Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating  9 out of 10

Driveclub is a socially connected racing game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4.

Evolution Studios have a real pedigree for developing racing games as they developed all five of the PS2 exclusive WRC games from 2001 through 2005, while creating the rather unique world of MotorStorm for a trilogy of PS3 exclusives from 2006 to 2011 with a spin-off in the form of the cross-buy MotorStorm RC for PS3 and PS Vita in 2012.

The announcement of Driveclub came at PlayStation Meeting on February 20th 2013 upon the reveal of the PS4 where it was revealed that the concept of Driveclub was actually conceived prior to the development of MotorStorm but it was deemed that the PS3 in its early stages was not able to offer what was required to perfect the vision of the socially connected racer at that given moment, so was left until the release of the PS4 to harness the power in order to fully realise the vision of the original concept in all of its true glory as evidenced by the original trademark filing date of November 12th 2003. Despite being a different style of racing game with a focus on racing clubs; there will naturally be comparisons to Gran Turismo amongst other racers, but does Driveclub take pole position of the best racing games or does it fail to reach the podium?

The tour is a career mode that comprises of various tiers of events across races, time trials and drifting which sees players rising through the ranks as they participate in a range of themed events such as the Italian Performance Cup, the Best of British and the Britain vs. Germany amongst many more, while there is a trophy event at the culmination of each tier of the tour.

The single event mode allows players to fully customise their racing experience on an event by event basis such as choosing the type of event to participate in such as a race, time trial or drift event across any circuit in any of the 5 world locations in Canada, Chile, India, Norway and Scotland on a point to point track, road circuit or racetrack with environment settings ranging from being able to race at any time of day or night with a time lapse of 1, 15, 30, 45 and 60 or random to be able to have the gradual progression from one time of day to another as slow or as fast as preference dictates as well as a clear, cloudy, overcast, stormy or random formation of cloud cover and the density of precipitation including dry, light precipitation, heavy precipitation or even dynamic for changeable weather conditions. As impressive as all of those settings are; it still does not end there as there a range of event settings including the number of laps with 1 through 5, 10, 25 or random available; the number of opponents ranging anywhere from 1 through 11; opponent difficulty; a small, medium, large or random crowd size; and enabling or disabling face-off challenges as well as a full selection of all the cars previously unlocked.

There are 3 event types including racing, time trials and drifting events with race events seeing players competing against 1 to 11 drivers, while time trials are racing the clock as ghost cars show the best time attempting to beat and drifting events that set a particular points tally as a target to beat by drifting through corners and accelerating powerfully down the straights to accumulate as many points as possible.

Face-off challenges take place during events such as having a higher average speed, having followed the precise line of a corner or having accumulated more drift points through a corner which are excellent design choices as rather than cause a distraction; they simply make conditions harder as they provide a further added dimension of competition to events.

Driveclub has a different approach to the selection of cars in comparison to every Gran Turismo game as while Gran Turismo has always offered a selection of standard cars that are used to work the way up to the premium cars; Driveclub starts out providing a modest selection of 5 hot hatch cars which only become gradually faster as new cars are unlocked, as there are also 9 sports, 19 performance, 22 super and 10 hyper totalling to 65 cars and counting including officially licensed names from world renowned car manufacturers such as Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Caterham, Chevrolet, Ferrari, GTA, Hennessey, Koenigsegg, Lotus, Marussia, Maserati, Mazzanti, McLaren, Mercedes Benz, Mini, Renault, RUF, Savage Rivale, Volkswagen and W Motors.

Every car has four attributes that define the qualities, strengths and weaknesses of each car including acceleration, top speed, handling and drifting, while there are certain high performance ones such as the McLaren P1 which also harness Formula 1 technology such as the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) and the Drag Reduction System (DRS) for even more sheer power and grunt.

The handling of the hot hatch cars tends to be pretty straight forward allowing players to keep their foot on the pedal for a longer duration due to their reduced speeds, while the speed of faster cars through the long straights, particularly in the case of the super and hyper cars, can quickly become frighteningly fast which will see players having to feather the throttle and be far more precise in the braking zones as they are cars that are capable of recovering from a crash, collision or a standing start by going from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds which the game does a great job of realistically replicating.

There are certain racing games that absolutely perfect the balance of gaining XP to level up and the rewards provided by doing so with Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 1 and 2 on PS1 as well as Gran Turismo 4 on PS2 being the most noticeable examples. The XP and levelling up mechanic is reminiscent of the XP and levelling up progression system found in Evolution Studio’s previous retail game MotorStorm: Apocalypse which worked well and certainly prepared the developer for such a feature in Driveclub.

The XP is referred to as fame which can be earned by drifting through corners, drafting and overtaking cars as well as winning face-off challenges, high finishing positions and sector accuracy for driving an entire stretch of the racetrack without a mistake that is also referred to as overdrives, whilst players will be penalised for crashing or leaving the confines of the racetrack, although fame can be earned for levelling up accolades such as how many miles have been driven a particular brand of car, how many races have been driven in a certain location or how many races have been won as well as how many stars have been gained over the period of an event or a championship with the main purpose of fame points being to unlock a wide range of cars and liveries as the player and their club level up.

Stars are earned by successfully completing objectives set for each event with a set amount of stars required in order to enter many of the events such as the Semi-Pro trophy event will require 82 stars to enter and the following tier of events will require a third place finish to unlock, therefore a great driving performance and successful race result will have a greater bearing on your career progression.

There are six excellently positioned camera angles including on the front of the car bonnet; just above the bonnet; a cockpit view mounted in an advanced position at the front of the cockpit from the driver side dashboard without the steering wheel in view and even a cockpit camera from the perspective of the driver with the driver’s hands and arms realistically modelled and animated around the steering wheel and the windscreen with windscreen wipers during wet races in view. With all of the six camera angles and the ability to pan the camera around as racing is underway; players will certainly be able to find a camera angle that suits their style of driving, which is a really great design choice and makes the game far more accessible.

The photo mode allows players to take some exceptionally realistic pictures of the in-race action which really shine particularly during night when the track is lit up by trackside lighting and when heavy precipitation with stormy weather is enabled to provide an added dynamic of the puddles reflecting the trackside lights and thunderstorms taking place during the race or alternatively a dry day set at sunrise or sunset. There are many settings available to provide opportunities to make the picture more dramatic such as the free camera which allows zooming in or out, moving up or down, tilting the camera left or right, panning the camera in any direction and moving the camera in any direction as well as a set of image processing options to provide a further dynamic to the picture such as aperture, exposure compensation, focal distance, a variety of shutter speeds, 15 screen filters, filter intensity, film grain, a variety of frame styles, vehicle tracking and markers displaying each player’s name, track markers and face-off challenges, while being able to take the picture from the perspective of any car on track and from any of the six gameplay camera angles available besides the free camera which can then be shared with the entire world on Facebook or Twitter via the PS4’s share feature.

The downloadable content includes a season pass that enables players to purchase all of the packs for the price of £19.99 and provides six vehicle packs containing cars from world renowned car manufacturers and six tour events for the career mode including tracks for each of the amazing world locations which collectively extends the game, while there are even some cars and tour events that are available to download for free.

The performance during remote play is excellent as the graphics, audio and general performance all achieve the same quality of the PS4 version, while the controls have been appropriately optimised as the core controls remain the same with a fully customisable control scheme tailored to the player’s preferences of the Vita’s control features allowing for a comfortable control scheme during remote play, although the only criticism would be that the customisable control scheme does not take advantage of the Vita’s gyroscopic motion sensing functionality for steering.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller with the default control scheme consisting of pressing R2 to accelerate; pressing L2 to brake; pressing R1 to change the camera angle; pressing L1 to activate DRS; pressing X to engage KERS; pressing O to handbrake; pressing triangle to shift up a gear; pressing square to shift down a gear; pressing R3 to look back; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to steer the car; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to pan the camera; pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.

The control scheme is fully customisable to personal preferences enabling the player to reconfigure almost every control input throughout the game even to the point of being able to change how to steer the car from the left analogue stick to the d-pad or most impressively of all; gyroscopic motion sensing functionality that allows players to steer the car as though they were holding a steering wheel rather than using conventional buttons or analogue sticks. Driveclub supports steering wheels including the T80 and T300RS models from Thrustmaster, although Evolution Studios plans to support a wider range of steering wheels as they become compatible with PS4 in the future.

The touch pad implementation includes tapping the left of the touch pad to reset the car to the track following a crash and tapping the right of the touch pad to enter photo mode, although it would have been great for the touch pad to be utilised in an alternative control scheme by tapping the right of the touch pad to shift up a gear or tapping the left of the touch pad to shift down a gear to create a sense of steering the car with a Formula 1 style steering wheel. Vibration occurs during extreme acceleration, heavy braking and collisions with three configurations of vibration strength ranging from low to medium to high with high amounts of vibration really highlighting the given scenarios. There is no light bar implementation which is surprising as it could have used various shades and tones of colour to replicate the gear in and how close to having to shift up or shift down a gear would be reminiscent of the visual aid that is used on Formula 1 steering wheels.

Driveclub possesses a tremendous sense of speed as racing past stunning vistas from snow capped mountains to forestry with trees blowing in the wind as showcased by their shadows on the track as leaves blow across it amongst much more stunning scenery on a large roster of amazing racetracks. There are some astounding touches of detail and realism such as the glare of the sun which looks so real that it will temporarily obscure vision, while the scratching of paintwork and the crumpling of bodywork as sparks fly after collisions with other cars and trackside barriers are clearly noticeable. The day to night cycle provides added realism and depth to the racing conditions as do the weather conditions such as heavy rain with real-time reflections of light sources in puddles and frighteningly realistic thunder and lightning storms that are capable of lighting up the darkest of night skies.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main, event, multiplayer menus, challenge, online leaderboards, options and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, while tapping the touch pad will return players to the main menu when navigating another menu, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick. The background of the menu screens revolves around the camera exploring a variety of trackside environments which is somewhat reminiscent to the cinematic build up leading to each race.

The audio is quite engaging as it draws players into the experience of racing a high performance car whether it is the roar of the engines, the screeching of tyres as attempting to navigate a tight corner or brake hard following a long straight, the scraping of paint as players collide with another car or a trackside barrier or perhaps even the loud bangs of a heavy crash with a noticeable change in the audio between when driving on track or even on the curbs and when the track has been left and ventured along grass or into a gravel trap. That is not all though as the ambiences that can be heard are based upon the dynamic weather conditions such as howling winds, rain and thunder as well as birds tweeting as an on looking audience applauds the build-up to the race as flags and trees are being rustled which is really atmospheric particularly when racing in poor conditions, while the music provides an appropriate lift to the menus. There is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation which is surprising as it really could have added a significant further layer of audio to increase the atmosphere from producing the engines, tyres, collisions, crashes or ambience.

The trophy list includes 27 trophies with 10 bronze, 9 silver, 7 gold and 1 platinum trophy, while each of the downloadable content packs contain 2 bronze trophies, 2 silver and 1 gold trophy. The easier trophies include the You Only Get One First Time bronze trophy for completing the first event; the First Of Many bronze trophy for beating a first face-off challenge; the And So It Begins bronze trophy for sending a challenge to another player; the Level Up and 5 And Counting bronze trophies for earning enough fame points to reach driver levels 2 and 5 respectively; and the Progress bronze trophy for reaching level 1 with any accolade. The harder trophies are all just as naturally obtainable as progression is made through the game in comparison to the easier trophies, but take a lot longer to achieve such as the Hoon-a-tic gold trophy for racking up 1 million drift points in total; the Lifer gold trophy for driving at least 1,000 miles as a club member and the Credit Where It’s Due gold trophy for maxing out one of each gameplay, game mode, vehicle and event accolades. Every downloadable content pack has a beginner bronze trophy for earning a star in any event of the tour; a Rising Star bronze trophy for earning enough stars to unlock additional events; a Contender silver trophy for unlocking the tour’s signature trophy event; a Champion silver trophy for winning the tour’s signature trophy event; and a Completionist gold trophy for earning every star of the tour. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 25 to 35 hours to platinum the trophy list, while each downloadable content pack would take between 2 to 5 hours to 100% each additional trophy list.

There are 5 difficulty levels including rookie, amateur, semi-pro, professional and legend with all 5 difficulty levels being openly available for selection within the customisable single events, while the tour becomes progressively harder as the player moves through the ranks by winning races, events and entire championships. The artificial intelligence of drivers in racing games usually strays into rubber banding territory on far too many occasions as players could have 15 incidents in the same race and yet still somehow win, although this is an area in which Driveclub massively excels as the drivers will jostle for position and deviate from their normal set racing lines when attempting overtaking manoeuvres as would be expected from professional racing drivers in various formulas of motorsports such as Formula 1.

This level of realism allow the player to catch up after a major incident has cost them multiple track positions as drivers will not only attack to gain positions, but they will also defend from drivers in their rear view mirrors attempting to overtake from behind which can result in a pack of drivers being tightly bunched together at a slower pace, while accidentally running wide or leaving the track even just marginally can compromise exit speed from a corner and speed down a long straight which could in turn drop the player back through the field rather quickly, so precision driving and braking is required at most times in order to be in with a chance of the race victory. This is exactly the same kind of way races across a wide spectrum of motorsports are capable of unfolding as all of the A.I. drivers are able to make mistakes just as much as yourself, deviate from their racing lines, attack for an improved position or defend to retain their current position, therefore the A.I. drivers genuinely reflect real life human behaviour in their sporting competitiveness which really sets Driveclub above the rest of racing games in regards to the artificial intelligence as well as realism in race craft and race development.

A key part of the game is joining and representing a club with every club having maximum of 6 players as the club levels up in the same ways as individual players do by earning fame points. players can represent their club while participating in any given feature of the game in single player or online multiplayer with online events comprising of 12 player competitive racing including all of the settings that are available in single events.

 

There are extensive online leaderboards covering every tour event with every one containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and each player’s best time or drift score with the players position based upon their best time for race and time trial events or drift score for drifting events.

The ability to create, send and participate in challenges based upon players performances from any of the last 30 events which are kept on record for comparison to anyone else that attempts to beat the best time in race and time trial events or drift points in drifting events with club challenges working on the same principle as solo challenges, but with the key difference of participation becoming a team effort as any member of the player’s club can attempt to beat the best time or drift points, while the duration of competing ranges anywhere from 1 hour to 1 week by way of invitation or an open competition for individuals or clubs.

The lack of split-screen multiplayer contradicts the principles of a socially connected racing game as it unfortunately provides an immediate disconnect between the player and their opponent, who could even be sitting next to them, although Evolution Studios have not ruled out that split-screen would possibly be patched into the game in the future.

The replayability flows from many areas of the game such as having plenty of supremely fast cars to drive across 5 categories of cars with just as many tracks to race on from 5 stunning worldwide locations, while joining and representing a club; competing in face-off challenges; creating, submitting and participating in challenges; and competing in the single player career mode tour against competitive A.I. drivers or in online multiplayer against up to 11 real life opponents as well as the unpredictability of both single player and online multiplayer races.

Overall, the server issues that initially disabled almost every online and social feature is a thing of the past as all credit must be given to Evolution Studios for recognising their mistakes in underestimating the demand for the game which left too few servers attempting to cope with a top heavy amount of data as the developer has regularly worked around the clock to put everything right, while superb features have gradually been patched in to provide significant support. If you are a fan of racing games, then Driveclub is highly recommendable as it will provide a unique social racing experience that is the most entertaining, competitive and special driving game since the original Gran Turismo on PS1.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Driveclub
• Developer: Evolution Studios
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE)
• System: PS4
• Format: Retail/PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1 (Offline)/2-12 (Online Multiplayer)/Social Challenges and Online Leaderboards
• Hard Drive Space Required: 18.29GB (Version 1.09)