Verdict

Pros

• Loads of content
• Arcade handling makes racing fun in VR
• Being able to look around in the seat is great

Cons

• Visuals have taken a huge hit
• Weather effects absent

Exclusive to PS4, compatible with PlayStation VR

Driveclub has had a tumultuous life cycle. From a bare-bones release to a messed-up PlayStation Plus edition to the shutting down of developer Evolution Studios, you’d almost forget it was actually pretty good. Unfortunately, in the transition to PlayStation VR, its beauty has once again suffered.

This is one of the first times I’ve been able to actively compare and contrast how a PS4 game looks after it transitions to virtual reality. For a game like Driveclub it’s clear a lot has been lost along the way.

For starters, weather effects are almost completely absent, only cloudy and sunny settings are selectable. Second, what is in the game lacks the detail, shine and shimmer of its PS4 sibling.

Plus, everything seems to have a strange haze, almost as if to hide the visual downgrade. It feels like how the world looks when Velma from Scooby-Doo drops her glasses, everything is blurry.

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There are other attempts to improve the look, with leaves brushing against the windscreen as you drive past trees in autumn, and balloons being launched into the sky at the start of the race, but these gimmicks simply further to cheapen the overall look.

Despite this, there are moments when the visuals can still impress, albeit nowhere near as frequently as they used to. Watching the sun shine onto a dirty windscreen, or looking around the interior of the car – when done right – can be excellent. It’s just a shame these moments are now so rare.

Once you get over the disappointment of the game’s looks, you remember Driveclub is amazing fun to drive, and having cockpit view in VR is brilliant. I played Project Cars on the Oculus Rift and was amazed how much virtual reality adds to driving games, and the same is true in Driveclub. Being able to sit in the driver’s seat, look in my wing mirrors for approaching cars, turn to my left and right before taking a turn to make sure I don’t crash into any motors sneaking up the sides, is wonderfully immersive.

I even, at times, turned and looked out the rear window, like my dad trying to park in a tight space in the local shopping centre.

While it was fun driving in time trials and drift events, it was the races where I had the most fun, and the closer the sprint to the finish, the better. There were times when myself and another car were neck and neck heading toward the finish line, and I would lean forward to try and see whose nose was in front. It was exhilarating stuff, made all the more exciting by VR.

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As a paid DLC expansion on the original Driveclub, there’s still a bucketload of content to be had here, with over 80 cars to race across 114 tracks. Plus you have online multiplayer to enjoy too.

Verdict

Driveclub remains a fun racer packed full of events, cars and tracks in PlayStation VR with a very generous DLC expansion. It’s just such a shame that one of the console’s best-looking games has suffered such a downgrade from a visual standpoint in order to work with the headset.

If you’re looking for a good racing game to get started in PSVR, this is the best place to start, just don’t expect it to look like the game that arrived in 2014.

It’s no secret that DriveClub’s launch was a disaster. Network issues kept paying punters out of the game, the long-promised PlayStation Plus version was put on indefinitely hold, and complaints about draconian penalties for collisions and corner-cutting were both rife and not unfounded. Sony’s flagship racer arrived to a chorus of complaints.
 
Since launch, however, Sony and Evolution have worked hard to fix the game. Server stability has improved dramatically, patches have dealt with the major gameplay issues, and free DLC packs and updates have added new tracks, new cars, new events and a range of enhancements. The latest updates have bought us two longed-for features – dynamic weather and a photo mode – and resulted in a tangibly better game.
 

Weather is – quite literally – a game changer. Rain and snow don’t merely look impressive, but transform the way your tyres interact with road surfaces, affective traction and making high-speed cornering a serious challenge. Both also have an impact on visibility, partly because it’s hard to see what’s coming through downpours and snow flurries, but because every camera, from the cockpit view to the chase view, is affected. Thought driving at night on the Norwegian or Scottish tracks was hard? Now try doing it with the visibility halved again.
 
The rain and snow effects also give DriveClub’s visuals a drama they might previously have lacked. DriveClub actually simulates the water droplet by droplet, so that light bounces off them authentically, and so that they behave pretty much like you’d expect them to behave in real life. Droplets streak across the windscreen from the effects of airflow and the windscreen wipers. The snow flies towards the windscreen, but also drifts in direction of the wind. Driveclub’s weather effects set a new benchmark for racing games. They make an already good-looking game look great.
 
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It’s still not a flawless experience. For all the astonishing detail in the cars and the environments, there’s still something oddly sterile about the world you race through; something that makes it look and feel more like a film set than a living landscape. You can see the waves ripple on a lake or fjord and watch the trees wave a bit too gently in the breeze, but something doesn’t quite cohere. Yet when you’re racing through the tea-fields of India or tackling sweeping curves down the side of an ice-clad mountain, DriveClub can and does look breathtaking. Throw in rain and the odd flash of lightning, and it’s in touching distance of becoming as impressive as Sony always claimed it would be.
 
When it looks that good, you might be tempted to share the moment. Luckily, the new Photo Mode is brilliant, allowing you to pose your shot and move your angle quite effectively, with advanced tools for setting aperture, shutter speed, bokeh shape and even film grain.  Once you’re done, you can upload your efforts using the PS4’s standard Share functionality.
 
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The gameplay is improving too. At launch, DriveClub seemed to be forever hitting you with penalties for going off-track, skipping corner or colliding with the opposition. These still come up, but a lot less frequently and you’re usually the one at fault. The lunatic AI still has its moments, of course, where you’re on the racing line but the git behind you decides to shunt you, throwing you off track and effectively out of contention. It’s enormously frustrating and probably the biggest single remaining reason not to play. We love races and we love driving against tough competition, but DriveClub is the only racing game I can think of where I look forward to the time trials rather than the races. That really says it all.
 
Overall, the improvements and updates make DriveClub a stronger driving game, and there’s still something lovable about its focus on racing, speeds and lap-times. This isn’t a game for tuners, car collectors, open-world explorers or fans of the Fast and Furious films; it’s a game for those who want intense racing, an even field and the pleasures of knocking milliseconds off a laptime to claw ahead of rivals. The sensation of speed is impressive and the handling consistently exciting. DriveClub can be unforgiving. It’s hard to recover from mistakes and there’s no quick rewind button. All the same, its purist approach can’t help but resonate with a certain kind of driving game fan.
 
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Coming back to it, we mostly love it, but a few reservations remain. Because the weather wasn’t built in from the start it’s not reflected in the core Tour mode or even in the free Ignition and Photo-Finish DLC packs – presumably to ensure that past and present race times, lap-times and face-to-face challenges remain comparable. This means that you’ll only get to enjoy the enhancements in multiplayer, where there are specific weather events on the board, and in single events and challenges. Weather will be supported in the next dlc packs – Elements and Readline – but we understand that these will be premium packs, not free.
 
More seriously, Driveclub still has an uphill struggle winning back a mass audience. Driveclubs set up in the early days have faltered, and when the other members of your club aren’t posting times and setting challenges, it takes some of the fun out of the game. It’s also surprisingly difficult to find a packed event to join in multiplayer – or sometimes an event with any players signed up at all.
 
Final verdict
Driveclub deserves a second chance, but will it get it? We hope so. It might not be a crowd-pleaser like Forza Horizon 2, but it’s a frequently fantastic racer that’s only getting better with time.

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Originally reviewed – October 7, 2014
It’s all too easy to damn DriveClub with faint praise. Emerging just after the launch of Forza Horizon 2, it’s less of a crowd-pleaser and more of a slow-burner. It’s a beautiful-looking game, but not as glossy or glamorous as the Microsoft racer, and where Horizon 2 is all about simple thrills and the freedom of the open road, playing DriveClub is a more rigorous pursuit. It’s social aspects are fascinating, but a harder sell than Forza’s on and off-road racing festival. For a game that’s forward-thinking, DriveClub can be surprisingly old-school.

By now, you probably know the basic concept. In fact, the title pretty much sums it up. DriveClub is all about social racing: joining a club, driving for that club, and sharing the glory with your friends. In terms of structure, it’s not dissimilar to a dozen racers of the last generation, with several tiers of events, taking in point-to-point races, circuit races, time trials and drift challenges. Each event has its own objectives, and by completing these objectives you unlock further tiers of events.

However, in Driveclub you’re not only competing for first position or a lower lap time; you’re competing for Fame – both for you individually and your Club. You get fame for the normal things, of course, but also for beating bit-sized challenges known as Face-Offs, where you’re tasked with cornering better than another player across a section of the track, or beating their average speed. They’ll pop up on the track and monitor your score/speed/drift in that section. If you beat your buddy or your nemesis in the Face-Off, you get massive points for you and your team mates.

As your fame builds you level up, unlocking new cars from the game’s selection. What’s more, your fame contributes to that of your club, pushing it up the ranks and up the leaderboard, so that you’re always contributing to the tally. As your club ranks up, new cars also become available to the members, meaning it’s in everyone’s interest to keep the tally growing.

Thus in Driveclub you’re always trying to do two things at once: win the race or get the lowest time in the time trial, but also succeed in any challenges thrown your way. To be honest, the challenges will often play second fiddle. The time trails become very tight as you get higher up the ladder, even if you’re a skilled driver with a kick-ass car. Face-Offs can become a barely noticed pop-up as you speed through a series of S-bends on your way to the finish line. Yet at other times they can become the focus, allowing you to pull something back from even the most miserable performance, or grab a little extra glory from your latest triumph.

Were Driveclub’s racing no good, all the social stuff wouldn’t make a difference, but past the first hour or two it gets very good indeed. Driveclub’s strength is that, beneath the social layer, it’s a purist’s racer. You pick a car, take it to the course and try and get it to the finish line before anyone else. There’s no tuning or upgrading, no real options for AI difficulty or handling, and no sneaky way to rewind the action and retake the corner you just span out on.

Some may think that’s a pro for DriveClub, especially as developer Evolution aimed to make a driving game that is accessible to everyone. But, it does have its limitations for those who are well-versed in driving games and looking for that edge.

The handling straddles the line between arcade and sim territory, and while first impressions are that it leans too far towards the arcade side, that changes as you move up from hot hatches to executive touring cars, sports cars, supercars and track toys. Driveclub is no Forza 5 or Gran Turismo 6, but it’s a little more realistic than a Ridge Racer or Need for Speed.

The tracks also help its cause. Set across five regions – India, Canada, Scotland, Norway and Chile – they provide a strong selection of high-speed circuits, soaring mountain tracks packed with treacherous bends and twisting, dusty layouts that will have you spinning and drifting with the best of them. The scenery is frequently stunning, especially as the time changes from day to night and there’s no shortage of variety. To go from the brooding landscapes of the highlands to the bright colours and sun-dappled foothills of Tamil Nadu can be a real aesthetic treat.

Of course, you can argue that Driveclub’s purist approach is a weakness. There’s no framework beyond going from one event to another, and lots of players like to tweak the handling, or have the option of upgrading their car. But then that would be to spoil the social aspect. The intention is clear: to make sure that each race, each time trial and each challenge is met – bar the choice of car – on a level playing field. You win fame for you and for your club by driving better than the other players, not by grinding for credits and upgrades or switching driving aids on and off.

The social stuff doesn’t end with the head-to-head challenges. Finished a race and feeling pleased with yourself? Post it as a challenge to the world, or to the friends in and outside your Driveclub. If they beat it within the challenge period, they get some glory. If they don’t, the glory comes your way. Cleverly, you’re not pushed to post a challenge immediately after racing, but can access a history of recent activities and post from there. When a player takes your challenge you’re alerted, giving you a chance to go back and post an even better time.

That goes for Face-Offs too. You can set mini-challenges for your friends and the world of racers with DriveClub. It could be a corner challenge that you’ll need to reach a specific point score on a tricky hairpin, a drifting challenge or even an average speed Face-Off around the twirling bends on the mountainous paths.

Although there are the more conventional multiplayer aspects, which let you set a race time for you and your buddies if some of you are currently embroiled in a long race. It is far more stripped back than alternate facing titles, and has more of an old school pre-Motorstorm feel to it from Evolution. But to be honest, it feels like working solo for your Club is far more important in DriveClub. It’s definitely a more solitary racer, despite its unique social network structure.

We can’t say enough that Driveclub can be a brilliant racer. It’s fast, thrilling, challenging and (mostly) fair. The sound is fantastic, to the extent that the decision not to cover the engine noise with music by default seems absolutely right. It can feel a little bleak at first, but you’ll soon realise the detail that the devs have gone to for a realistic sound.

The graphics don’t have the shine or clarity of Forza Horizon 2, but there’s some superb, atmospheric lighting and an awful lot of detail, particularly in the forests of Canada or the rugged mountain tracks of Chile. The cars are beautifully rendered, both inside and out, with a choice of cameras that should please arcade racers (the external views) and serious drivers (the fantastic cockpit views).
Yet it’s sometimes evident that Driveclub lacks a little soul. For all that scenic beauty, it hasn’t quite got the wow factor that a next-gen titles should. Just look at games like Horizon 2 or even The Last of Us Remastered, and their water and lighting effects stand out in a way that Driveclub’s don”t. 

The car line-up is pretty special. Driveclub doesn’t try to compete with GT, Forza or even Horizon 2 when it comes to quantity, but with the likes of the Aston Marin V12 Zagato, the Ferrari California and the Pagani Huarya around, the quality is never in doubt. The worst thing you can say is that some of the cars feel a little too skittish – is the Audi TT RS Plus really that prone to rattling around the track? – but in general cars handle as you might expect them too, and the arcade handling makes them brilliant to drive.

All the same, Driveclub doesn’t come without some aggravations. The AI, for example, can be exasperating.  Sometimes it’s perfect, giving you the kind of fast, demanding competition that makes each race a high-stakes thriller. Sometimes it’s pitifully easy. You pull ahead in the early stages, and no-one has a chance of keeping up. At its worst, however, it’s teeth-grinding, temple-throbbing, Dual-Shock 4-through-the-window infuriating.

In some cases, the early stages of the race become a fiesta of clangs and crashes, as everyone trades place with everyone else and you hope for a miracle to make your way through the pack. Alternatively, you’re pushing hard for first position in the last stretch of the race, jockeying for position with the guy just up in front, when the guy in third steams up behind you, smacks into you as you’re trying to corner, then sends you spinning off the track. And because the AI has a horrible habit of bunching up, you go from 2nd to 8th in roughly half a second. It’s time to hit restart and repeat the whole race. Why? Damn you Driveclub AI, why?

We’re also not so sure about some of the night or twilight races. Sure, it’s good to challenge players with limited visibility, but does the track have to be quite this hard to see? For one event we had to close the curtains and turn screen brightness up to full just to see the tarmac. Either that’s a problem, or the game needs a toggle to set the lights on to full-beam.

It’s testament to how good Driveclub’s racing is that these irritants don’t seriously spoil the ride. It’s the kind of racer that has you swearing that you missed that time objective by 0.2 of a second, or that keeps you coming back to try and beat a friend who’s come in two seconds ahead. It’s the kind of racer where you’ll spend an hour repeating one event, not because you can’t complete it, but because you could complete it a few seconds faster if you could just iron out some mistakes on that sudden uphill corner or fast downhill bend. Like we said, it’s a purist’s racer – albeit for purists who aren’t bothered by an arcade handling model.

What’s more, there’s potential in all this social stuff. True, it’s not entirely unique – EA’s Autolog has been doing this stuff for years – but Driveclub does an impressive job of making it a focus for the gameplay, and of using team cooperation and healthy competition as a spur to keep you coming back to the game. We’ve yet to try the companion app, but it’s not hard to imagine how getting an alert that your challenge has been beaten will push you back to restake your claim.

Verdict
Driveclub’s strength is its killer combo of stripped-back racing and social features, pushing you to keep going back to the track for personal glory and the glory of your team. If it lacks the glamour, freedom and exuberance of Forza Horizon 2, there’s compensation in the fierce competition on the track. The AI can be annoying, and not everyone will get the game’s approach, but if you engage with the game’s strong social angle, there’s a great racer in here to enjoy.

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Trusted Score