First things first, I have to disclose that I’m terrible at this game. I’m terrible at all racing games, but this one really enhances my badness. That said, it’s one of my favorite games. My only complaint is that in order to access some of the cars, you have to be in a Club with other players, and who wants someone as bad as I am to be in their club? (Yesterday I created my own club called RealBadDrivers, for people like me that enjoy the game even though they might be terrible at it, and want to access the locked club cars.) I love this game for the huge selection of cars, ranging from hot hatch cars to hypercars, but the real draw to Driveclub for me, is the incredible photo mode. (You might remember the time a player posted some great shots of his Nissan racing to Twitter and the Nissan Twitter account thought they were actual photos of their actual cars. The photo mode is that good.) There’s also the Bikes expansion that adds almost twice as much content to the game and mixes things up a bit if you get tired of crashing driving your Ferrari.
Driveclub, as its name hints at, is mainly a social game. The fun of it is supposed to be in racing with your friends and issuing challenges to other clubs. The drawback to this social feature is that it doesn’t work for deaf players because it’s voice chat only. Outside of this one downfall, if you’re looking for a fun racing game but don’t care about it being social, I think you can’t go wrong with this one. The art in this game is incredible and the ease of controlling the car changes as the weather changes (take it from me, when racing in a downpour, don’t try to go 100mph around a corner). Controller vibration is spot on and when you drive over those awful rumble strips on the side of the road, the controller feels surprisingly like a steering wheel does vibrating in your hand in real life.
And have I mentioned this game is stunning? And the photo mode is perfect?
STUNNING!
So, if you like racing games, do yourself a favor and get this game. Even though it’s social aspect is disappointing, this is one of the few games that I continually return to and I’m continually impressed each time I play it. And if you’re looking for a club for bad drivers, join mine, so I can start playing with the club cars, pretty please!
If you’re looking for purely a good racing game, I think this is one of the best and it’s relatively cheap compared to comparable racing games. If you’re looking for the social component and you’re a deaf player, this one isn’t for you.