Very strange game, beat it by playing bits of it at a time after buying on release. The updates really changed the game back and forth in a lot of ways. What you're left with is a game with rock solid core gameplay and mechanics, with an extremely weird design linking everything around that. Used car inventories are weirdly limited, most of the cars you're expected to drive are given to you for free, and buying them feels like it's very much off the beaten path. That being said, the cars you're given for free do give you a pretty good path through the most important parts of automotive enthusiasm, so I'm not as mad as some really dedicated series veterans.
That core setup though is incredible, I'm a little annoyed that this game is even available on the PS4 (even though I started playing there and only played the last third or so on PS5 once I got it), the game is the perfect showcase of the PS5's capabilities, both in the obvious sense of being visually impressive, but also making the quirks of the DualSense controller feel like genuinely useful ideas (particularly the trigger feedback) and not gimmicks. Driving in this game just feels right in a way that doesn't require dealing with the ridiculous overhead and technical hangups of Serious PC Sim Racers. The primary gameplay loop is the most important part of a game, and this nails it, I tend to be pretty forgiving on other things.
This score is being given under the assumption that in a decade when they pull the plug on the servers, they'll update the game so that it's still playable, please downgrade to 0.5 stars if they don't.
That core setup though is incredible, I'm a little annoyed that this game is even available on the PS4 (even though I started playing there and only played the last third or so on PS5 once I got it), the game is the perfect showcase of the PS5's capabilities, both in the obvious sense of being visually impressive, but also making the quirks of the DualSense controller feel like genuinely useful ideas (particularly the trigger feedback) and not gimmicks. Driving in this game just feels right in a way that doesn't require dealing with the ridiculous overhead and technical hangups of Serious PC Sim Racers. The primary gameplay loop is the most important part of a game, and this nails it, I tend to be pretty forgiving on other things.
This score is being given under the assumption that in a decade when they pull the plug on the servers, they'll update the game so that it's still playable, please downgrade to 0.5 stars if they don't.