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RACE Pro Review for Xbox 360

RACE Pro Review for Xbox 360

Just Like a Real Race

Most games have their good and bad qualities, but rarely are they so pronounced as in RACE Pro, SimBin’s new racing simulator for the Xbox 360. For the most part, the game is unremarkable: standard feature set, unimpressive graphics and sound, awful voice acting, bland interface, etc. However, two aspects of RACE Pro will completely redeem the title, at least for dedicated sim fans: the handling and the difficulty, which are fine-tuned to within a rounding error of perfection.

RACE Pro screenshot

We’re most excited about the positive, so let’s start there. Thanks to their work on the PC platform, SimBin’s developers have been known for years as masters at getting the “feel” of different cars right. That translates very well to the 360, even when you play on the game pad (it’s also compatible with the racing-wheel peripheral).

We haven’t driven enough different real cars to attest to accuracy, though a quick look around the Internet shows the consensus to be that it’s there in spades. What we can attest to is that each car feels real, and each car feels different from the last. Every time you switch vehicles, you have to learn a whole new set of nuances, even if you have the racing line turned on. You need to know everything from how hard to break to make it around curves, to how much maneuvering you can pull off without sending the car into a skid.

This keeps the game fresh hour after hour. The A.I. opponents, meanwhile, behave convincingly, valiantly fending off your attempts to pass without noticeably “cheating.” When you have a long stretch of road on which to accelerate, the sense of speed is thrilling.

RACE Pro screenshot

The only complaint we have in terms of the physics has to do with damage. RACE Pro uses real cars and tracks, licensed through their makers, so of course you can run into whatever you like without your vehicle getting mangled. As it does in every other licensed game, this detracts from the realism, and while an icon pops up when your car is “damaged,” that won’t always stop you from using other cars as props for straightening your own vehicle out around curves when you fail to brake adequately.

The problem with most realistic sim games is that they’re frustratingly difficult; real racing requires all sorts of strategy that Need for Speed doesn’t, so arcade-racer fans rarely have the patience to make the jump. RACE Pro does require patience, even on its most forgiving settings, but it definitely offers a reasonable challenge for players of all skill levels.

RACE Pro screenshot

Beginners will want to start, of course, on the easiest setting. There’s a race line to guide you, the standard assists to make the car easier to tame, and A.I. opponents who are, if anything, too easy (you’ll usually blow right by them on straight-aways). It’s easy to lose control of your car, so you have to pay attention, but those who take a half-hour or so to get the hang of it will find that it’s not at all unmanageable. Sometimes, you can even veer off the road briefly and stay in first. Also, novices who try different cars will be delighted to find that while the most challenging elements of each model are blunted, there’s still a distinct shift in feel each time you slide behind the digital wheel of a new machine. As you slowly dial back the assists, these additional aspects to each car’s character slowly come through.

Take off the assists completely, and it’s a whole new animal; you’re charged with handling a wide variety of professional race cars that, absent hours of practice, never seem to respond quite the way you want. Essentially, while the game lacks the immediate, visceral thrill of an arcade racer, it offers easy enough material that arcade fans can make the leap. What’s more, it does so without detracting from the controller-smashing difficulty of assist-free racing.

RACE Pro screenshot

Unfortunately, while RACE Pro has some serious power under the hood, it could have used a nicer paint job. The feature set is standard, even if it’s so broad that we can’t imagine how long it would take to thoroughly enjoy every part of it: you can run one race, play through a single season, start a career in which you sign contracts to win different races, run time trials, play online against other people, and even take on another player locally (though for some reason, it’s a “hot seat” one-person-races-at-a-time competition rather than a traditional split-screen race). While the menus are put together well, there’s no pizzazz to them. The teams with which you sign contracts don’t even have names; they’re just Contract A, B, etc.

The in-game experience, once you lean back from the racing action and take a look around, is just as dull. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the graphics (they usually run smoothly, and few items look outright bad), but the visuals just fail to make you feel like you’re really there. This is largely due to a lack of detail and polish, but a lack of style also plays into it; it’s a half-hearted stab at realism that can’t begin to compete with the many near-photorealistic racers on the market. You almost wish one of the bigger studios would buy or license the game’s handling formulas so they could be in a more attractive title.

There’s a similar no-frills approach to the sound, though the minimalism isn’t so bad here. It’s better to have decent engine sounds and sparse music than to suffer the overbearing blasts of noise some other racers have (and don’t even get us started on that announcer from Burnout 3). The one semi-serious complaint we have is that the leader of your pit crew, who talks to you over the radio every once in a great while, seems downright bored to be at work. The guy sounds so monotone and so detached that either it’s intentional, or someone dragged their teenaged younger brother into the studio without paying him.

All told, RACE Pro is a game that unashamedly aims at a niche market: dedicated sim fans who want the most realistic driving experience possible. The game delivers that experience just about perfectly, so it can be said to have accomplished its goal. The next step for SimBin, however, is to come up with a better presentation for its next console game.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.7 Graphics
There’s nothing so bad it’s distracting, but there’s nothing that rises above the description “bland,” either. 5.0 Control
We can’t imagine a more realistic-feeling driving experience, and the game is compatible with the racing wheel peripheral. 3.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
More or less nonexistent music, which is fine by us, along with engine noises recorded from real cars. 4.1 Play Value
It won’t win over all arcade fans, but it could win over a lot of them, and there are simply tons of races to win with adjustable difficulty. 3.9 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • From award-winning game developer SimBin, a leading creator of PC racing simulators.
  • Unparalleled realistic physics powered by Lizard, SimBin’s own physics engine.
  • Real-life handling and sounds derived from data and engine noises recorded directly from actual race cars at the track.
  • 350 ultra-realistic car models from 48 car manufacturers, including Aston Martin, Saleen, Audi, and many more, with cars ranging from 200 to more than 1000 horse power.
  • Host of championships including WTCC (World Touring Car Championship, one of the three official championships of the FIA), Formula 3000, and Formula BMW.
  • Extensive multiplayer features include online play, System Link support for up to 12 players, and a local “hot seat” mode.
  • Screen Resolution: Up to 1080i (Standard HDTV).

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