Seeing as I now have a wheel, I need to find games that I can use it with. Briefly toyed with the idea of attempting to use it playing Rainbow 6: Siege. Left and right to strafe, accelerate and brake forward and backwards. Gear up - iron sights, gear down, fire. Myriad of buttons to choose from to chuck grenade, use special. I think it would be hilarious for the first 5 minutes, then deeply frustrating. It's not an easy game at the best of times and quite unforgiving. Not to mention immensely irritating for your teammates. Now a whole *team* using steering wheels could be brilliant. Both teams even! The challenge would be to *do something meaningful* before the clock ran out.
[I have since tried it, and it was a disaster, and my team got rather salty. Quelle surprise. Hello internet.]
I digress. Racing sims seem to do some things well but not others - there's no one game that does it all. As soon as someone cracks that one, Steam will need to upgrade it's 100GB network again.
In the meantime, here are the choices that I've managed to drag together:
Project Cars (PC) - not bad, some hold it in little regard due to feelings of it being unfinished with lots of bugs whilst [paid] dlc is released, expensive for what it is (currently £50 on steam). Friends tell me it's great fun, v2 is on the way (12 months away perhaps).
Assetto Corsa (AC) - gorgeous, hot lapping game. Physics great, AI not bad, not so good online I'm told, low content.
Raceroom Racing Experience (R3E) - free (initially), incredible sound - tried one car, and could instantly match the straight cut gearbox with my Westfield's noise. Engine noise fab too. Ludicrous pricing model, as all but the most basic cars will cost you. (Car cost ranges from 2 - 5 Euros, some tracks extra, total cost around 100 Euros).
Iracing - excellent online racing due to regular policing and effective punishment above rookie level (enforced by your real name), subs, could be expensive, continual updates. Difficult. Also, you have to join the race's time, rather than just logging on any old time - a natural solution to a global racer, but difficult if you only have a certain amount of time to race at different times.
Rfactor2 - professional physics package, gfx not so hot, fairly reasonable price, long support tail.
Stock car extreme - quite highly regarded, if little known; the name belies the game content, as it's far more than just the title suggests. Brazilian based, so different tracks. Running an older game engine (understand it's Rfactor1 but modded and updated), cheap, lots of cars... and theres a new game coming out called Autmobilista, Q1 2016. One to keep an eye out for.
Copa petrobas - free, but reportedly suffers from complexity on setup.
I've been umm-ing and ah-ing over choosing one of these, but can't make my mind up. I've (so far) played 3 of them, Iracing, AC and R3E. Why just one? Well my playtime is fairly limited these days, so dilution is not really wanted. Plus, I don't want to spend all that cash (and it would add up quickly) to end up in a similar situation as when I bought 5 PS1 games for a tenner years ago: I only played each one for an hour or so before going onto the next, never really getting into any.
After chatting to some steam friends, who I knew to be very much into sim racing, I was given straightforward advice from a Fin - PC is shit, AC is ok, R3E is ok, Iracing is where it's at. As I'd been prevaricating for about a week now, I figured I should just do *something*. Make a decision. Any decision.
Iracing has an unusual install. After being spoon-fed with games for so long, there are a few more steps to take with this. Quite familiar with ./configure and makefiles on Linux, but faced with a Windows desktop, I just want to click that little .exe and not think. This is your first warning that Iracing is not your 'normal game'.
Iracing is also bewilderingly complex at first, not helped by the fact that it launches from the browser. A browser interface that is really cluttered and, well, awful. Before the first run through on the practice lap: calibrate wheel and field of view [FOV], check default FFB [Force FeedBack] settings. The second inkling that Iracing was bonkers was that it required me to input the size of my monitor (why not grab from Windows?) and how far I sit from it. This will then give you the FOV for the game, or, how much you can see of the car through the window. FFB settings need referring to the Iracing forums and reading lots. In fact, all of it requires reading quite a lot. This is not a Forza where you choose a car, track, and jump right in to lap your opponents' laughable times. This is srs bsns. If you're not fully sold on how detailed this game is, a further example: a friend who is *really* into flight sims (as in has a VR insight control box, X55 Hotas stick for MSFX) said that Iracing is 'pretty involved'.
So! Now I'm on track, in the advised MX5. Other advice included, 'Don't go online until you can go round a track without spinning off'. How hard could that be? It turns out, very. There is a racing line to use, but it's better to turn it off, no matter how beguiling, as you learn the tracks faster. There are other things to think about, such as rubber build-up on the racing line. I kid you not.
The sim has a few cars and tracks available, but they are not cheap - around 12USD per car/track. So, a high up-front cost (in addition to the subscription), but once you have all the tracks, you're well on the way. Bulk buy discounts are available.
R3E is a free install, but with paid microtransactions. A *lot* of paid microtransactions. Again, you have volume discounts, and others if you already own a form of the car in another class. As mentioned above, the sounds are excellent. Adds a lot to the experience and immersion. The driving model seems quite good, although I had it set on 'Amateur' rather than 'Real', and the AI set low. Graphics are pretty good too. Although it was free, I didn't want to get too into buying cars and tracks just yet.
Assetto Corsa, this was probably my strongest choice. The graphics are gorgeous, the interface, less so. When playing at 1440p, the menus are all crushed up into the centre of the screen. That quibble aside, the game plays well. It *is* more of a hot-lapping sim though, and is the one I eventually went for.
The tracks are good, I couldn't attest to their accuracy, although I can only assume that it's pretty close, otherwise you'd hear the outcry in Italy. The handling model seems fine (to my untrained hands), although there seems to be slightly too much FFB. The game does seem a little too willing to vibrate that thang sometimes. Once you get going, the game is very smooth, feels very competent, and the hot-lapping keeps you on it to better that time. I believe the developers are working on making the 'career mode' a little more fleshed out. Some hours in, it feels like there's something missing... like jumps. Water splashes. Hairpins... Yup. Dirt Rally. I love you Dirt Rally. Please racenet, don't be down.
