Review for Assetto Corsa Competizione. PC game, the video game came out on 29/05/2019
The world of racing simulations is, in some ways, a sort of religious cult where often even professional drivers are involved in the "worship" of the sector. Assetto Corsa Competizione, new episode of the racing saga developed by the Italian Kunos simulations, appears on the market after a period of Early Access, in which the game has undergone many small changes and improvements.
Leaving early access and entering the "1.0" phase means placing yourself on the market conveying the idea that the game is complete and ready to be played. But will it really be like this? We just have to read the review!
Assetto Corsa Competizione is a simulation racing game based on the Blacnpain GT Series car championship which involves about various teams: from Ferrari to Porsche and Lamborghini, the cars will fight each other with endurance strokes or by facing short and fast races (sprint races), as happens in the reality of competition. The choice - which could raise some eyebrows accustomed to pseudo-sim games that collect hundreds of cars from different eras - immediately turns out to be apt: having a single automotive "style" gives Assetto Corsa Competizione a concrete basis and solid on which to develop such a punitive realism, but not improbably anchored to having to “balance” a very extensive car park coming from various eras.
In the game, we will have 18 cars in total drivable on 10 overall tracks: a little bit compared to the competition and even if compared with the old chapter of the series, although it should be emphasized that each of the cars will have its own "concrete" personality such as with regard to real counterparties.
Assetto Corsa Competizione will allow us to try our hand at five different modes: career, championship, single player, events and online modes. By choosing the first one, at the beginning our virtual alter ego will start as a young member of a program organized by Lamborghini, that is a three-day test on the legendary Monza circuit. Depending on the performance obtained, the game will automatically calibrate the difficulty and driving aids. From there, as you can imagine, our virtual experience as a driver will start, in an attempt to slowly become a prominent name in the competition.
The single player and event modes will work in a very similar way, allowing us in the first to choose the track, driver, car of our liking and in the second to participate in the most significant events of the season. The championship mode, on the other hand, will collect both classic tracks and special events, which we will be able to face in full in a simulated season, substantially resulting in a weakened career mode. In principle, Assetto Corsa Competizione will offer a rather varied but not particularly inspired single sector: at least, we would have expected a career with a little more verve and more options and possibilities given that, at the moment, there will not be many. differences between Career and Championship r that, basically, we will hardly undertake the single races or the section dedicated to events.
As for the multiplayer mode, the beating heart of almost every racing game, at the moment it will be possible to challenge other fans in Quick Match mode or to compete in some of the longer events. We can even opt for a public server, which will be totally free and without any kind of restriction, or for a competitive one, which will have serious participation restrictions. Despite some minor technical problems, the competitive online section consists of various parameters to modify and customize the matchmaking, where we can even "investigate" your degree of skill or correctness through the rating of seven different categories. Whatever the modality undertaken, right from the start you will realize that Assetto Corsa Competizione is realistic and simulative, but does not seek the absolute difficulty to boast of the epithets listed above: as fans will know, the cars that compete in the Blancpain competition, they are among the most refined and “simple” to use in the entire automotive sports panorama.
And this is fully reflected in the game: Kunos Simulations' racing will be complicated to manage, not because it is artificially made so with some “backstage” choices made by developers. Assetto Corsa Competizione, in this sense, will require us to take a rather meticulous approach to the myriad of technical details that will surround our competition vehicle., from the tires, to the grip and aerodynamics of our racing car. We can help us by taking advantage of the pre-set settings but doing so would take away a large part of the sense of the game, which shows its muscles precisely in the realistic possibilities of in-depth "tuning" also related to the presence of dynamic weather conditions. And this will be precisely the difficulty of the game, that is to approach it with a mindset typical of the driver, who takes care of every detail of his racing vehicle, without rushing headlong into races that would end up being lost at the start.
Technically speaking, Assetto Corsa enjoys ups and downs. If the simulation part of the cars and the sound - the latter really surprising - as already specified several times, border on heights of absolute realism, the graphics part is valid but rather fluctuating in quality and "heavy", especially when compared with racing titles much more open in terms of gameplay (like Forza Horizon, for example).
The models of the cars and of the circuits will be substantially realistic, underlining a clear step forward compared to the previous chapter thanks to the use of the Unreal Engine 4, but the aesthetic sector will still be decimated by a whole series of technical imperfections, by segmented margins despite select the maximum of anti-aliasing, to the continuous flickering of the rearview mirror that will potentially also affect the progress of the race or to light effects that sometimes make the polygonal models a bit plasticky. The test of the game took place with a medium / high-end gaming rig, which guaranteed a fluidity of the game at 60 frames quite solid as long as you play a little with the graphics options.
Another sore point will be the general interface of the game, a bit chaotic and often not particularly intuitive. Good proof of the AI which, despite tending at times to the door, will generally be competitive and well implemented, with the possibility given to the user to be able to calibrate its effectiveness in the game. The general programming state of the game is, to date, still far from perfect, especially with regard to online net-coding (various problems of various kinds will be quite frequent during multiplayer games) and some minor but annoying bugs found in the single mode (such as being disqualified for exceeding the maximum speed allowed in the pits ... having covered a few palms).
In this sense, we will have a clear picture of the situation of a game that has formally left Early Access but which, in fact, has not yet completely left it behind. On the other hand, there is nothing to complain about the driving system, which is realistic and punitive at the right point and which stands as one of the most simulative and balanced ever appeared in a racing game and, already now, very close to perfection. The game was tested with both a wheel (Logitech G27) and an Xbox One pad, showing in both cases a very good and balanced level of compatibility and response of the cars (of course, the wheel is by far the best option. ).
Assetto Corsa Competizione is, at the moment, the racing game. Realistic, full of details and definitely suitable for those who want a realistic experience. The game has several cars (but not too many), different modes (but not particularly exciting) and a "playful" life that is still quite long. On the other hand, a technical sector still to be stabilized is currently undermining its overall usability, making it also to be perfected. Definitely, a must have for racing fans.
► Assetto Corsa Competizione is a racing-Simulation-Sport game developed and published by 505 Games for PC, the video game was released on 29/05/2019
