James Burgess

Review Written for RaceSimCentral.
Contributors: Ed Gay, Justin Ziarko, Caspar Kahari

I must admit, before we start things off, that I didn’t play the original Race game – so, alas, there will be no comparisons between this and the previous title. But why should there need to be? A good sim is a good sim all round, isn’t it?

Nearly two weeks ago, on Saturday 20th September, Ed and I arrived at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, England, to join the SimBin guys for a weekend of WTCC action and sim-racing banter. It was here that we were to get our hands on the full version of Race07 for the very first time.

Towards the end of the day, when the SimBin stand had closed to the public, a few of the International Formula Master guys turned up at the SimBin tent and began racing in the simulators… they were, by and large, terrible and frequently ended up in the wall, whether trying out the WTCC cars or even the Formula BMWs. We were getting impatient. Finally, when we were just about to leave and call it a night, a couple of simulators became free, the doughnutting in T1 at Macau stopped, and Ed and I hopped in for what we hoped would be a great sim-racing experience. We left Mark (from SimBin) to thrash the not-so-bad IFM driver (and by ‘thrash’ I mean ‘be thrashed’), and got settled in.

Fumbling our way through the counter-intuitive menu system, we found ourselves at the multilayer lobby. Rather than risk our necks with the “banzai” attitude of the IFM drivers, we thought we’d head for a little ‘private session’ (no raised eyebrows please)… I took one look at Ed, and immediately knew what we were racing – Caterhams. Maybe ‘racing’ was the wrong word… more like ‘trying not to be completely obliterated by my opponent’ – regardless, we set off…

As an interlude, there’s a key point I must mention – it is essential you find a good steering setup for your wheel. Your wheel’s setup can make or break the enjoyment of Race07. This was apparent when we started out in the Caterhams. The steering lock on the SimBin simulators was set to 270º and was just not the type of thing you wanted for sliding your Caterham around corners.

We quickly ended up in the Radicals (don’t worry, I’m coming back to the Caterhams), after trying several track/car combinations, and concluded that we were going to stick with these for a while. I don’t think I’ve had more fun in a SimBin game than when throwing the Radicals over the kerbs at Monza… it is sheer driving enjoyment. You can get the car pointed into the apex as you need and really give it some abuse without upsetting it too much. The WTCC cars themselves are quite good, they’re just what you’d expect from a touring car – big, a little on the cumbersome side, but quick and great fun to race. They do, however, exhibit too much front-end grip in high-speed corners, but this is a characteristic feature of the flawed tyre model in many ISI-engined games and sims these days. This tyre model substantiates the main problem with Race07’s physics, with cars like the Formula BMW feeling too grippy, even under oversteer. Granted, if someone who’s driven a Formula BMW would like to correct me, then be my guest.

Now about those Caterhams… after getting Race07 home, fiddling with the wheel setup, we’ve come to a unanimous decision that they’re excessive amounts of fun – as you’d imagine they would be in real-life. They’re fun to sling around, and you truly can control the car with the throttle pedal when you have the back end out a bit. They’re not prone to the infamous ‘tail waggle’ at high-speeds that can be seen in other sims, and generally behave quite nicely and predictably – a definite plus point of the game. I haven’t had a chance to try out the various different models of Caterham (same with the Radicals), but I can tell you that I enjoyed, incredibly, the one or two I did try.

As for the environments in which we find ourselves, they’re well detailed, but not particularly accurate in places. Granted, the representations are clear, the track layouts are accurate, but some of the track-side scenery differs greatly from it’s real-life equivalent (for example, Porto). I can’t say I noticed any glaring track bugs, with the exception of the ‘corner cutting’ bugs. Monza is absolutely plagued with cut problems. Run just a little too much kerb in any of 4 or 5 places, and you’ll get a warning. Third time lucky, and you get a stop/go penalty. Over the course of a 9 lap race around Monza in the WTCC cars, driving aggressively enough to mount the kerbs a little, I found that I ended the race with 13 black flags… and that was being careful. It really spoiled my enjoyment of the track, and I think it’s definitely something that needs addressing. Though not all tracks have this problem, by any means.

Graphics-wise, Race07 is right up there with the best of them – though, I have seen that a number of people (including myself on one rig) are having serious problems with certain ATI cards making the game entirely unplayable at points due to large triangles being drawn across the screen. This problem was present in GTR2, but the extent of the problem seems to have increased dramatically to the current product. Aside from these issues, I was able to run Race07 with most details turned to high, on a relatively modest (2.7ghz), single-core rig with a single gig of RAM.

We were also very impressed with the sounds found in Race07. They’re greatly improved (so I’m told by some) over the original title, and certainly add to the level of immersion felt. The AI are decent, and it is possible to have good races against them. They suffer from the oh-too-common ’bouts of random aggression followed by lacklustre-ness’ syndrome, but show me a sim that doesn’t.

Race07 is a peculiar game, in that there are large chunks of it that we – as a group – adore, but a number of hassles and niggles that we have that keep it from being the best of the best. Steam was, once again, frustrating – and why SimBin needed to defer from more ‘normal’ release methods is quite beyond me. The .PLR file is encrypted – and we must be forced to ask ourselves again the key question, “why?”

I would definitely say that Race07 has the majority of things right… it has many of the major things down. The graphics are sweet but seemingly suffer from compatibility issues, the physics are very close to where they need to be, but the tyre model is off… the box says 300 cars and 32 tracks, but most of them are re-skins and alternate layouts… it doesn’t quite do exactly what it says on the tin… but it’s a great product. With the promise of some much-needed physics improvements for the next SimBin game – whatever that may be – I think the team are definitely on the right road.

As for the distribution format, Race07 is available in two ways. You can either buy a DVD copy, or purchase it via Steam. The DVD copy offers two options – online and offline installation. The former is just like a Steam purchase (the disc includes the cache files to save you downloading the content, though) and the offline version is without Steam, but is limited to single-player only. Unfortunately, through Steam, Race07 can take an age to load as Steam loads, checks for updates and then launches the game.

If you were a fan of the original Race game, you’ll definitely be a fan of this sequel. If you weren’t a fan of the original Race game, you’ll still find yourself enjoying Race07 – even if you find yourself sticking to the Radicals and the Caterhams. I know I’m thoroughly hooked on it. The vast number of track/car combinations available will keep you entertained for hours, and the multiplayer is a great asset, as always – especially with the community features recently introduced by Steam (proving that there may be a point to Steam after all). Add to this that there are already a plethora of GTR2 add-on tracks that have been converted to work with Race07 and you’re set for hours upon hours of fun!

Hey, it even got my girlfriend into sim-racing…