Project CARS 2 PlayStation 4 Review

[Johnnypenso]

Several people told me that members were begging to beta test the console versions but SMS wouldn't do it. Baffling decision to not do QA for consoles (or ignore it). They burned so many people because of this and they still didn't learn their lesson.

Fool me once.

Do you have a source for your claim that there was no QA testing on console? Just because testing was not open to forum members does not mean that it was not done.

 

[Stewyripper]

That was a good read, thank you.

I haven't had any problems, or needed to restart the app.
It's ran very smooth on the PS4 for me, I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

The only bug I can report is fuel while racing online. I set my tune to 25L, when the race starts I'll have 66.3L or some other random number.

you have to save your changes as a setup then load them before you go on track worked for me.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Maybe it's because I'm a controller user, but I'm probably about 20+ hours in and no bugs. Absolutely loving the game.

I'm on controller too and I've experienced numerous bugs.

I'll say that it's a very fair review. This game certainly isn't 10/10 "believe the hype" that everyone was saying before it came out, but it is a very large step up from the first game. I say this as an owner of PC1 GOTY.

The controller handling was finally fixed and is acceptable! Biggest pro. Also big pros are the content on-disk.

Cons include the plethora of bugs and performance issues on standard PS4 systems. Many drops in frame rate and a few minor graphical glitches.

I can't say anything about the driver rating system, but I don't think it'll make that big of a difference online or be prominent enough to take a bite out of GT Sport.

Sound is good across the board, many interesting cars I haven't yet seen in racing games too. Also the Formula X and fake LMPs decreases this game's sim value. /s

No matter what you say, Long Beach is still a boring track. Also the Radbull is driveable with some tuning, traction control and patience...

I'm able to correct snap oversteer sometimes. I might need to tweak sensitivity for my pad though.

Overall, it's a great game, however it's not approached the God-tier sim experience the SMS team has been saying. Nobody's playing catchup just yet in my opinion.

8/10.

 

[RacerDude08]

I'm on controller too and I've experienced numerous bugs.

I'll say that it's a very fair review. This game certainly isn't 10/10 "believe the hype" that everyone was saying before it came out, but it is a very large step up from the first game. I say this as an owner of PC1 GOTY.

The controller handling was finally fixed and is acceptable! Biggest pro. Also big pros are the content on-disk.

Cons include the plethora of bugs and performance issues on standard PS4 systems. Many drops in frame rate and a few minor graphical glitches.

I can't say anything about the driver rating system, but I don't think it'll make that big of a difference online or be prominent enough to take a bite out of GT Sport.

Sound is good across the board, many interesting cars I haven't yet seen in racing games too. Also the Formula X and fake LMPs decreases this game's sim value. /s

No matter what you say, Long Beach is still a boring track. Also the Radbull is driveable with some tuning, traction control and patience...

I'm able to correct snap oversteer sometimes. I might need to tweak sensitivity for my pad though.

Overall, it's a great game, however it's not approached the God-tier sim experience the SMS team has been saying. Nobody's playing catchup just yet in my opinion.

8/10.

Long Beach is awesome

 

[Benny44]

What makes you think either would produce better quality? PC1 had an entirely new engine, which everyone agrees is inferior to PC2. And 6 months of extra QA, knowing that the current issues also passed QA? (Not to mention that you have a whole dev team that needs something to do too, a.k.a. adding more code) Better release now, have short communication lines and patch cycles and weed out any issues in a couple of weeks/months.

I think SMS is handling this just fine (though an open/closed beta for consoles is a really good idea next time). People make this sound like a bugfest, but it really isn't (if I recall correctly Ian mentioned 5 blocking issues and 20 others), most people are playing quite happily. And yes, if your personal copy doesn't work that sucks big time, doesn't mean it sucks for everyone else.

Funny thing is that most of the people I speak that play a lot of AC/PC1/iR/rF/etc. don't really see the current issues as a huge problem, they've been there before and know things will be addressed. As long as the base is solid they're in it for the long run, not just the first two weeks.


Same here, no game-breaking stuff. Still, people who do have major issues have valid complaints. 👍

Yeah, they definitely do, and they should be fixed. I think the problem is, and this is every game, people are FAR more likely to complain than say they had a great experience. So things end up looking tilted even though the product is actually pretty good. A lot of people are making it sound like the game is absolutely full of bugs for everyone, when in all reality it is probably a small percentage. Not taking anything away from people who are having issues, they need to be heard

 

[NLxAROSA]

This game certainly isn't 10/10 "believe the hype" that everyone was saying before it came out

Certainly not in here. Several people in this very subforum said well before launch that it wouldn't be 100% perfect and that there would be issues (and they would be fixed in time).

 

[SlipZtrEm]

If comparing it to GT and Forza, I would rate pCARS 2 at 5 for sound and handling/physics and maybe 4.5 for content (quality is great, quantity is worse than Forza). Other areas I think are rated fairly (as it stands right now).

Comparing it to PC sims, I think 4 would be correct for sound and physics. Like I said, if GT and Forza get a 3 for those categories, I would agree this is quite fair.

Anyway, I think the text overall is well written, just not sure about the numbers, but maybe the best parts of PC sims are taken as a gold standard and then it's quite fair.

Here's how our review system works. You'll note that none of the category descriptions say "compared to GT or Forza" — especially since neither is out yet.

I think this is a well writen review, but yeah, the rating is a bit harsh. The game has flaws right now, i'm certain they will be adressed. Lets be honest here, this is most likely the racing game we will spend hundreds of hours with. Maybe it deserves another review three months from now? Lets see how it has developed then.

We're not scoring it based on how many hours some people may spend with it: just about every game has folks that'll sink that long into a game!

As for a review three months later — maybe. So long as we're doing it for every title, which is a huge amount of work. This is a 3800-word review, which took a few hours, plus all the time actually playing the game. And getting photos.

Its sad you had to review it on the base PS4. I really want to point out that the game looks significantly better on a 4K TV / PS4 Pro. Its a different league then PCars 1.

Well, of course PCARS2 on a 4K TV with PS4 Pro looks better than PCARS1 on a vanilla. But 80% of PS4s sold are still vanilla models — this is what the majority is likely to experience.

With the Pro out, and the X incoming, we are looking at a way to incorporate that into scores. But for this review, we simply didn't have access to a Pro/4K setup.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Certainly not in here. Several people in this very subforum said well before launch that it wouldn't be 100% perfect and that there would be issues (and they would be fixed in time).

I don't just exist here on the internet, Facebook comments and YouTube videos were trying to hype this as the greatest racing game of all time, which I don't particularly agree with. In my opinion this game suffered a bit of pre-release Titanfall syndrome.

Heck, even the developers were getting pretty cocky about the game being light years ahead of the competition (hyperbole not included). They must have been talking about the PC version then.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Do you have a source for your claim that there was no QA testing on console? Just because testing was not open to forum members does not mean that it was not done.

The amount of bugs that show up in the early parts of the game is proof enough (Heck, the intro video has a bug ). They might've done some sort of QA testing but for the final product to be like this, they either left it too late, ignored it, or straight up half assed it. Not sure which is worse.

 

[fasj6418]

Funny thing is that most of the people I speak that play a lot of AC/PC1/iR/rF/etc. don't really see the current issues as a huge problem, they've been there before and know things will be addressed. As long as the base is solid they're in it for the long run, not just the first two weeks.

You hit the nail in the head.

We´ve been used to bugs and i guess some of us are eager to dismiss most of the bugs due to the driving itself.

It´s the same as it was with AC in 2014, the game was very bare bones, but the driving itself was so good we pretty much didn´t care about the issues.

I really liked the text on the review, but i also think it was a bit too harsh on the score. Opinions, of course, but this is a forum, so it´s always good to give different views on the same subject.

As a journalist i was thinking this week how would i review the game, considering the bugs, the features and trying to take the fanboy glasses off trying to be objective.

The thing is, so far i see:

The best car roster in a sim
The best track roster in a sim
The best physics i´ve experienced
The best (or second best) FFB
The most feature rich sim on the market

So with these five bullet points i couldn´t score any lower than 9/10 no matter how many little bugs i´ve encountered so far.

The game nails what matters, i guess that´s why so much people are being forgiving with some of the bugs, and i agree that some of them are really annoying.

Scoring is a very subjective matter, but i don´t think i would score this game lower than F1 2017 in terms of content, or in general. I loved F1 like i hadn´t in the last decade, but its still a very limited game, it only does one thing.

Anyways, discussing this game in a closed ambient where everybody is a racing fan is totally different than discussing it and rating it for the general public. That´s why i thought some things would get a "free pass" for scoring purposes. For some people scoring still matters a lot, it helps sales, so it´s always a heated topic.

 

[MrCrynox]

I'm very interested to see how this game ends up on the X, perhaps it will be the console version to buy. I hope that supersampling is in place for the 1080P experience unlike, it seems the PS4 Pro version.
Perhaps enough of the bugs will be fixed come November.

After coming from GT6, (imo lots of soul), I wasn't that impressed with PC1. I didn't think the handling was as good and the graphics looked murky and last Gen to me.

Currently I'm playing the free with Gold F5, (which imo looks amazing), and I'm really looking forward to GTS.

 

[NLxAROSA]

I don't just exist here on the internet, Facebook comments and YouTube videos were trying to hype this as the greatest racing game of all time, which I don't particularly agree with. In my opinion this game suffered a bit of pre-release Titanfall syndrome.

Heck, even the developers were getting pretty cocky about the game being light years ahead of the competition (hyperbole not included). They must have been talking about the PC version then.

I hope Facebook comments and YouTube comments are not any standard of measure. They're the armpits of the internet. People in here (including devs) were pretty straightforward about what to expect. And I do think it's the best racing sim (especially most complete package) on PC/PS4/XB by miles. Does it have issues? Sure. Is it a steaming pile of poo for everyone? Nope. It would be getting a lot worse reviews if it were.

Now, for the console vs PC quality thing, I think you have a point.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The amount of bugs that show up in the early parts of the game is proof enough (Heck, the intro video has a bug ). They might've done some sort of QA testing but for the final product to be like this, they either left it too late, ignored it, or straight up half assed it. Not sure which is worse.

In other words, no source at all.

 

[Scaff]

Long Beach is awesome

Long Beach is OK. Sugo is awesome.

Heck, even the developers were getting pretty cocky about the game being light years ahead of the competition (hyperbole not included). They must have been talking about the PC version then.

Arguably in some areas it is, the seasons, dynamic time and weather combined with Live Track 3.0 is well ahead of anything anyone else is doing.

However lets not forget that just about every studio/developer/marketing team does the exact same thing with regard to a product being launched. Personally I have less issue with the claims that SMS made around PC2 than I do with the ones made by CM about Dirt 4. Now that's currently my biggest disappointment of the year from a hype vs reality point of view.

Now someone has to get the reality being better than the hype to a higher level than WRC7 did, now that's a title that far exceeded my expectations (while still not being perfect at all).

 

[NLxAROSA]

In other words, no source at all.

Any conclusion that's not based on actual numbers is just speculation. So unless anyone can come up with something like 'number of unique issues' or 'number of issues vs number of players' and then compare them across platforms, I don't think you can say anything regarding QA on consoles vs PC. Not to mention that some issues are cross-platform, so those definitely can't be a platform thing. Still, I do believe there are console-specific issues that could have been weeded out with a closed or open beta (still wouldn't have caught all of 'em though), but that's purely based on having a larger sample set compared to a QA team.

 

[Brend]

Long Beach is OK. Sugo is awesome.


Arguably in some areas it is, the dynamic time and weather combined with Live Track 3.0 is well ahead of anything anyone else is doing.

However lets not forget that just about every studio/developer/marketing team does the exact same thing with regard to a product being launched. Personally I have less issue with the claims that SMS made around PC2 than I do with the ones made by CM about Dirt 4. Now that's currently my biggest disappointment of the year from a hype vs reality point of view.

Now someone has to get the reality being better than the hype to a higher level than WRC7 did, now that's a title that far exceeded my expectations (while still not being perfect at all).

Bang on about DiRT 4. What a disappointment.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Now someone has to get the reality being better than the hype to a higher level than WRC7 did, now that's a title that far exceeded my expectations (while still not being perfect at all).

Under-promise, over-deliver. Always the best approach in the long run, IMO. 👍

 

[Johnnypenso]

Any conclusion that's not based on actual numbers is just speculation. So unless anyone can come up with something like 'number of unique issues' or 'number of issues vs number of players' and then compare them across platforms, I don't think you can say anything regarding QA on consoles vs PC. Not to mention that some issues are cross-platform, so those definitely can't be a platform thing. Still, I do believe there are console-specific issues that could have been weeded out with a closed or open beta (still wouldn't have caught all of 'em though), but that's purely based on having a larger sample set compared to a QA team.

No doubt they could have done a better job, I completely agree. My main objection is to the statement that no QA testing was done on console.

 

[novcze]

No doubt they could have done a better job, I completely agree. My main objection is to the statement that no QA testing was done on console. That is a blatant falsehood.

some WMD2 member said that QA on the consoles was outsourced, so it did happen, only not on WMD2 ... my source is in deleted thread on official project cars forum

 

[sems4arsenal]

In other words, no source at all.

I said they either didn't do QA or did and ignored it.

 

[Harry Freq]

An excellent review, highlighting all the good, & not holding back from mentioning the bad. I swore I wouldn't pre-order P CARS 2 after the bugfest that was P CARS 1, once bitten twice shy, & I'm so glad I didn't buy it. A mate of mine cancelled his pre-order for GT Sport & got this game instead. All he's had are bugs, glitches, & issues; he's decided to sell it & Pre-order GT Sport again.

I give SMS 10/10 for their concept of crowd funding & crowd development, but they just can't seem to pull it off enough for my liking as regards the spit & polish, & for me that ruins the experience. I really wanted to like this game, after all it has so much going for it, but for me it's a big fat NO! After seeing it running on PS4 Pro round my mates, I'm confident that I will not be buying it (at least not until most of the issues have been addressed & it's in a bargain bin sale on PS Store).

An excellent concept, poorly implemented, but with moments of sheer awesomeness; pretty much the same as P CARS 1.

I think they are biting off way to much than they can chew! PCars 3 i'd love to see them scale the game right back to say half the cars and half the tracks and just focus on getting everything working 99% as it should (We can let them away with 1% bugs to be patched right?) Im sure they have it in them to create a great game but not the game they think they can make.

 

[RacerDude08]

I think they are biting off way to much than they can chew! PCars 3 i'd love to see them scale the game right back to say half the cars and half the tracks and just focus on getting everything working 99% as it should. Im sure they have it in them to create a great game but not the game they think they can make.

Didn't they say they would make seperate games? PCARS 3 with asphalt racing and make a separate loose surface game? Or did I dream that ha

 

[NLxAROSA]

I said they either didn't do QA or did and ignored it.

Or did, but missed the issue. QA are not infallible.

I think they are biting off way to much than they can chew! PCars 3 i'd love to see them scale the game right back to say half the cars and half the tracks and just focus on getting everything working 99% as it should (We can let them away with 1% bugs to be patched right?) Im sure they have it in them to create a great game but not the game they think they can make.

I don't think we need to wait for PC3 to be a that level, a patch or two will do. PC2 is in very good shape already.

 

[MisterWaffles]

i'd love to see them scale the game right back to say half the cars and half the tracks and just focus on getting everything working 99% as it should.

No! Never again. racing games are coming with less and less on-disk content nowadays that they hardly ever feel like $60 worth, Project Cars 2 got that part right for sure.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Or did, but missed the issue. QA are not infallible.

.

A lot of these issues are in the original game. The intro video is washed out for a lot of people. C'mon now.

 

[jake2013guy]

I think they are biting off way to much than they can chew! PCars 3 i'd love to see them scale the game right back to say half the cars and half the tracks and just focus on getting everything working 99% as it should (We can let them away with 1% bugs to be patched right?) Im sure they have it in them to create a great game but not the game they think they can make.

That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. Yes, the game might be slightly buggy now but it's nowhere near gamebreaking. Doing that would infuriate (and rightfully so) a lot of people. They have families to feed and they're not going to do that by having a boring game with a lack of content.

 

[Harry Freq]

That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. Yes, the game might be slightly buggy now but it's nowhere near gamebreaking. Doing that would infuriate (and rightfully so) a lot of people. They have families to feed and they're not going to do that by having a boring game with a lack of content.

Slightly? I've spent just as much time in the menu's trying to fix stuff and having to quit the game start again just as much as PCars 1, Loads of bugs like most reviews suggest. Also the game on consoles looks awful and way worse than PCars 1 even on the PS4 Pro (god knows how that is possible)

Why would a game that works be boring? Why would 90 cars and 30 tracks be boring? Most racing games dont have that amount of content.

 

[Corsa]

Biting off more than they can chew? Unplayable?

Are you gents playing the same game as I?
I've noticed a mild bug here and there but this title is great.
Patches will come in time, I'm thankful we have another great sim on console.

 

[RodolphoPNeto]

I have a hard time reading reviews since i'm already sold. Still, very informative.

I just want take that F50 GT with raw settings and headphones at max and see how it will really shine on PS4 Pro.

 

[Raging Bull]

I don't mind the bugs so much. After the first PC1 they probably shouldn't have had so many bugs again at launch. That being said, PC1 turned out to be the best Sim gave I have ever played. Not perfect, but it ticked off all the right buttons for me. I loved PC1 (Once all the issues were sorted).

The thing I do agree with and am having a hard time getting past, is the look. As Harry Freq said, the game on consoles looks awful and way worse than PCars 1.

I am thinking of deleting the game and reinstalling it to see if that makes a difference. I really don't see how it would help, but I know of one person on these forums who tried it and thought it looked a lot better after having done so. Just a long wait and a day without playing for what probably won't even help.