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Review

Race Pro

8.0

Format Xbox 360

Developer SimBin

Publisher Atari

Genre Racing / Driving

10-Feb-2009 Let's be professional about this...

2 Comments

It's a funny old thing, realism in games. We're never quite sure whether we want more or less of it - after all, a Call of Duty game that opens with a boot polishing and bed making level set in the barracks probably wouldn't go down too well.

Racing, on the other hand, seems to be one of the few genres where people often actively seek a truly authentic rather than a totally Hollywood experience.

For those who do want to get as close as possible to the reality of hustling a racing car around a circuit, there's absolutely no doubt that Race Pro is the high water mark.

Simbin's knack for reproducing, in terrifyingly minute detail, the handling characteristics of racing cars is well known on the PC, and there's no sense that it's lost anything in its translation to the Xbox 360.

Race Pro boasts the most subtle physics model we've experienced, and as you throw your vehicle into a corner you develop an intuitive awareness of when the car is breaking grip or its centre of weight is unsettled. Driving Race Pro's cars is a much more active experience than other racers, because you're usually making constant adjustments and managing the lively rear wheels as you sling it around a bend.

Obviously the challenge can be dampened with driving aids that will help you keep the car in check, but for those who take on the 'professional' setting there isn't a more rewarding physics model to gradually master.

What's more, the handling is consistently impressive across the entire range of vastly differing vehicles, from the dodgem-like Mini Coopers all the way up to the terrifying Formula One-style F3000s. It's impossible not to find favourites as you work your way through the various classes - we're particular fans of the Aston Martin DBRS9 and the Spyker C8, for example.

Graphically the game struggles to compete with Forza and PGR's magnificent detail, but crucially it moves quickly enough with 16 cars all jostling for position. Some of the locations do seem a touch barren, but in general if you're looking at the background and not concentrating on the next overtaking manoeuvre or braking point, you're likely to end up upside down with a trashed vehicle anyway.

The circuits themselves are an interesting and varied mix of asphalt ribbons, with racing game standards such as Laguna Seca sitting alongside the buttock-clenchingly narrow Macau and Pau street tracks.

Race Pro's career mode is quite a light offering, allowing you to sign short contracts with various teams and experience the full selection of classes in divisions of increasing speed and difficulty.

Presentation wise it's disappointingly sparse, and there's little in the way of fanfare when you win a race or complete a contract, but with cars unlocked regularly and the opportunity to establish preferred vehicles quickly it at least serves its purpose. For those looking for a more fulsome single player experience, the championship mode is actually the best bet.

This allows you to run a full series of races in any class you've unlocked and gives you a greater degree of control over vehicle choice, grid sizes and AI difficulty, so you can truly tailor the challenge to your liking.

This requirement to dig beyond what's initially presented to you is unfortunately something of a theme with Race Pro. For example it took us a while to work out that you could drive races in the wet, simply because the option was hidden behind an 'advanced settings' button.

Similarly, there's the matter of opponent numbers - while Race Pro is capable of populating its circuits with a very healthy 16 cars, both the default settings and the early career races limit the number of competitors for reasons beyond us. It's not that the game is short of features, it just seems almost shy about showing them to you.

But while Race Pro's presentation can be pretty obtuse, the core game is compulsively satisfying as you improve your skills in each discipline. There are few games where it's pleasurable to just fire up a circuit and turn laps to chip away your best times, but because the cars are so convincing and complex, they're genuinely a joy to drive quickly.

We can't wait until the Xbox Live servers fill up with petrolheads for us to pit our skills against and there'll no doubt be some prodigious, Lewis-Hamilton-beating times on the Live leaderboards.

Ultimately, if you can put up with the fact that it's aesthetically rough around the edges, you're unlikely to find a more viscerally rewarding racing experience than Race Pro. The knowledge that a bit of perseverance will take you closer to the reality of driving a racing car than any game before it is a pretty compelling added bonus.

This is very much like one of the Caterhams you drive early in the career - it may not be the prettiest, but it goes like the clappers and handles like a dream.

Mike Channell