So this is the famous sim racing game that everyone loves despite its age because it has a ton of mods covering every possible car and track. I’m still mainly interested in rally racing games but I thought I owed it to myself to at least gain a little experience on the more serious side of sim racing. Even getting this properly installed with the Content Manager that is practically required these days plus the basic set of mods that everyone recommends was quite an undertaking. As expected, I fairly terrible at this and don’t have the dedication to really get good, but it’s been fun enough for me.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the single-player career mode as presented through the Content Manager interface and there’s enough stuff there that I won’t be done anytime soon. The career mode consists only of a series of time attack and quick race events. There’s no real player character or money to keep track of or stable of cars to buy. You just need to do well enough at an event to unlock the next one. It’s good enough for me though as a sort of guided tour of different car and track combinations. Between the adjustable AI difficulty and the very modest requirements for passing each event, there’s no real barrier to progress. Even a total noob like can tell that the AI doesn’t really drive that well in most cases. It seems that if I manage to get out in front, I tend to outpace the AI by a lot. Due to my lack of familiarity with the cars, the realistic physics and the tracks, I still had to dial down the difficulty to consistently win as I’m not dedicated enough to take the time and effort to seriously learn them.

The good news after spending so much time in Dirt Rally 2.0, I’m not totally useless at this. The basics of controlling a car, of maintaining throttle discipline and being ready to brake long and hard, are the same. That said, this isn’t a rally game and I’m supposed to nurse the nose of the car around corners, not snap it around with the handbrake. The tarmac is a lot wider than the dirt tracks of rallies but then the cars are much more powerful, resulting in far higher top speeds so it’s necessary to use as much of the track as possible to slow down and turn. It can be surprising how much braking you need to do given the lubricous top speeds possible As this is dry tarmac, there’s usually no drifting involved as that would just make turning slower. In short, there’s still an adjustment period. I’m good enough to navigate the tracks at speed but nowhere near good enough to be competitive.

In many ways, I found this easier than rally games where just keeping a RWD car on the road can be challenge. But of course each car here has their own particularities to learn. It was a delight to discover the agility of the Lotus 2-Eleven or the sheer fun factor of KTM X-Bow. I was continually surprised by how much braking distance the McLaren MP4-12C needs and yet you can start applying throttle without waiting to fully complete a turn. The most satisfying thing for me is how much I keep learning all the time. The first time you drive a particular car on a particular track, it can be so frustrating as you don’t understand how the car handles at all. But stick with it and you keep getting better and better as you push the limits. It can even be helpful to follow the AI-controlled cars to see how they handle particular turns, see where it’s advantageous to jump the kerb, all kind of small details like that. Other players all advise to just keep doing laps to get better and it’s so true. The skill ceiling is so high that even lots and lots of laps, there is still room to improve and learn.

Since this is an older game, the graphics look a little outdated. There are all kinds of mods to make it look better and I’m sure if you’re willing to buy the paid ones and spend some time configuring everything just right, it can look fantastic. I might try that later yet it is, this game looks less impressive than Dirt Rally 2.0 and the tracks can’t compare to the scenic locations of used for rallies. There are no weather effects in the base game itself. The sounds of the car engine are fantastic however and I love how much information they convey. I can also tell there is so much depth in the physics engine and car configurations and I’ve only barely scratched the surface of what’s possible.

So the question for me is: how much time and effort do I really want to put into this? Probably not too much. An event that requires eight laps around a track doesn’t sound like much but they add up and require considerable concentration and even physical effort to complete on a driving wheel. Later events go up to 20 laps. There’s also arguably such a thing as too much content. Do I really want to master every conceivable category of sportscars? Probably not. After a while, the format does get a little dry for me. It’s no wonder that people like to mod in things like rain and street traffic to make things more lively. It’s also worth noting that the game doesn’t seem to have much damage modelling. Maybe it’s because the cars are all licensed and manufacturers don’t want the game to show them in a damaged condition. You can crash cars at 200+ kilometers per hour and nothing happens to them except for scuffed paint. I’ve also read that it’s because the physics of collisions are too complex to be modelled realistically. This means that racing against the AI is good for learning purposes but not much fun at all as they don’t behave realistically.

I’m sure to keep this installed on my hard drive and I’m still going to putter around it in it occasionally to work on the career mode. Apparently the modders are going to add some kind of championship system later. I’m also looking forward to just messing around with the more esoteric mods or cruising around city streets without trying to be competitive. But I do want to move on to other games too. This is definitely the incredible racing simulator that everyone says it is but it’s not about to transform me into a dedicated simracer any time soon.