It may be argued that no console platform has really arrived until it has a definitive driving game. On previous incarnations of the PlayStation, that driving game has been Gran Turismo, which in its early versions delivered a simple, compelling blend of beautiful visuals and arcade-style gameplay.
But more recently,
GT developer Polyphony has become obsessed with accuracy - always the enemy of an enjoyable racing game. Add to this its compulsive crusade to cram the game with as many cars and tracks as possible, and you see a company that has lost sight of the prize - an enjoyable experience with endless “one more race” factor.
As
Gran Turismo crashed off the track, the guys at Criterion Games were ready to take its mantle as the best PlayStation racer with
Burnout - but the problem with
Burnout, at least from Sony’s point of view, was that it was not platform-exclusive. Meanwhile, the Xbox was racing through the pack with its exclusive
Forza series, which delivered all that used to be great and good about
GT, and a whole lot more too.
Gamescom 2014
Gran Turismo releases have become like
Chinese Democracy was for so long. Eagerly awaited, highly anticipated, but always just beyond the horizon. So Sony turned to Evolution Studios for its PS4 racing fix. Evolution had already delivered two doses of PlayStation racing nirvana with their
MotorStorm games (and the more average
MotorStorm Apocalypse), and now they were prepared to take the racing action onto the track. The result is
Driveclub.
What is great about
Driveclub is that it dumps you directly into the action. Boot the game, and you are deposited directly behind the wheel of your first race. No choosing cars, choosing country, choosing track, time of day, weather conditions, what gloves to wear. Just BANG! and you’re in a car.
No having to earn your crawling licence, then your walking licence, then your driving on a test track round bollards licence. Just BANG and you’re racing. It’s blissfully simple. As is the rest of the single-player game. You race, you win. You race, you lose,you race again and you do better. You level up, you get a new car. Some people have criticised this as being dull. I think
Driveclub’s 'Tour' mode is exactly what a single-player racing game should be. Simple, fun, un-confusing (seriously, the last
GT interface made me want to rip my own eyes out). You’ll be taken through a career as a driver, and have to work your way to the podium.
Gamescom 2014
Single Race mode is a useful way of learning the tracks and techniques you’ll need to succeed in Tour. You can choose location, weather, time of day and you can also choose race style - Race, Drift or Time-Trial. Then you race. This mode is vital to success in the tour, because you need to know the tracks to have a chance of winning on them. Also, skills you’ll learn in Drift event will help you be competitive in races.
Driveclub also, as you would expect from a modern racing game, has an online aspect. This takes two forms, one is the now common friend challenges feature. This enables you to 'race' against friend even when they are neither present nor online, kind of like Strava enables cyclists to compete asynchronously in the real world. But just like with Strava, when you are racing the same track under different lighting and atmospheric conditions, it changes the difficulty considerably, so while it’s a fun feature, it’s not a like-for-like comparison.
Gamescom 2014
But online mode also enables you to create and compete in automatic or player-generated challenges, like holding a drift for longest on a specific bend. In a custom challenge, there is a time window for you to get your best performance on the scoreboard, and you’ll win XP for your standing when the challenge finishes. It’s a great game mechanic.
The other aspect of
Driveclub’s online feature set is Club racing. You can band to gather with a group of real-world or online friends, or even complete strangers, and race together in a Club. All your progress helps them, all their progress helps you. And some of
Driveclub’s car roster is only available to you in Club mode.
Before and at launch, Sony had well publicised problems with
Driveclub’s servers, which didn’t help the game’s word of mouth. These are largely sorted now, but an amount of tarnish remains on the game's reputation. This is a shame, because the online features are a fine addition to the game's appeal.
One thing that is 'interesting' about
Driveclub is the AI logic. They’ll hold their line, and group in a way that makes getting past them tricky at best. They’ll also ram you like you were not there. This is fun at first, but as you progress through Tour mode, it becomes annoying. Later, it had me wanting to throw the controller at the screen and stamp on my PS4.
The game’s tracks are fictional, rather than licenced reproductions of real-world circuits. Most of them are on real world routes, giving a road-rally feel to the racing. A little reminiscent of old
Ridge Racer or
Need for Speed games. It means that overtaking can be tricky, because the lanes are generally pretty narrow, but this just adds to the challenge.
In the end,
Driveclub is everything I want from a racing game. Easy to pick up, hard to put down, and fun while you’re playing. It has a great selection of fabulous looking vehicles. Yet it focuses on the important aspects, playability and addictiveness, rather than slavishly reproducing every turn and engine sound from real world circuits and cars. Despite this, it fails to set the soul on fire like
Burnout: Paradise City or
Motorstorm did.
Pros:
+ Beautiful looking
+ Focus on playability, not “accuracy”
+ Simple Interface
+ Involving on-line modes
Cons:
- Agressive AI drivers
- Drifting is neither easy nor fun
- Short offline mode
SPOnG Score 8/10