Project Motor Racing

William Ian Bell is probably a familiar name to many fans of car simulators. Through his previous studio, Slightly Mad Studios, Bell's name is associated with titles such as Need for Speed: Shift and Project Cars 2, which have become favourites among many racing fans over the years.

While Bell's previous titles aimed for realistic simulation, the latest title, Project Cars 3, was quite a disappointment, at least for me. For some reason, the third project took a more arcade-style direction, even though a certain degree of simulation was still present. Project Motor Racing is a spiritual successor to the Project Cars series, but this time the intention is to focus on simulation.

My first impression was quite promising. After navigating the rather ascetic menu structure, I got behind the wheel of a Lister Storm for the first time, and for a moment everything seemed fine. The driving model felt well thought out, and even when playing with a controller, the force-feedback gives you a great feel for the position of the tires and how they react to the corners. The graphics aren't exactly mind-blowing, but they do the job, and the sounds are spot on.

The game also strives for realism in its single-player mode. In the "authentic" Career Mode, opponents are locked into the most challenging possible position, while the cars are locked to the realism settings. As a nice detail, the Career Mode is also authentically unforgiving, because if you damage your car too much, you have to pay for the repairs out of your own pocket, and if you run out of money at some point, that's the end of the game. It's a good idea, but unfortunately it doesn't quite live up to its potential, at least not yet.

Project Motor Racing is very much a work in progress. At the time of review, the game is in an "Early Access" state, and the situation has not improved at all over the course of the week, even though the game has already been updated. The game still crashes randomly, and graphics bugs appear from time-to-time, where Daytona in particular was virtually unplayable due to graphics bugs. In addition, the game engine jerks and stutters, regardless of what is happening on the screen.

Bugs are bugs and they will surely be squashed over time, however, the worst problems with Project Motor Racing are found elsewhere. First of all, the AI is completely incomprehensible. I drove for ages wondering why the AI is so incredibly aggressive and rudely pushes slower players off the track. After driving several tracks, I realised what the problem was. There is no artificial intelligence at all. The machine drives along the intended racing line like a train on its rigid tracks and completely ignores the player's position on the wider track. In other words, the AI drives as if it doesn't see the player's car at all and just follows its predetermined driving rhythm. Now, when you remember that in Career Mode you have to pay for the damage yourself, the AI empties the player's wallet in no time with its constant collisions.

There is also something very strange about the driving model of the cars. Some cars are well modelled, and the aforementioned Lister Storm, for example, is a lovely car to drive. I also really enjoyed my time behind the wheel of the Mazda MX-5 and the 1970s Lola. Elsewhere, the cars behave very strangely, and in some cars, the accelerator and brakes work completely irrationally, almost steplessly, in an on-off style. For example, the Audi 90 would have been really thrilling to drive if the accelerator had more positions other than only engaged and disengaged.

Then again, the more modern track cars drive like they're gliding on air, and there's really no track feel at all. I tested the game across all game modes with as many cars as I could, using both a controller and a steering wheel and pedals, and the problems remained the same regardless. When I happened to get a car that had been modelled properly, Project Motor Racing showed its true potential. Most of my time was spent cursing the game's incompleteness, its stupid AI, and its uneven car modelling.

Project Motor Racing should not have been released at this stage, period. Maybe the rush and potential of the Christmas market was too much to resist, who knows. Still, somewhere deep down there is the framework of a promising car simulator here, but it definitely needs another year or even two of development time to reach that point.