If you peer into the cockpit of any motorsport racer or lightweight track day car you'll probably notice recurring themes: no carpets, stereo, comfy leather seats or electric windows - a place devoid completely of the pampering gizmos you'll find in your average motor. But as pleasant as these creature comforts may be, at the end of the day, they do nothing to improve the driving experience; they just slow you down.
Race Pro is the videogame equivalent of a Caterham: a stripped-out, no-nonsense racer that has no need for luxuries. In fact, the bare bones presentation will come as quite a shock to console gamers raised on high production Need For Speeds or Project Gothams. There are no fancy CGI movie sequences, no elaborate front-end menu screens, no pop/rock soundtrack from the latest darlings of iTunes.
Even the car models haven't been lavished with the perverse attention to detail that developers like Polyphony Digital or Turn 10 love to brag about. Race Pro unashamedly does very little to shake of SimBin's past as PC-only developers. If you are expecting a glitzy game then you will be disappointed.
But then, you would be entirely missing the point because Race Pro nestles comfortably in a niche that few, if any, 360 racer fits into. GRID - as brilliant as it was - offers an arcade, whirlwind experience of motorsport high on drama but lacking in realism. Forza 2, while taking a more simulation approach, didn't give us an opportunity to take part in official FIA races such as the WTCC, Formula BMW and GT racing seasons.
Pro's & cons Race Pro is a serious racing game for very serious people. While SimBin claim that that they have made it more accessible in order to cater for the casual end of the console market (with the addition of driving assistance and adjustable AI), placing such layers of artificial user-friendliness actually detracts from the racing experience. Only by turning off as many of the aids as you can handle and rigging up a wheel and pedals will you appreciate Race Pro to its fullest. Hell, get a racing seat and driving gloves while you're at it as well...
In the same way Call of Duty 4 has a single-player campaign to prepare you for the core of the game - the online experience - Race Pro has only limited longevity when playing solo. Sure, the career mode encourages you to work your way through different classes of cars (from humble Mini Coopers to Radicals and GT-spec Dodge Vipers and Aston Martins), plus the Championship mode, which offers the first chance to race a full season (in one car) since the last Formula One game - which was a while ago. But the first mode will just be used to unlock cars, while the other will be used for practise. Neither match the scale or variety of other 360-exclusive racers. And the AI can only offer so much of a challenge...
Fast car The real deal for Race Pro will come after using all that effort learning circuits and perfecting sector times against 11 Xbox Live opponents. SimBin's previous titles - such as Race 07 and GTR - are so revered online that it's used for an official Virtual World Touring Car Series sponsored by Eurosport. Race Pro is likely to attract the same audience of dedicated simulator fans who want to display their talents with driving skill rather than hiding behind occasionally unfair tuning and modification advantages.
Even so, there's no denying that Race Pro isn't the best-looking racer out there - the visuals are curiously grainy, the damage modelling is more a token addition than an integral factor of the races and it quite simply isn't as visceral as GRID. Yet, in many respects - at least, through the eyes of a desperately hardcore petrolhead - this workmanlike, no-frills approach is just what uncompromising motorsport simulator fans will be looking for to prove their skill.
As any fans of Top Gear will tell you, the simple and gadget-free Caterham can lap their test track faster than a million pound Bugatti. Sometimes it's not what you have got - it's what you do with it that counts.
CVG are having a laugh giving this 8/10 having played the game I found it to have no redeeming features what so ever.
Graphically its almost painfull. The framerate stutters as you go round corners along with ugly page tearing. Which wouldn't be so bad if the graphics were nice and shiny, but they are shoddy at best and lack any sort of polish.
Driving down a flat stretch of track your car all bounces about like its on a cobbled street. And every race is as much of a tedious chore as the next.
Games this bad are acceptable early in a consoles lifespan, but its way to late in the day for this tripe to be considered anything less than an insult.
You can pick up Forza 2 for £15 or less, there really is no reason to waste money buying this train wreck.
Well I want to know what exactly the reviewer was smoking when he played this game, because if it makes the game seem better then I want some.
I would have also thought that since this is a "simulation" the career mode would have the option to set race length (I dont know any real race series that only does 3 laps), practise sessions and qualifying length.
Above all though the game just feels dead. There's no "feel" to the car. It probably is very realistic, but it doesn't have any sort of feel to it... Perhaps that's because I'm playing it with a joypad... But even aside from that the game is very unimpressive.
I'm still debating in my head if i like this game or not (yes i take pills for that kind of thing) . It lacks any kind of bells and whistles but it "feels" very nice for most of the cars . The graphics do look ok but a few times i've had choppy framerate going round some tight bends . Casual fans of driving games do have much better options out there though such as GRID , DIRT and Forza .
After I got by the plainness of it, I am really enjoying the game. This game made me buy the 360 racing wheel and the difference in gameplay with it is phenominal. The first racer I play from the c**kpit view.
i dint get it as i have race 07 for pc but i rented it for a night and got 450g in a few hours i still like it but the 360 steering wheel is a peace of shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit g25 on gt5 if heavan
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No-nonsense simulator
