Project CARS 2 Review

I was forced to buy PC2 by reddit r/simracing because they were claiming that it is not a simcade, and that judging by demo was wrong.

So I bought it, and spent few hours today, fun and kool, and it is not a simulator quite obviously. It has awesome details here and there. Imagine all that content in rF2... and puddles :D

Even with helps turned off, there is obvious opposite lock help and stability control, and with some cars it is really annoying as it keeps the car on the "spring". Actually that spring makes driving more challenging with some cars, though it prevents from having big time mistakes, it makes you work a lot to maintain precision. I really liked BMW 2002 it is smooth and feels more like it is on tires, but it also has that "spring". The physics are mediocore, but I think it is kool as simcade. It will be interesting to try more cars and tracks there sometime, but I consider it my time outside simracing.
 
I also have a bodnar ss2 and pcars 2 is not good. Sure some of the gt cars have passable ffb but acts strange when on the limit. You can tell how good a game is by driving the slower street cars. They are terrible in pcars 2. Was driving a bmw m3 and theres this weird delays between gear changes and the ffb is just terrible. Deleted now as im fed up with the game. Ac is just as bad.
 
Fired up project cars 2 after a long time, never really played it much. tell you what, its not a bad sim.
live track works fantastic with puddles,dirt and general changeable conditions. track temp etc. something i would like RF2 to implement in future
AI aren't so great though, tend to do alot of stupid mistakes.

However on the physics and FFB note, there is nothing wrong with it. Loaded up jack spades FFB tweaks, disable all aids except whats used in GT3, as for road cars manually turning off stability control and loading OEM setup seems to give a decent representation of a road car.
once you actually setup the car and tune it correctly it behaves very respectable imo. now this is based off touring and road cars, i have not messed around with formula cars as i don't expect much from these nor historic content.

Ive driven just about every sim for the last 20years and they all have there drawbacks. its a shame this game cops alot of hate,due to its bugs. it has some damn good elements that RF2 AC and many games don't have and it does them very well imo. I look forward to more game devs offering a complete package in future and not half baked features we get from most sims these days. pcars offers quiet a lot and looks like ACC will to , so i hope this is the trend going forward.

EDIT: heres a nice video about live track. great tech imo

 
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Currently free on Xbox with gold....

Got it for future use, not installed it yet.

I assume all the above criticism and praise is for the pc version?
 
sadly, PC2 has one of the worst AI in terms of fake grip and understeer scrubbing their tyres mid corner, looks retarded. Also cant pull out of a slipstream properly.
 
Why love PC2? Dev sent the hell out of users and did not improve the game so mutch time. A barrel of honey to which to add a spoon of shit will be a barrel of shit. So Ian Bell, along with his product and the fairy tales he usually tells, disappeared. I won't can wish him luck.
 
PC2 was an answer to AC's floaty physics at the time but with mods like Pro Tyres and their luts has left PC2 and PC3 far behind.

But if Ian Bell really wanted to reach out to us he would go back and finish PC1. I think it actually has better physics! PC1 has the best physics tuning available in any sim. You can tune lateral, virtual and horizontal. I wish this tuning was available as a mod for rF2 and AC.
It also has good back end physics which most sims are missing except rFactor 1 and 2. but it's turned down in Project Cars 1 and 2. Probably trying to copy AC?
I'm sure once PC1 was finished Mad Studio's could make more money selling DLC in PC1 then they could ever make with a new sim?

Heck, the graphics even look way better in VR in PC1!!
 
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Lazza said:
1. I'm assuming you mean vertical.
2. What does this mean? I'm not familiar with it.
Click to expand...

Yes vertical! Thank you!

Yeah! And it's the vertical FFB that I think is most important in a sim!
This is where the bum in the seat is replaced to some degree. And this is where you get sense of speed from. This is one of the things that makes rF2 feel so good I think?
I remember guys from AC that tried rF2 complain that it made there rigs rattle. And I'm guessing they had to turn everything up looking for vertical FFB in AC that rF2 already has?

But PC1 is the only sim I know of that has a slider to increase vertical FFB which they refer to as 'spinal weight' when reading through their complicated instructions. The actual slider is called mz or fz or something that makes no sense.
But when you get it setup PC1 actually feels a lot better than PC2 and quite drivable and satisfying I found.

The way I test for VFFB is in and out of the fuel in first gear around a corner should be felt in your wheel.

And finding ways to increase VFFB in AC has also made it feel much better. It's been years since driving AC and I can't believe the mods there are.
 
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vegaguy5555 said:
Yes vertical! Thank you!

Yeah! And it's the vertical FFB that I think is most important in a sim!
This is where the bum in the seat is replaced to some degree. And this is where you get sense of speed from. This is one of the things that makes rF2 feel so good I think?
I remember guys from AC that tried rF2 complain that it made there rigs rattle. And I'm guessing they had to turn everything up looking for vertical FFB in AC that rF2 already has?

But PC1 is the only sim I know of that has a slider to increase vertical FFB which they refer to as 'spinal weight' when reading through their complicated instructions. The actual slider is called mz or fz or something that makes no sense.
But when you get it setup PC1 actually feels a lot better than PC2 and quite drivable and satisfying I found.

The way I test for VFFB is in and out of the fuel in first gear around a corner should be felt in your wheel.

And finding ways to increase VFFB in AC has also made it feel much better. It's been years since driving AC and I can't believe the mods there are.
Click to expand...

Z would be the vertical axis, so perhaps force-z (not sure what m might be).

If we're talking FFB I presume this is a multiplier for the effect of vertical load on the tyres, maybe combined with the extra weight pushing onto the geometry.

As usual rF2 lacks a specific adjustment for that because it's not calculated separately.

I wasn't sure if you were talking about an actual physics adjustment or just an output (FFB) adjustment - that makes more sense now.
 
I haven't played around with it for awhile so I'm just guessed at the letters but it made a very big difference. I took it for a quick drive a couple weeks ago and remembered being impressed all over again. It's definitely not as good as rF2 and the historic cars still feel wrong no matter what I tried but the GT3's felt pretty good. Very lively.
That's when I figured out it was the FFB coming straight up that was giving sense of speed and back end communication.
Cars that I hate the most like the F40 in AC have almost no VFFB at all. That's why it feels so floaty and dead. And when I watch videos of guys driving the real thing say how sensitive the car is. They can feel every crack and pebble.
 
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