By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony Discussion - DriveClub Press event impressions.

I don't think DriveClub is very popular here, but since I've already wrote it, maybe someone will get some insight into the game

So today I was invited to a pre-release DriveClub press event held in Warsaw.

We started off with Alex Perkins (Art director at Evolution Studios) making a presentation about the features of DriveClub, explaining what and why is there. 

He then proceeded to a hands off demonstration of gameplay including Photo Mode and Dynamic Weather Effects. Both are coming post launch and both look amazing. Photo Mode looks at least as robust as those in inFamous and TLoU and had really cool effects shown. Weather Effects are probably the most visually stuning elements of the game, we've been shown heavy rain, blizzard, dynamic day & night transition. In the options menu we'll get a slider to choose how strong effects we want, which is really cool, although we only seen them at 100% as the demo was short. I'm not sure if Alex explicitly said it, but he implied that weather effects affect the way cars handle in a big way, don't know if that has been officially confirmed or not. Loading times of the game are really short, which is great coming off from Gran Turismo 5 He showed us the road map of developer support for the game (the same one which is public) and said that this is the initial plan so support post June 2015 can definitely happen. He also said that the community will be play a big role in how DriveClub will evolve. There will be an Android/iOS "My DriveClub" app and Vita Remote Play which he says plays great and was optimised for the Vita.

After that the demo area has been opened. I've played the game probably the most out of everyone during the event. Tried every event out of the 3 that were available, normal race, time trial and drift. My take from it:

1) This game is a definition of simcade. It blends elements from both. Handling is actually more of a sim than I have expected, I've played 6 different cars, Ferrari California, Pagani Huayra, Mercedes SLS AMG, Mercedes A-classe AMG, BMW M3 GTS and Mini Cooper JCW. Every single car (even though first 3 are in the same class iirc and second 3 as well) handles and feels differently. It's not like in your standard arcade game where the difference is which car has higher top speed, acceleration and easier to steer. Some felt like with a bit of oversteering, others understeering, the point of loosing grip was different, ease of getting a car into drift. Drafting is very important. You can't go into a corner at 200 km/h in a powersilde, you have to actually use brakes to make it. It's not that easy to stay on track. Your own skills and experience are very important while trying to cut those seconds of the time. On the other hand handling is definitely more forgiving than that from Gran Turismo, especially with keeping in control of the car during turning, and getting out of a powerslide. When you hit a wall or other car from the back, there is not much effect, you're mostly just losing speed. There is a script in effect, similar to NFS MW where if you drive badly, spin for example, the AI starts driving slower, so even though you've made a big mistake you can still catch up to the rest, AI is adaptive in that regard (at least on intermediate). As for AI, it's good. Agressive, sometimes hitting you, but not distracting, not making chaos on the road. When a rival hits you in the back or from the side it's often really hard to keep control over the car, different than the situation when you hit something. They always try to get into an aero tunnel and overtake you when they built up enough speed.

2) 30fps is ok. Never felt like it dropped, and handling felt very solid and precise despite not being 60fps. About precision. Nobody needs to sell the Dualshock 4 analog sticks, but damn aren't they good (when they are not peeling like on the demo stations ). There is almost 0 dead zone, and even the smallest move takes effect on the car's wheel, so you can be very precise in steering. That's actually a very optimistic prognosis for people like me who don't have expensive wheels, as Gran Turismo 7 will greatly benefit from the controller, we should be more competitve. Another very nice touch is DS4's rumble, it's very subtle on the sides and gives you a good idea when your tires will lose grip. The sense of speed is also very good. Preferred it on the cockpit camera, but behind the car also looked good. Camera views are standard plus one very nice addition that I didn't see before I think. One cockpit camera is standard from behind the wheel, while the other is still in the cockpit, but just behind the windshield, in front of the wheel (just like in a Russian car just on the drivers side ) which still maintains that cool realistic effect but gives you way better view on the road.

3) Visuals. We got the Gamescom 2014 build, which I assume is very close to the final build. Game looks good, very good. But truth be told, my mind wasn't blown away. I think the most visually impressive are the weather effects, the hands off rain demo was simply stunning, blizzard at night, single particles realistically lit, amazing. But normal conditions and surroundings are just good, car models are great though. There are some alliasing problems, trees don't look that good often times. Funny thing is, I've seen how important TV calibration is. There were 3 demo stations with max 32 inch TV's and 6 stands (photo below) with at least 47 inch TV's. First I've tried the stations and the game was kind of a jaggfest on the 32", after that I've sit in front of a 47" TV which should blow the jaggies and aliasing to huge propotions, but actually the IQ was better and jaggies less pronounced. And I've been sitting closer to the screen.

4) Features. I really liked how Alex explained the addition of Clubs and challenges. He said they are there so online multiplayer is easier to get into and not so intimidating. You don't have to only fight to win the race, you can also try to win the challenges in between. If you make a mistake and you already know you have no chance to come #1, you don't have to just idly drive to the finish line, you can still do good. And I agree, I'm a competitve person, get easily irritated when I don't win or at least have a good score, and that's why I often skip competitive multiplayer altogether, to cut the unnecessary frustration. I also don't like to lose time when I already see I can't win in a racing game, here I have some objectives I can try to tackle anyway. Being in a club is beneficial in many ways, an interesting one is, when you're in a club, you can use your clubmates cars in online matches with certain car conditions, like specific class even if you don't have the car yourself. You get (and lose) experience depending on how well you drive and what things you do, with experience and leveling up you unlock cars, decals, personalisation stuff, etc. It seems that you should unlock most important things as you normally play without much grinding.

Now some concerns.

When I've been driving the Ferrari California, something hit me really hard. Cars like Ferrari FF and Mercedes C63 AMG (or was it CLA AMG?) were way faster than me. On a longer straight, they were overtaking me like there's no tomorrow. So I wonder how will it work online. I'm afraid we may be seeing 2-3 cars per class all the time as they are simply better. And winning the race is the most important challenge giving you the most experience. On the other hand other cars can be better for certain challenges like drifting or taking a perfect corner, so maybe it will mix things a bit. Still I think everyone will want the fastest and best handling car. I've got to say though that I haven't driven enough cars to form a good opinion on how all cars are going to be in the end. 

Overall while I like racing games, they don't really raise my hearbeat. Still DriveClub felt very solid, I've preordered yesterday as I thought that the 40 Euro price point is finally fair, and today I am just more assured it was a good decision. I had a great time playing, and I'm sure DriveClub will provide me with a lot of fun until Gran Turismo 7 or Project Cars + Project Morpheus hit the stores.

One more thing, if you'll like DriveClub, you will simply have to upgrade, honestly I can't imagine the Plus Edition tracks to be enough, they are relatively short, longest (in the whole game currently, one in Norway iirc) is around 4:30 or 6:30 minutes. It would get tidious really, really fast I think.

Also, there was free food and drinks, as well as those cool gifts below, so I think a thread about Sony bribing the press should happen.



So it is happening...PS4 preorder.

Greatness Awaits!

Around the Network

is there a tl;dr version you can provide?


...i have a hard time consuming media for this game. i look at the ps+ version i'm going to get as a "big demo" and after playing it a bit i'll decide if i want to upgrade or not. the screens are sexy though.



What do you think this game graphics in normal condition(without weather) against project cars, crew and Forza horizon 2? which one do you think is best among them in details?



GAMING is not about spending hours to pass/waste our time just for fun,

its a Feeling/Experience about a VIRTUAL WORLD we can never be in real, and realizing some of our dreams (also creating new ones).

So, Feel Emotions, Experience Adventure/Action, Challenge Game, Solve puzzles and Have fun.

PlayStation is about all-round "New experiences" using new IP's to provide great diversity for everyone.

Xbox is always about Online and Shooting.

Nintendo is always about Fun games and milking IP's.

kitler53 said:
is there a tl;dr version you can provide?


...i have a hard time consuming media for this game. i look at the ps+ version i'm going to get as a "big demo" and after playing it a bit i'll decide if i want to upgrade or not. the screens are sexy though.


Haha well it turned out to be quite a wall of text, will try to make a few highlights.



So it is happening...PS4 preorder.

Greatness Awaits!

kitler53 said:
is there a tl;dr version you can provide?


...i have a hard time consuming media for this game. i look at the ps+ version i'm going to get as a "big demo" and after playing it a bit i'll decide if i want to upgrade or not. the screens are sexy though.


yes, games good, but fast cars are faster than slow cars.



Around the Network
biglittlesps said:
What do you think this game graphics in normal condition(without weather) against project cars, crew and Forza horizon 2? which one do you think is best among them?


Can't really objectvely say as I've only seen them on Youtube or Gmaersyde at best (which still adds some compression) and directly played this. But from this unfair point of view and a bit of guessing, I think that Project Cars might be the best looking but it also suffers from inconsitent surrounding which sometime don't look that good. Forza looks slightly worse overall but no big difference and The Crew is a league below them all.

Overall with racing games, we are getting such high visual fidelity that a lot of those small differences become negligible, especially when you actually drive, they are more pronounced on still images.



So it is happening...PS4 preorder.

Greatness Awaits!

Tachikoma said:
kitler53 said:
is there a tl;dr version you can provide?


...i have a hard time consuming media for this game. i look at the ps+ version i'm going to get as a "big demo" and after playing it a bit i'll decide if i want to upgrade or not. the screens are sexy though.


yes, games good, but fast cars are faster than slow cars.


you know,.. i personally hated that in GT.   maybe i was just playing GT wrong but as a "racer" i didn't like that there was soo much influence on which car i picked rather than how good i was at driving,.. i probably just don't get "sim" racers though as irl i kind of hate cars.   ...but in driveclub they are (from what i've seen) removing the focus on "winning" and moving it towards what i guess i'll call "style" in which case fast cars being fast might not be that big of a deal.



eFKac said:
biglittlesps said:
What do you think this game graphics in normal condition(without weather) against project cars, crew and Forza horizon 2? which one do you think is best among them?


Can't really objectvely say as I've only seen them on Youtube or Gmaersyde at best (which still adds some compression) and directly played this. But from this unfair point of view and a bit of guessing, I think that Project Cars might be the best looking but it also suffers from inconsitent surrounding which sometime don't look that good. Forza looks slightly worse overall but no big difference and The Crew is a league below them all.

Overall with racing games, we are getting such high visual fidelity that a lot of those small differences become negligible, especially when you actually drive, they are more pronounced on still images.


Thanks, which country you played in the demo? What about night racing which i find really great from DC so far in videos compared to others?



GAMING is not about spending hours to pass/waste our time just for fun,

its a Feeling/Experience about a VIRTUAL WORLD we can never be in real, and realizing some of our dreams (also creating new ones).

So, Feel Emotions, Experience Adventure/Action, Challenge Game, Solve puzzles and Have fun.

PlayStation is about all-round "New experiences" using new IP's to provide great diversity for everyone.

Xbox is always about Online and Shooting.

Nintendo is always about Fun games and milking IP's.

biglittlesps said:
eFKac said:
biglittlesps said:
What do you think this game graphics in normal condition(without weather) against project cars, crew and Forza horizon 2? which one do you think is best among them?


Can't really objectvely say as I've only seen them on Youtube or Gmaersyde at best (which still adds some compression) and directly played this. But from this unfair point of view and a bit of guessing, I think that Project Cars might be the best looking but it also suffers from inconsitent surrounding which sometime don't look that good. Forza looks slightly worse overall but no big difference and The Crew is a league below them all.

Overall with racing games, we are getting such high visual fidelity that a lot of those small differences become negligible, especially when you actually drive, they are more pronounced on still images.


Thanks, which country you played in the demo?


India, Norway, Chile, Scotland and I think there was one more? Don't remember if I played that one. And played a couple of different tracks in those locations, some during the day some during night.



So it is happening...PS4 preorder.

Greatness Awaits!

eFKac said:
biglittlesps said:
eFKac said:
biglittlesps said:
What do you think this game graphics in normal condition(without weather) against project cars, crew and Forza horizon 2? which one do you think is best among them?


Can't really objectvely say as I've only seen them on Youtube or Gmaersyde at best (which still adds some compression) and directly played this. But from this unfair point of view and a bit of guessing, I think that Project Cars might be the best looking but it also suffers from inconsitent surrounding which sometime don't look that good. Forza looks slightly worse overall but no big difference and The Crew is a league below them all.

Overall with racing games, we are getting such high visual fidelity that a lot of those small differences become negligible, especially when you actually drive, they are more pronounced on still images.


Thanks, which country you played in the demo?


India, Norway, Chile, Scotland and I think there was one more? Don't remember if I played that one. And played a couple of different tracks in those locations, some during the day some during night.

How does night racing looks compared to Project cars?



GAMING is not about spending hours to pass/waste our time just for fun,

its a Feeling/Experience about a VIRTUAL WORLD we can never be in real, and realizing some of our dreams (also creating new ones).

So, Feel Emotions, Experience Adventure/Action, Challenge Game, Solve puzzles and Have fun.

PlayStation is about all-round "New experiences" using new IP's to provide great diversity for everyone.

Xbox is always about Online and Shooting.

Nintendo is always about Fun games and milking IP's.