TL;DR This is certainly a worthwhile purchase, albeit for me it is only really justifiable at the (current) sale price of 50% off. Gives you a nice range of driving styles within the GT3 constraints, and a bunch of great looking vehicles to race in and against. Introduction Refer to my Nurburgring Endurance review for my intro and discussion of that track. This is my early impression of the GT3 Pack which is currently 50% off and therefore this review might be of particular interest to potential buyers. I have about 30 mins in each car at the moment, driving mainly on Sebring and Le Mans against 30AI in the same car as me, all using default set-ups and FFB at 100% on my G920 (G29). I have a 1070Ti with 8GB VRAM, a Ryzen 3600 6 Core / 12 Thread CPU and 32GB RAM. rFactor runs off an NVME drive. I run 2560x1080.. DLC Contents: 10 distinct cars + 2 older versions Cost: about £27/$35USD (currently half that in sale) General All of these cars work fine at night, with lights doing what they should to make the tracks navigable. There are significant similarities between them all, as you would expect given that they are all GT3 cars. All have a similar top speed at around 280km/h and can do 0-100 in about 3s, though some require the clutch to do that whereas with others you can just floor it and shift into 1st. There are really 10 cars in this pack, to my mind. The official banner says 12, so I assume it includes the older Bentley and Audi models. The blurb says 11, which I think is because the new Bentley model has not been counted there (yet). There are a couple of characteristics that only affect certain cars. Some tend to slide more easily when cornering (Porsche, Radical), some require a lot more steering input (Callaway, Mercedes, AMG). To those in the know it might be obvious why, such as engine position or weight, but I don't have that depth of knowledge. Graphics Pretty much all of the cars look cartoonish at night, so presumably that is just where the game engine doesn't handle the vehicle lighting particularly well. Some cars/liveries look better at night, generally because they don't have large single-colour and/or solid surfaces. The PBR shaders, for those cars that have them implemented (which is most of them), make them look glorious during the day. Some cars have better cockpits than others. I think that is the most obvious place where older models stand out. But as I didn't test these in VR, I rarely felt that even the worst looking ones bothered me after the first few seconds. The appearance from behind and in replays is more important and all of these look pretty good there. The Cars Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Solid as a rock. Firm control and forgiving under cornering and breaking, I struggled to make this thing spin out. Low key engine sound. This is a good car to use when I'm learning a track, as it doesn't punish last minute braking or downshifting in corners. Probably not going to hold my attention once I get familiar with a track, as it feels a little dull to drive and uses the old shader model. Audi R8 LMS GT3 Handles like a more exciting version of the Aston Martin, with a bit more of a tendency to slide and light FFB. 2019 version gives the same driving feeling as the 2018, but looks much better and has a more satisfyingly bassy sound to the engine. I don't see why the 2018 version counts as a car in the pack, really, as the 2019 seems to offer all the same good points plus sound and graphics improvements. BMW M6 GT3 Drives similarly to the Audi, but with a more muted feel which is probably partly down to having less urgent engine sound, but the M6 also takes longer to pull away from a standing start (even with clutch control I couldn't get to 100 in less than 4s) and requires more brake to pull it round corners. Bentley Continental GT3 The 2020 model drives similarly to the Audi. Flooring it from a standing start is a slow route to 100km/h, so you really need to use the clutch to get the Bentley moving. 0-100 in 5.5s with no clutch control comes down to more like 3s with. And once you're off, the Bentley is a lively drive that I find it hard to stop doing laps with. Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R Sounds like you're on a rocket with its low engine roar. Feels more like an endurance/Le Mans car, with relaxed steering (I have to turn the wheel a whole lot just to get out of the garage without hitting the opposite wall) and bouncy FFB. Which made sense once I found all the 24 hour race footage that come up when I looked for the C7 on YouTube. McLaren 650S GT3 Lively drive, super grippy so you zip around corners with great confidence. Slides generally controllable. Stiff steering FFB, which makes it feel stiffer to drive, but the road FFB doesn't correspond, which gives it a somewhat contradictory feel. McLaren 720S GT3 Feels electric to drive. Very much like an improved 650S, which makes sense as that is what it was intended to be. 0-100 speed is same as 650S but it seems faster and it has less stiff, but still good feeling FFB and did I detect more road texture? Best looking old shader model inside and out, especially at night. Mercedes AMG GT3 More than the usual amount of road FFB with this one, which couples with light steering to make it particularly fun when sliding across the wide curves of Sebring. Similar feel to the Callaway, but with the steering/road FFB reversed. The AI crashed noticeably more often than with any other car though. Porsche 911 GT3 R Probably my favourite car of the bunch. Steering and road FFB is lively but not too much, the rear wants to slide out around tight corners but is manageable even under heavy braking. Looks okay (though certainly not the best looking GT3 inside or out), sounds good, feels like a fun challenge but never frustrating like the 911 Cup can be. And my natural tendency is to dislike the 911 for some reason, so this had further to climb to impress me. Just a great balance of all the things I look for in a sim car. Radical RXC Turbo GT3 Driving like a grown-up Radical SR3-RSX, this version has a higher top speed but maintains the lightweight feel - so you can slow down quickly, but don't want to be accelerating or turning much on the corners or you'll soon be taking them sideways. It doesn't have the cornering ability of the SR3-XX, which is why I compared it to the RSX. Cockpit and externals don't look amazing, but they are fine. Conclusion What I have described represents a pretty good range of styles and visuals. Previously I raced with the Ferrari GT3 against the free GT3 workshop pack, which was fine but a bit limiting. I am certainly glad that I now have a load of options and can see myself working through them all in more depth, to get used to the different styles. Hopefully they will add the Ferrari to this pack after it is no longer new, to round the set off. At full price it is just too expensive for me, but in the 50% sale it is certainly good value for money.
That's fair enough. For me it's not about what the pack is worth, in terms of quality and value, but about what I can justify to myself. If I had bought this at full price I wouldn't have been able to buy the track expansion pack, for example. On another note, I found this YouTube video that covers similar ground to my review but in video form. Well worth a watch:
