It’d be a mistake to say that it was a good idea to cart upcoming 360 exclusive, RACE Pro along to Eurogamer for public viewing. Really, it would.

RACE Pro is developer SimBin’s (developer of many a GTR game) new project aimed at weaning Forza fans away from Microsoft’s own published effort get them feeding on Atari’s (sinister) bottle. I’s a game which looks promising, yes. It features pretty graphics and realistic in-car views for all vehicles featured (amounting to a decent 48 different types). Question is, will RACE Pro - without all of Forza’s bells and whistles of complex car customisation and realistic physics - be able to entice fans of racing simulators?

From what we saw at the Eurogamer Expo, it would be safe to say that - in its current state - the answer is a resounding “no”. The game itself appears to have great gameplay which has a brilliant physics system of its own, along with better-than-Forza visuals. The AI can be realistically irritating, as rival cars slither around you, and the locations boast more detail, as well as more interesting settings, than Forza. The comparisons to Forza don’t stop there though, as it even borrows the advice beam seen in Forza (which advises the player where best to drive on the track to maximise placement on the track and to prevent you from skidding into barriers, as well as at what speed you should be driving).

Now, for the bad points. RACE Pro is riddled with issues. I started the game from the main menu, where I chose my car and track in which I wanted to race. I next waited for a tedious 7 minutes for the track to load. 3, 2, 1, GO! Wait a minute… I attempted to go, but the excessive lag wouldn’t let me go without a fight. I raced for a further few minutes, trying out the controls and different camera angles before my patience snapped, then I stopped playing as my car ploughed into a wall. Ouch.

RACE Pro, in its seemingly premature state did not impress me very much at all. It feels very much like Forza when you get around the lag and load times (it took me two minutes for the pause menu to load) and the graphics impress (The first person in car view is great). As it is at the moment the game’s obvious problems prevent it from performing very much at all, let alone performing alongside legends; Forza and Gran Turismo.

Wait for the demo, or give it a rental before decidedly putting down cash on this seemingly stereotypical Atari “effort”.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.