DRIVECLUB Reviews

Original: Driveclub review on Gamin' Girl



So I got around to play some Driveclub, and while I missed out on certain aspects of the game because I couldn’t connect to the servers (in the video I say it’s because the game haven’t launched yet, but later on I still couldn’t connect) I enjoyed the game. I was immersed in the lighting and depth of the cars, especially the paint because I noted the vast difference from the old gen racing games. You could clearly see the sparkles in the metallic paint, even from a distance. The last part in the video below is about paintjobs, however note that due to editing, rendering etc., the true colours does not show, you need the game in real time to really see it.


Good things
* Beautiful graphics, lighting and paint really shines
* Easy to paint your car in good looking designs
* Good feeling of handling
* Lots of brands and models*
* Menus looks beautiful
* Marvelous motor sounds
* I expect a lot from the weather & photo mode update from what I’ve seen

Bad things
* Paintjobs locked behind levelling**
* No from-scratch paintjobs
* Career menu can seem overwhelming at times
* Game not fully ready (launched without the weather update)
* Server problems for the first week***



* Each car took 7 months to model down to each little detail and make it work with the paint and vinyls. Motorsounds was obtained directly at car manufacturers – those sounds were even requested by other companies for use in things such as ads.

** Little bummed being so limited on the design of the car at the start of the game. You want to look good while playing, not when you’re about to stop playing the game. This is one thing that I hate about rewards by levelling, another good example is the platinum paint in Burnout Paradise.

*** When I realised I missed out on levelling up in clubs, thus missing out on cars, I decided to stop playing for a while, probably a couple of weeks. That bums me out a lot as I really enjoyed the game for the time I’ve been playing it due this review.



Finish Line
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed playing Driveclub, despite missing clubs and userbased challenges, and the game feels really good – however the game suffers from being highly repetitive. It’s race or time trial, single race or championship of 2 or 3 races – or the odd drifting round. I don’t know if Evolution Studios even considered making it more varying. Like hit-the-cone minigames, jump a certain length, capture the flag… anything that could break the reach-the-finish-line-first would help. If you’re a hardcore digital motorhead, you will simply love this game beyond borders, however you might miss the design-from-bottom vinyls, bodykits and the lack of upgrading the car – but the game does support the use of a racing wheel!