent memory. HP2010 is a good game, but the handling is a mess and getting to initiate a drift is inconsistent. MW2012 a lot of people seem to hate, but I personally "gelled" with it rather well. It's basically Burnout Paradise with a bit more weight and suspension movement thrown in. I've only played those 2 with a pad though, and I'm sure they are a train wreck with a wheel. DC's forte is it plays reasonably well with both a pad and wheel. It's almost like what PS1 Gran Turismo's physics would be like if PD decides to go down arcade route rather than sim.

I agree that the effects of bumps are amplified too much here. Generally though I find every arcade racing game has that "quirk" in the physics where you either "get it" or you don't. The people who get it can manipulate it and get insane laptimes, while to the rest of us it's just another annoyance that doesn't reflect reality. DC's quirk seems to be utilising bumps to pull the car around apexes and straighten it up on exit. If you watch the top laptimes you'll understand. Those guys have every nook and cranny of the track surface memorised. It's a very line sensitive racer, very much reminds me of Initial D/Wangan Midnight arcade games.

I get the "theme park vibe" you're talking about. I understand the direction Evolution is going with the carnival atmosphere and lots of trackside eye candy, but to me racing in pure wilderness is just a lot more awesome. I actually like tracks that are more "barren" than the ones that are lively and full of spectators. Really takes me back to NFS1-5 days.

I get what you mean about the car list. Unfortunately for us old geezers these old hero supercars tend to get forgotten, but they do have some gems in there like Diablo, F40, XJ220. I think newer supercars are as exciting as old ones, but I'm never a fan of sport luxury sedans which seems to be half the car list. My guess is they are requested by manufacturers in exchange for their supercars licenses in the game. Despite this they still go out of their way to include rare cars like the Icona, Evantra, Spano and Rivale. They are pretty crap to drive, but damn their interiors are cool.
 
I quite like how bumps, and uneven parts of the track, can drastically Impact the car. Makes for a more dynamic experience, as well as making it clear that suspensions are a thing.

I wouldn't mind some more classics either. Also think it's a shame that the F40's turbo lag is nonexistent in the game.
 
The likes of the F40, Diablo, and F1 LM were my mainstays whenever available. I've been playing the game exclusively from chase cam because of how the handling physics are, and seeing cars like those in action in the detailed visuals of wet weather and all was cool. In all, particularly with the older cars, this game feels like the closest to a modern incarnation of The Need for Speed.

I quite like how bumps, and uneven parts of the track, can drastically Impact the car. Makes for a more dynamic experience, as well as making it clear that suspensions are a thing.
I like it too; I prefer tracks with dynamic qualities to make things interesting. It's just the loss of grip over crests that doesn't quite fit with how the game otherwise feels to drive, IMO, even though it's authentic.

The same sensation adds to the experience in the Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune games, but in Driveclub it just feels paralyzing with the already-stiff steering. It could have more to do with how it manifests in the track design than the physics engine.
 
...to me racing in pure wilderness is just a lot more awesome. I actually like tracks that are more "barren" than the ones that are lively and full of spectators...
There is a setting where you can turn off the crowds or set them to random and it'll stay that way until you change it again. I found racing or TT hot lapping with no crowd and just the dynamic leaves/litter/smoke etc for company and weather set to dynamic is a driving pleasure. In fact, I often set the time of day and weather aspects to random also - you can get some great surprises that way. Glad you're enjoying it.
 
Fair play for the evasive way of bypassing Sony’s morality police but seriously.. the mind boggles as to why of all the names in the world he (or she:idea:) decides on a moniker like that
CCC89D42-53A5-458C-8A5B-CA65240C278B.png
 
I don't consider it morally wrong. It's a silly name to choose for one self, but not as silly as those who actually get offended by it. Censorship is awful.
 
I don't consider it morally wrong. It's a silly name to choose for one self, but not as silly as those who actually get offended by it. Censorship is awful.

Nahh, I don’t consider it morally wrong either, and I’m not even remotely offended, credit to the dude for even coming up with that name.. just wonder at the reason why :P
 
I didn't know this thread existed and started my own. Anyway, I said this:

I play Driveclub on and off and recently started playing it again. Everytime I go back to it I keep thinking what an amazing game it is and that its 4 years old! I mean the look and feel of the cars and environments just make it such an immersive, exciting game. Such a shame the studios closed down :-(.
 
I didn't know this thread existed and started my own. Anyway, I said this:

I play Driveclub on and off and recently started playing it again. Everytime I go back to it I keep thinking what an amazing game it is and that its 4 years old! I mean the look and feel of the cars and environments just make it such an immersive, exciting game. Such a shame the studios closed down :-(.
Yeah, all Driveclub threads used to be up in plain sight until sometime last year when it all got archived. Welcome to the Driveclub bit by the way.
 
I'm playing some DriveClub again after months of primarily GT Sport and a little bit of Project Cars 2. And despite my prior many dozens of hours of DriveClub this is really the first time I've been extensively using a wheel instead of a controller - and it's a hell of a lot of fun, despite the underwhelming but not entirely terrible force feedback (I've noticed you can make it a little stronger by setting the in-game rotation lower than the hardware wheel rotation, so eg. my T150 is set to 1080 but only 720 in-game).

Racing in DriveClub really feel like edge-of-your-seat lunacy most of the time, compared to the primarily predictable smoothness and consistency of GT Sport or most full blown sims. Here you're almost always inches from losing control - or you've already lost it and you're now in a (hopefully) manageable powerslide, or maniacally and aggressively trying to claw back your spot that was just stolen by an AI driver who jumps at almost any opportunity and keeps up the pressure.

It's also still an exceptionally beautiful game most of the time - and arguably the best sounding one - and I really like the fantasy tracks.
At first I was worried I had gotten so used to higher frame rates in GT Sport etc. that I would have a hard time readjusting to what didn't seem like a very smooth experience in DriveClub (even though I know it's a rock solid 30 fps). But lowering camera shake to zero (I had previously had it around 30-50% for the increased sense of speed, not that it's lacking without it) fixed that visual issue for me.
 
Is it me or is Driveclub really bad on a steering wheel? the car feels like it drives on ice by spinning out I mean not even PC2 or AC does this.
 
Those two are simulator style games, DC isn't, it's more of a semi-arcade.

Yeah I know that hence why I play Driveclub on a controller rather than a steering wheel. Most likely it was tailored for proper use on a controller rather than a steering wheel.
 
Back