Evolution Studios' decision to delay Driveclub nearly an entire year was probably a smart move. Granted, we only got a few short glimpses at the game throughout its delay, but the end result is a highly polished and gorgeous racing game. It's also easily one of the more social racing games out there, save for the recently released Forza Horizon 2. That's easily one of Driveclub's strongest features, one that has you constantly one-upping other players in various sections of the track. However, it will have a tough time sitting alongside the established giants of like Forza and Gran Turismo, and even Need for Speed.
That's not to say that Driveclub is a racing sim. Far from it actually. It's as arcade as a racing game can get. Most of the cars don't handle all that different from each other, save for speed differences, and some tend to drift better in turns, meaning they're more prone to turn sideways when you're attempting to make a turn at a higher speed than others. Granted, you won't be able to take turns in high speed like you could in other arcade racers like Need for Speed, but slamming on the brakes does generally get your car slow enough to make any turn without a hitch. In that way, racing lines, which aren't in the game, are therefore unnecessary. Driveclub's answer to turn awareness is by colored flags; green is a mild turn, yellow is a medium turn that you can most likely pull off a drift in, and red is a hard turn that will require some serious slow down.
The game has a pretty modest selection of 50 cars spread across 5 categories, and while it may not be anywhere near Forza's huge car list, at least every single car is something you more or less would want to drive. From the slower Hot Hatches which include the Audio A1 Quattro and the Renault Clio RS to Super cars like the Ferrari 458 Italia and the Aston Martin One 77. If you have an affinity for European cars, you'll feel right at home here.
As was expected, each car is immensely detailed, which also translates into the meticulously re-created interiors. It's impossible not to look around with the right stick and admire the beauty. Forza 5 introduced the windshield glare, and Driveclub takes it to an even more realistic level.
The same attention to detail went to each and every track that's spread across five locations; Chile, Norway, Scotland, Canada and India. Whether it's the fly-bys before each race, letting you get an aerial view at the location, or actually zooming through each track, it's mind-blowing how real each environment looks. It also helps that there are a lot of tracks in the game, which thankfully adds a lot of variety.
Coming out of Forza Horizon 2, which encourages and rewards reckless driving, and then going into Driveclub which not only discourages that but punishes you for it, was pretty jarring. But even taking Horizon 2 out of the equation, Driveclub is merciless with letting you drive how you want, and instead wants to mold you into a proper driver that never slams into other cars, and never cuts a corner to shave off a few seconds. What's worse is that you get penalized, even when the collision isn't your fault. If another driver slams into you, you still get deducted points. And sure, points don't really matter at the end of the day, but aggressive driving is necessary in order to complete some of Driveclub's insane race times. Given that you're given a speed penalty when even slightly cutting a corner or slamming into another car in a tight turn, it makes completing these a chore rather than goal.
Driveclub employs the Angry Birds method to completing races, as in you'll have three different goals to pull off in each race, which earns you a star per goal. These include finishing in the top 3 spot, finishing before a certain time, or pulling off one of the predetermined track challenges like getting a certain drift score. When I played Angry Birds, I never moved on from a level until I got three stars, and that mentality transferred over to Driveclub as well. However, it seems like you're simply unable to always get all three stars on your first go around. Some of the track times seem to require a faster car, which you unfortunately need to level up to unlock. That means you'll have to go back to some of these events in hopes of getting that elusive star. Sure, someone might look at this as giving it better replay value, but a good game with a three-star goal system like this should have them all attainable on the first go. Maybe I just suck though, so there's that…
The game's biggest feature, which also happens to be a part of its title, are the Clubs. You and five other friends can form a Club that you can further unify by creating an emblem as well as choosing a custom livery (choosing, not designing) and a color scheme. For example, our Club, Big Tastee, has a pink unicorn on a blue shield, and a white and blue color scheme for our cars. Each Club member can then use this livery on their car to represent the Club. Any XP gained by any member is then pooled into the Club, and as you rise through the ranks, you also unlock some Club specific cars, which tend to be some of the most balanced cars in each category. The caveat here is that you have to be connected online to contribute your XP, so if you lose connection during a race, which happened to me a few times, any XP earned won't contribute to the Club. Furthermore, all Club cars that you unlock, become instantly unavailable when you're not online, regardless of whether you're in a Club or not, which is pretty annoying.
You can also issue challenges to other players or Clubs directly after your race. If you believe that you just set an amazing record on a track, you can prove it by sending out a challenge to other players who can then try and best your time for a limited amount of time. It wasn't until a few hours of game time until I started to receive notifications nearly after every race, and it wasn't long after that, when I had 10 different challenges queued up. Your Club can also be issued a challenge, which allows each member to try and beat it, and whoever got the best time or score will then get recognized on behalf of that Club.
But when viewed as a racing game, Driveclub doesn't really do anything out of the ordinary. It's not open-world which means you'll just move on from event to event in an orderly fashion. The number of events is also rather low, which means you'll be able to blow through the entire single player campaign in just a few days, or a day if you're committed enough. When compared to Forza 5 which had a similar design, it certainly pales in comparison.
It's a shame that there are no tuning options for any of your cars, meaning when you unlock a car, that's how it will race the first time and the fiftieth time you take it on the race track. Sure, it may be an arcade racer, but even adding some preset tweaks to your car would have added some variety in taking the same car out to multiple races.
Evolution Studios has also stated that the game won't have any rubber banding to avoid giving adding artificial challenge to each race, but I can't help but feel that's not the case. I've noticed on multiple occasions, when racing against the same car on a straightaway, both going the same speed, all of a sudden he'd get a burst of speed out of nowhere. There wasn't a car in front for him to draft either, it's as if he just hit the NOS button, even though there is none. Granted, not having any tuning options means I'm never that far ahead of the cars either, so maybe that's what Evolution meant by not having rubber banding, but I can't help but feel there is a system in place that layers on a challenge when it looks like you're at an advantage.
The Drivatar system in the last two Forza games proved that racing AI of old is generally flawed, and that adding a bit of a personal touch by integrating players' racing styles into their solo experiences makes each race interesting and sometimes unpredictable. Given that Driveclub is so strict on allowing you to have fun in each race, and boxing you in by punishing you for reckless driving, it only makes sense that the AI would play it safe too. But when you see what is essentially a snake made out of cars that are all taking a turn one behind the other, you start seeing the flaws of bland AI.
Driveclub is a fun and serviceable racing game with stunning visuals and a solidly integrated social system that actually encourages community interaction. And it's that community which will dictate whether Driveclub will thrive in the long run, since a bulk of enjoyment stems from taking part in community challenges. It's not really for car junkies that like to tinker around with tuning options. It's not really for the hardcore that expected it to be a sim racer. And it's not really for casual racing fans due to its unforgiving rules and difficulty. Thankfully, you can take the game for a test drive since it's offered up as a free PS+ title with a few limited options, and see whether you're ready to commit to a purchase.
