Hey all,
I wanted to share some thoughts about the game. To start off with I've been playing racing games since the mid-90s with Gran Turismo 1 and have dabbled in both PC and console games. I have used a wheel for PC sims sparingly, so how games play with that accessory has never been a significant focus of mine. I do have a pretty substantial background in aviation operating multi-engine Boeing aircraft (flight engineer) & aeronautical engineering and have trained on extremely high-end flight simulators for work and software like FSX/P3D and X-Plane in my personal time. This matters a lot as I approach sims with the mindset that was developed over my career, which is they are simply a tool to be used to understand potential behavior and traits but are never going to be a 1:1 representation of reality. Typically professional simulators do well within the envelope of aircraft performance but get fuzzy on the edge case scenarios like aerial refueling or degraded aircraft performance. In my experience, consumer sims have the same issues. And that's OK! The moment you start translating complex physical interactions with a dynamic environment through a gamepad, a wheel, or a joystick you must understand that real-world replication is essentially difficult to replicate in all regimes of performance. We play these games to get close to the experience. I more or less work to understand how it feels to play versus true performance from real world to two little thumbsticks. I think flight sims tend to get closer to the real thing than racing games -- the relationship between car and a hard surface is very difficult to translate. It's so dynamic.
Anyhow, I've played about several hours of PC3 on the XBX. The complaints I have are game performance isn't amazing. Screen tearing is persistent in both Framerate and Resolution modes. Better in Framerate mode, but not by a significant degree. During hot laps, the game performs better, but that's to be expected with less load on the system to manage. Visually, the game is not a looker, so that and the performance issues don't add up. I recall PC2 on the XBX being a better visual show and performer.
As to how the game handles via gamepad, I'm referencing my time using the Corvette C8 and the Ferrari 458 speciale (that may not be the super correct name for it) using zero assists or ABS On/Traction Low. I find the game communicates the car's behavior to the player in very clear ways. It's easy to understand the relationship of power to oversteer/understeer and how to correct either condition. If there are back end assists working that's OK to me, as the feel is good and communicative. When handling a car well, I know how I'm managing that and when the car crashes or I commit to a mistake, I understand why and can correct that. I don't mind the helping hand because we're translating a facsimile of real-world performance to a gamepad thus some elements of the input/output behavior have to be tweaked to make the controls palatable. I find that the cars work in ways I expect i.e. if I drive on the grass I expect the car to be pulled towards the wheel in the grass, and the game does that. I can balance the car's weight easily with a combination of on-throttle and brake input. Slides are easy to catch, as they're intuitive to understand why they occur, how to cause them, and how to correct. Overall, it's a fun and engaging experience on the gamepad, and one I find rewarding as the vehicles feel pretty lively but in a way that is expected and intuitive. Someone earlier in the thread stated that Forza's driving model is very understeer-y and that is exactly how I feel. To me that doesn't translate as accurate or very fun (two very different things in my mind btw -- you can have both or one or the other depending on the intent of the product).
I think what's important to know is that high performance vehicles such as powerful cars or airplanes are genuinely easier to control than one would imagine. The difficulty is controlling them well in a repeatable, consistent fashion. Difficulty does not equal realism in most cases.
Overall, I think PC3 is a fun game that drives exceedingly well for gamepad users. It's rewarding, intuitive, and most importantly very fun tossing cars around or shaving tenths off a lap. I would say it's more engaging than a Forza 7 and a lot more lively than a GT Sport, which I felt was very muted. For the wheel users, I don't know how that translates for you.
Other complaints I have: the AI isn't great. Overly aggressive and a bit simple. Career mode is no frills but better than PC2 -- PC3 is genuinely a better game in that aspect. The UI is fine. Functional and a bit more dolled up than PC2. I like it better than Forza 7, which was dreadfully slow, obtuse, and difficult to do normal things like setting up custom events with the constant loading and bizarre menu layouts. Anyhow, I hope someone finds this interesting and informative. Thanks.
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