Scaff's Sim Racing Reviews
- Thread starter Scaff
- 134 comments
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- 276
- Dublin
- benowen54@yahoo.com
Good review. Glad to hear that the cornball "story" is skippable! I don't mind the fact that it is a bit arcade-like. So might think about this as a buy. Is there any real advantage to the "amplified" edition? Not interested in paying extra to get stuff which I can get eventually by just playing the game. The info on the ads for the game isn't very clear about what you get.
- 29,910
- Cuddington, Cheshire
- JDA1982
I was hoping there would be a bit more meat to this game in terms of content and structure. The fact it's an arcade game doesn't bother me, I expected it to be. But you're review and also the GTPlanet review both made similar points about the career.
Maybe this one is a wait and see if there's a sale jobby. Good insightful review regardless @Scaff, you're quickly turning to one of my go to reviewers for racing games
.
Maybe this one is a wait and see if there's a sale jobby. Good insightful review regardless @Scaff, you're quickly turning to one of my go to reviewers for racing games
.
Scaff
Moderator
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- He/Him
- ScaffUK
ThanksI was hoping there would be a bit more meat to this game in terms of content and structure. The fact it's an arcade game doesn't bother me, I expected it to be. But you're review and also the GTPlanet review both made similar points about the career.
Maybe this one is a wait and see if there's a sale jobby. Good insightful review regardless @Scaff, you're quickly turning to one of my go to reviewers for racing games
- 1,779
- England
- Player_7421
- Player 7421
Whitestar
Premium
- 2,068
- Norway
- Whitestar127
Quite amusing review this actually. 
"pissed off"
"half-ass"
"phhfffff"
"ahhhhh"
"uuuhhhhh"
":censored:e"
and then...
"I'll be perfectly honest with you..."
On a more serious note though; I think I prefer the more "neutral" Scaff. So maybe you should consider getting things out of your system before reviewing your games in the future, as this one seemed a bit on the harsh side maybe.
Anyway, keep up the good work. 👍 Sorry for your wasted money.
"pissed off"
"half-ass"
"phhfffff"
"ahhhhh"
"uuuhhhhh"
":censored:e"
and then...
"I'll be perfectly honest with you..."
On a more serious note though; I think I prefer the more "neutral" Scaff. So maybe you should consider getting things out of your system before reviewing your games in the future, as this one seemed a bit on the harsh side maybe.
Anyway, keep up the good work. 👍 Sorry for your wasted money.
Last edited:
Scaff
Moderator
- 29,025
- He/Him
- ScaffUK
Dirt 5
The Serious Review
Intro
Handing the reins over to a new team and using a new engine, Codemasters has released the latest in the 'numbered' Dirt titles, which means a return to the arcade side of the series.
Driving Simulation: 3
Even when compared to the last arcade based Dirt title, Dirt 4, this is a step backward in terms of physics modeling, with very little feel of anything approaching complexity under its skin. To explain why this is such as issue, I want to look at both Gravel and Art of Rally as counterpoints. These two titles are also both firmly arcade based, yet they quick clearly have a depth to the engine that helps to provide nuance to the handling, even with a gamepad. It makes them easy to pick up a drive, but a challenge to master. Dirt 5 is simply missing that, and it makes for handling that just wears thin very quickly, even for an arcade title. Its not helped by the fact that the Sprint car are plain terrible to handle and the Ice Racing not far behind in the same regard, robbing any sense of enjoyment from these events.
Racing Simulation: 4
The AI is, to be blunt, aggressive to a point that is just not fun, add in aggressive rubber-banding that only seem to favour the AI and it commits one of the worse sins possible in an arcade title, a lack of a fair challenge from the AI. CM seems to have wanted to up the aggression that WRX offers, but fail to understand that if you mix that with severe rubber-banding and the type of stage/track design in Dirt 5, it stops being fun and just gets frustrating.
Motorsport Simulation: 2
The career is simply a mess. It takes a simple premise, the rookie starting out and being put under the wing of the senior driver/team owner, with the story, told via voice-overs that are thankfully skippable. That the Donut Media guys are providing a great deal of these voice-overs makes it, for me, damn hard to even attempt to sit through, not that any of it actually explains what the structure for the event progression is. You have three different 'scores' given to you at the end of each event, only one of which seems to do a great deal, as its the game's currency. The remaining three have no meaningful impact on my progression! Add in that, the events have no coherent structure to them, and you are simply jumping from event to event with only the car type swapping, event typos are not actually tied to any car type in any way at all, and almost all simply finish first. Just about the only exception is gymkhana, which has a stunningly low bar in terms of finishing them. In fact, most events don’t need a win or even a podium to complete, in a similar vein to Project Cars 3, you just need to pass one of the three objectives for the race. Well that is until you reach the next tier, when suddenly you need to finish on the podium. Now I don't have an issue with an arcade title not following a traditional motorsport structure, but it would be nice if it followed some kind of coherent and meaningful structure at all.
Accessibility: 5
Now this is an odd one, as normally accessibility is an issue for gamepad users, with many sim titles not catering for them. However in a bid to be different Dirt 5 has good gamepad implementation (despite the poor physics engine), and its wheels that are appallingly supported. A day or two before launch they did say that wheel support would be 'limited' without clarifying what limited would be. Now my T300 and T-LCM pedals do work with Dirt 5, however, I use the term work in its most basic way, as any sense of FFB you may expect simply does not work. Now I've come to expect Dirt titles to have poor wheel support at launch, after all that was the case for both the Dirt Rallies, but this is a new benchmark is poor FFB implementation, but I guess I should count myself lucky. At least mine worked! On my PS4 Pro its also work noting that while it does look damn good, screen-tearing was far to common unless I set the favour resolution, and I suspect those on base consoles will not be able to avoid it at all. Those on PC, I have heard a number of stories of people not even being able to get it running, with crashes to desktop being all too common.
Content: 8
Now this at least is one area that Dirt 5 does well in, the car list is wide and varied, with some seriously odd and interesting stuff on it. It also has a good range of locations to pick from, however, the issue is that it all feels a bit redundant, as you get given the base car in each of the car classes and no need to change from this exists, I honestly only bought a different car to these because I got bored and wanted to see if anything else actually felt any different. They don't, cars within the same class all feel pretty much the same, which again is something the best arcade racers manage to avoid. what you do get that is good is an excellent photo-mode, and I'm a sucker for a good photo-mode in games, unfortunately, Dirt 5 has no replays. Yes that's right no replays at all, so you have no choice but to pause gameplay to take a photo, which is one of the most asinine design choices I have ever come across. A basic, but functional livery editor is offered and a great Playground mode which allows you to build a massive range of gymkhana style events, if only the title had an engaging and absorbing physics engine to take advantage of it.
Value: 4
A large car list with a wide range of locations alone doesn’t make for a good value title, and Codemasters seem to have no understood this at all, its all pretty graphics and visual spectacle, yet that veneer is thin and when you get below it, what remains is shallow and boring. as such the true value, re-playability is simply absent from it. It's telling that I fired up Gravel when putting this review together to compare it and ended up spending more time with that, than I had with Dirt 5 in the same evening.
Summary
Quite frankly it's impossible for me to recommend Dirt 5 at all, yes it looks good, but so do so many other titles that have much more actual depth and enjoyment to them. Depending on your platform you could pick up the likes of Gravel or even Dirt 3 for less money and get so much more out of them, they may not look as good, but I'm sure you will spend far more time with them. It would in all honestly require a mammoth effort over the coming months for Codemasters to manage to turn this title around, and I for one have little faith that they will manage to do so.
The Serious Review
Intro
Handing the reins over to a new team and using a new engine, Codemasters has released the latest in the 'numbered' Dirt titles, which means a return to the arcade side of the series.
Driving Simulation: 3
Even when compared to the last arcade based Dirt title, Dirt 4, this is a step backward in terms of physics modeling, with very little feel of anything approaching complexity under its skin. To explain why this is such as issue, I want to look at both Gravel and Art of Rally as counterpoints. These two titles are also both firmly arcade based, yet they quick clearly have a depth to the engine that helps to provide nuance to the handling, even with a gamepad. It makes them easy to pick up a drive, but a challenge to master. Dirt 5 is simply missing that, and it makes for handling that just wears thin very quickly, even for an arcade title. Its not helped by the fact that the Sprint car are plain terrible to handle and the Ice Racing not far behind in the same regard, robbing any sense of enjoyment from these events.
Racing Simulation: 4
The AI is, to be blunt, aggressive to a point that is just not fun, add in aggressive rubber-banding that only seem to favour the AI and it commits one of the worse sins possible in an arcade title, a lack of a fair challenge from the AI. CM seems to have wanted to up the aggression that WRX offers, but fail to understand that if you mix that with severe rubber-banding and the type of stage/track design in Dirt 5, it stops being fun and just gets frustrating.
Motorsport Simulation: 2
The career is simply a mess. It takes a simple premise, the rookie starting out and being put under the wing of the senior driver/team owner, with the story, told via voice-overs that are thankfully skippable. That the Donut Media guys are providing a great deal of these voice-overs makes it, for me, damn hard to even attempt to sit through, not that any of it actually explains what the structure for the event progression is. You have three different 'scores' given to you at the end of each event, only one of which seems to do a great deal, as its the game's currency. The remaining three have no meaningful impact on my progression! Add in that, the events have no coherent structure to them, and you are simply jumping from event to event with only the car type swapping, event typos are not actually tied to any car type in any way at all, and almost all simply finish first. Just about the only exception is gymkhana, which has a stunningly low bar in terms of finishing them. In fact, most events don’t need a win or even a podium to complete, in a similar vein to Project Cars 3, you just need to pass one of the three objectives for the race. Well that is until you reach the next tier, when suddenly you need to finish on the podium. Now I don't have an issue with an arcade title not following a traditional motorsport structure, but it would be nice if it followed some kind of coherent and meaningful structure at all.
Accessibility: 5
Now this is an odd one, as normally accessibility is an issue for gamepad users, with many sim titles not catering for them. However in a bid to be different Dirt 5 has good gamepad implementation (despite the poor physics engine), and its wheels that are appallingly supported. A day or two before launch they did say that wheel support would be 'limited' without clarifying what limited would be. Now my T300 and T-LCM pedals do work with Dirt 5, however, I use the term work in its most basic way, as any sense of FFB you may expect simply does not work. Now I've come to expect Dirt titles to have poor wheel support at launch, after all that was the case for both the Dirt Rallies, but this is a new benchmark is poor FFB implementation, but I guess I should count myself lucky. At least mine worked! On my PS4 Pro its also work noting that while it does look damn good, screen-tearing was far to common unless I set the favour resolution, and I suspect those on base consoles will not be able to avoid it at all. Those on PC, I have heard a number of stories of people not even being able to get it running, with crashes to desktop being all too common.
Content: 8
Now this at least is one area that Dirt 5 does well in, the car list is wide and varied, with some seriously odd and interesting stuff on it. It also has a good range of locations to pick from, however, the issue is that it all feels a bit redundant, as you get given the base car in each of the car classes and no need to change from this exists, I honestly only bought a different car to these because I got bored and wanted to see if anything else actually felt any different. They don't, cars within the same class all feel pretty much the same, which again is something the best arcade racers manage to avoid. what you do get that is good is an excellent photo-mode, and I'm a sucker for a good photo-mode in games, unfortunately, Dirt 5 has no replays. Yes that's right no replays at all, so you have no choice but to pause gameplay to take a photo, which is one of the most asinine design choices I have ever come across. A basic, but functional livery editor is offered and a great Playground mode which allows you to build a massive range of gymkhana style events, if only the title had an engaging and absorbing physics engine to take advantage of it.
Value: 4
A large car list with a wide range of locations alone doesn’t make for a good value title, and Codemasters seem to have no understood this at all, its all pretty graphics and visual spectacle, yet that veneer is thin and when you get below it, what remains is shallow and boring. as such the true value, re-playability is simply absent from it. It's telling that I fired up Gravel when putting this review together to compare it and ended up spending more time with that, than I had with Dirt 5 in the same evening.
Summary
Quite frankly it's impossible for me to recommend Dirt 5 at all, yes it looks good, but so do so many other titles that have much more actual depth and enjoyment to them. Depending on your platform you could pick up the likes of Gravel or even Dirt 3 for less money and get so much more out of them, they may not look as good, but I'm sure you will spend far more time with them. It would in all honestly require a mammoth effort over the coming months for Codemasters to manage to turn this title around, and I for one have little faith that they will manage to do so.
- 596
- Canada
- outsider819
I'm finding it quite interesting how many AAA titles (well, for racing games, anyway) are launching as flaming wrecks this year. It seems the smaller titles are really better received, as an example many PC players are liking Art of Rally and the Tony Stewart dirt racing games are quite popular among my friends on XBL, virtually nobody I know has bought PC3, Dirt 5, F1 2020, MotoGP 20, Heat 5 or ACC and almost all that did have basically quit those and gone back to previous titles or something else entirely.
Scaff
Moderator
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- ScaffUK
To be fair F1 isn’t the mess that others on that list are, and ACC on console may need work, but on PC it’s absurdly popular.
- 3,076
- Cary, NC
- mrbabyboyd
I just happened to find this thread and I must say Scaff you do a really good job on your reviews. I watched your PC3 and ACC reviews. I was trying to decide whether to get AC or ACC and after watching your review specifically when you talked about the time need for races sold me on AC. I don't always have the time like that to race unfortunately. Keep up the good work!👍
Re: Star Drift Evolution
Totally agree with you on the perspective thing. I can enjoy the mechanics of a game designed to be a top-down racer, but unless it's a static view of the whole track, I think there is no good reason for a forced top-down perspective in a 3D game.
Totally agree with you on the perspective thing. I can enjoy the mechanics of a game designed to be a top-down racer, but unless it's a static view of the whole track, I think there is no good reason for a forced top-down perspective in a 3D game.
Scaff
Moderator
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- ScaffUK
WRC 10 (PC)
Full Review
Intro
This review comes quite a while after the release of WRC 10, however I wanted to give it a fair chance, as I've been juggling quite a bit in my work and home lives. So my apologies it's late, lets see what it has to offer, with the full season joined by a whole host of historic events and challenges.
Driving Simulation: 9
The handling model for WRC10 builds on the great work set in the past few titles, and for me remains the benchmark for modern rally titles, regardless of platform. Again, an even greater feeling of weight has been added and as a result momentum feels more dynamic. FFB has once again improved, with a more detailed feel, again not leaps and bounds above last year’s entry, but a slow and steady improvement each year.
However, I do, once again, must temper that with the poor out of the box settings for FFB and the unchanged, and still messy, UI for changing settings and button configurations. KT do themselves no favours in this regard, as out of the box, with a T300, the score would be closer to a 6. It really shouldn't need as much messing about as it does to get a good baseline in place. Further compounded this year by not supporting audino handbrakes on PC out of the box, I had to wait for numerous patches before that one was fixed.
Racing Simulation: 7
The AI feels very much the same as it did last year, with the pace being quite variable across different surfaces, and as a result it never feels as well balanced as it could be and in this area, it seems KT are happy to leave things as they have been for a number of years. One odd point is that the AI setting has no effect at all on the pace of the historic events.
Motorsport Simulation: 9
The career mode from WRC 8 and 9 is, by and large carried across intact for WRC10, and overall, that's no bad thing. As with its excellent stage design, challenging stage lengths and well developed and rounded career mode it’s on a par with the likes of Codemasters F1 titles. we do now have two new features for this year, ones that most reviewers seem to have ignored, which is odd because they really do add to the career mode. The first being tyre strategy, which as a fundamental of the real sport has been missing from rally titles for two long, it's not a perfect implementation, as you are forced to pick your mix before you can see the stage details and lengths. Not seeing the weather, I can understand, a partial forecast and then being made to tackle a risk in that regard would be ideal, but to no be able; to know the stages and lengths doesn't make sense and should be fixed.
That's not however to take away from what is a great addition to the career. The other is that full length rally can now be run, with shakedowns and 14 stage durations, which really does add depth and challenge when combined with tyre strategy, getting the tyre choice right before each stage, cross-matching tyres, etc adds greatly to the career.
So why then have I scored this area the same as last year’s title? A very valid question, and that's because of the mess that KT have made of including the historic events into the title. While the 50th Anniversary mode and events really is great, only some of it can be accessed via that mode, with the rest only becoming unlocked when you complete them in full career mode, those who opt for the season mode are screwed as that doesn't unlock them. Add in that the unlocks also get stuck from time to time, I've had several historic events that I've completed in career that have not then opened up in the 50th anniversary mode! Oh, and to run your own team in career mode, you have to finish all of the 50th anniversary events, which is an absurd barrier to put in place, particularly as it then renders what is a basic but solid livery editor pretty much pointless.
Accessibility: 6
Accessibility has overall taken a step backwards, mainly because of the mess that has been made of the 50th anniversary mode and the ‘my team’ mode, both of which are the marketing stars of the package, yet have been locked behind utterly absurd and nonsensical designed choices. What should have been the WRC series most accessible title has in fact become one of the most confusing in terms of progression and completion
Content: 9
Despite the absurd design choices made to WRC10s structure, what can't be denied is the absurd level of content on offer. With licenced series you expect the current crop to be the offering and that be pretty much it. With the 50th anniversary content running beyond cars, but also including both unique locations and bespoke versions of stages it's a massive amount of content.
Value: 9
Given the increase in content out of the box, and the upcoming DLC schedule, all of which is free, the one thing that can't be argued is that as a standalone product WRC 10 offers great value for money.
Summary
However, it's not a standalone product, and the question becomes if the 50th Anniversary content and tweaks to career mode are enough to separate it from WRC9. As a die-hard rally fan that's an easy question to answer, for others it’s a more difficult call to make.
Full Review
Intro
This review comes quite a while after the release of WRC 10, however I wanted to give it a fair chance, as I've been juggling quite a bit in my work and home lives. So my apologies it's late, lets see what it has to offer, with the full season joined by a whole host of historic events and challenges.
Driving Simulation: 9
The handling model for WRC10 builds on the great work set in the past few titles, and for me remains the benchmark for modern rally titles, regardless of platform. Again, an even greater feeling of weight has been added and as a result momentum feels more dynamic. FFB has once again improved, with a more detailed feel, again not leaps and bounds above last year’s entry, but a slow and steady improvement each year.
However, I do, once again, must temper that with the poor out of the box settings for FFB and the unchanged, and still messy, UI for changing settings and button configurations. KT do themselves no favours in this regard, as out of the box, with a T300, the score would be closer to a 6. It really shouldn't need as much messing about as it does to get a good baseline in place. Further compounded this year by not supporting audino handbrakes on PC out of the box, I had to wait for numerous patches before that one was fixed.
Racing Simulation: 7
The AI feels very much the same as it did last year, with the pace being quite variable across different surfaces, and as a result it never feels as well balanced as it could be and in this area, it seems KT are happy to leave things as they have been for a number of years. One odd point is that the AI setting has no effect at all on the pace of the historic events.
Motorsport Simulation: 9
The career mode from WRC 8 and 9 is, by and large carried across intact for WRC10, and overall, that's no bad thing. As with its excellent stage design, challenging stage lengths and well developed and rounded career mode it’s on a par with the likes of Codemasters F1 titles. we do now have two new features for this year, ones that most reviewers seem to have ignored, which is odd because they really do add to the career mode. The first being tyre strategy, which as a fundamental of the real sport has been missing from rally titles for two long, it's not a perfect implementation, as you are forced to pick your mix before you can see the stage details and lengths. Not seeing the weather, I can understand, a partial forecast and then being made to tackle a risk in that regard would be ideal, but to no be able; to know the stages and lengths doesn't make sense and should be fixed.
That's not however to take away from what is a great addition to the career. The other is that full length rally can now be run, with shakedowns and 14 stage durations, which really does add depth and challenge when combined with tyre strategy, getting the tyre choice right before each stage, cross-matching tyres, etc adds greatly to the career.
So why then have I scored this area the same as last year’s title? A very valid question, and that's because of the mess that KT have made of including the historic events into the title. While the 50th Anniversary mode and events really is great, only some of it can be accessed via that mode, with the rest only becoming unlocked when you complete them in full career mode, those who opt for the season mode are screwed as that doesn't unlock them. Add in that the unlocks also get stuck from time to time, I've had several historic events that I've completed in career that have not then opened up in the 50th anniversary mode! Oh, and to run your own team in career mode, you have to finish all of the 50th anniversary events, which is an absurd barrier to put in place, particularly as it then renders what is a basic but solid livery editor pretty much pointless.
Accessibility: 6
Accessibility has overall taken a step backwards, mainly because of the mess that has been made of the 50th anniversary mode and the ‘my team’ mode, both of which are the marketing stars of the package, yet have been locked behind utterly absurd and nonsensical designed choices. What should have been the WRC series most accessible title has in fact become one of the most confusing in terms of progression and completion
Content: 9
Despite the absurd design choices made to WRC10s structure, what can't be denied is the absurd level of content on offer. With licenced series you expect the current crop to be the offering and that be pretty much it. With the 50th anniversary content running beyond cars, but also including both unique locations and bespoke versions of stages it's a massive amount of content.
Value: 9
Given the increase in content out of the box, and the upcoming DLC schedule, all of which is free, the one thing that can't be argued is that as a standalone product WRC 10 offers great value for money.
Summary
However, it's not a standalone product, and the question becomes if the 50th Anniversary content and tweaks to career mode are enough to separate it from WRC9. As a die-hard rally fan that's an easy question to answer, for others it’s a more difficult call to make.
Whitestar
Premium
- 2,068
- Norway
- Whitestar127
Who makes these decisions? It's almost as if they opened the game, saw a kart running and went "Yeah, that looks finished. Let's sell it."
BTW, nice to see you back on YT, Scaff. Sad to see the weekly news go but I fully understand given the situation.
BTW, nice to see you back on YT, Scaff. Sad to see the weekly news go but I fully understand given the situation.
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