Review

Touted as a “Forza killer”, Driveclub was originally planned as launch title for PS4 but news broke in Oct 2013 that the game was going to be delayed – “Driveclub will be a truly innovative, socially connected racing game, but the team requires more time in order to deliver on their vision - and I'm fully confident the game will surpass your expectations” Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida said.

One year later Driveclub finally got released (in time to go head-to-head with Xbox One’s Forza Horizon 2). Question is, was it worth the wait?

No

What, you want me to continue? OK then. Driveclub is a competent racer with some nice graphics, but that’s pretty much it. Skirting the line between sim based racer and arcade, Driveclub’s core gameplay is reminiscent of the Need for Speed: Shift games. You select an event from the fairly basic menu. From there you choose your car and race. Each race has a couple of extra star badges you can earn for performing a small task e.g. reaching a certain speed, staying on the racing line for a small stretch of the track or completing a lap under a certain time.

All courses I’ve seen so far have some sort of barrier on both sides of the track. No open world structure like Forza Horizon 2 or just plan open areas around the track like Shift’s real life tracks. While you race against the computer, it would be unfair to all it AI. The computer controlled cars are programmed to stay on the racing line which often feels like they are ramming you. Like a toddler with a bucket on it’s head bashing into your leg, they are not ramming you, they just don’t know any better.

The multiplayer side of Driveclub, if you can manage to connect (I still have problems 2 weeks after launch) is horrendous. After selecting a race, it can take upto 5 minutes to connect all the players and then the race is often laggy.

Presentation wise the game just lacks any kind of soul. The menu music is dull. The menu system is about as straight forward as ready salted crisps. There’s no in race music to hide the average at best engine and tyre skidding sounds. As strange as this might sound, there’s no voice over I’ve come across yet…. And that just feels strange.

If you’ve not bought it yet, wait and see if the Playstation Plus version (which will feature a small selection of tracks and cars) ever comes to light. In the meantime our digital copy is going to gather some virtual dust as we look to The Crew to be PS4s must have racer.

About the Review

Platform

Sony Playstation 4

Developer

Evolution Studios

Publisher

Sony Computer Entertainment

Released

10th October 2014