RACE PRO Posted by Alec Hilton on Feb 23, 2009 13:12 (Feb 23, 2009 13:12) |
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Race Pro isn’t stylish, it isn’t swish and it definitely isn’t polished. But what it does have is a pedigree class to it. There is something about it, it has an electrifying feel, like the first time you sit behind the wheel in your first driving lesson. Race Pro is just the bare bones on racing with no thrills or spills around.
The first thing you will notice with Race Pro is that there is no fanciness to the game, it feels very much like a stripped down model of games such as Gran Turismo. Taking out heaps of the stuff that you really don’t need like the latest club tracks, and no CGI scenes. Now to some this game might sound like a really drab racer, but what you actually get is possibly one of the best realistic racing sims around.
 Unfortunately the graphics are scrubbed down and quite frankly have nothing on other racers such as Project Gotham Racing or even GRID. So if it is a shining HD fest you’re looking for then you will be sorely disappointed. The graphics are something that can best be described as a cross between the first bout of current gen stuff and the graphics seen a few years ago as the Devs have nailed PS2 graphics which needless to say is very strange but at the same time looks very good in a rustic way.
Of course the thing you should be most concerned with in a racing game is how it plays and with the stripped back approach the developers have taken, you would have thought that the gameplay would have been affected too. But this is definitely not the case as it has some of the best gameplay I’ve seen in a Racer in quite a while. The handling on each of the cars is great and it feels as solid as can be. The game can feel a little too realistic at times, with some cars offering either too much over steer or under steer. For unseasoned gamers this will be a major learning curve, there really isn’t anything so punishing on consoles as this at least to the inexperienced Simbin gamer.
 You are offered an amazing collection of cars to play with going from Audis to Minis to Aston Martins. As mentioned before each car feels different to the others even in the same class, which is usually my own personal bugbear when it came to driving games. Added to this is the fact that even though the game has been designed for the racer sim fanatic, Simbin has added in some nice controls to allow for gamers more lent towards Project Gotham and Forza to still play happily without too much of a scare. The only thing with these changes is that it can take the meat out of the game, the AI just isn’t there at all once you change the settings from their default, so although this will help gamers out to learn the ropes it might mean that you lose interest before you can beef it back up again.
The game doesn’t boast the largest selection of tracks with the slightly meagre 13 tracks. Which really isn’t what I would have expected even in the vein of scantiness, I would have liked to have seen a few more even if it was just the original tracks reversed. The shame about having such a small amount of tracks means that the experience of the game is over very quickly, not allowing you to actually enjoy the game. Not only lacking in drivable track the game doesn’t have any music either, so the only voices you will hear, other than your own shouting at it, is some unimpressive voice acting which just repeats a hundred times over.
The multiplayer is a slightly lacking affair too as all you have to play with is just LIVE play and System Link, which doesn’t sound too bad but it would have been better to have split-screen play as well. Not being able to play against your friends in the same room is possibly the biggest slip up which could turn some off to the game. You do get a Burnout Paradise style “Hotseat” -pass the controller- mode in which you and a mate play against each other on the same race that has a distinct co-op vibe as you take turns at certain checkpoints. The rest of the multiplayer is pretty much standard with up to 12 players available on Xbox LIVE. There is one final multiplayer element that I’m not really sure works but it is interesting, you have a Versus modes that works in a very odd way. Basically one player races against an AI car until a predefined point then it is swapped around, I believe that this is designed to allow a form of split-screen play but without damaging the frame-rate.
Though Race Pro looks unpolished in sections it feels so much more powerful in others. This is possibly the closest that most people will get to driving on a race track and it is an amazing experience without a doubt. Having the best graphics doesn’t always mean that it has the best experience and this is the area that Race Pro shines.
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