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Hindsight is 20/20: Driveclub

L

LevelNth

Banned
He / Him
We all know impressions and thoughts can be either overly critical or positive right around a game's release, and it can take months for those impressions to settle into more reasoned and thought out opinions.

With that in mind, what are everyone's thoughts on Driveclub today?

Driveclub_box_art.jpg
 
Driveclub's been my favourite racer of the generation for at least a year now, around the weather and Japan update.
 
This thread will be interesting, I remember when before the game came out, everyone said it was terrible, but then all of a sudden people said it was great, I guess all the updates it got helped greatly
 
LevelNth said:
We all know impressions and thoughts can be either overly critical or positive right around a game's release, and it can take months for those impressions to settle into more reasoned and thought out opinions.

With that in mind, what are everyone's thoughts on Driveclub today?

Driveclub_box_art.jpg
Click to expand...
Best racing game of this gen. Period.
 
Still one of the best looking games I've seen with ridiculous amounts of content, great gameplay, best atmosphere in a racer, lots of replay value, and I suck dire ass at it.
 
I didn't find it enjoyable at all. I skew toward more arcadey racers, in general, but Driveclub did absolutely nothing for me.
 
Note* My comment is based on gameplay. (photomode makes it look incredible)

The game is fun, but boy is it ugly on a 4k screen during anything but heavy weather/night races.

That's my current view. A big aliased, blurry textured, rough to look at mess on a 50"+ 4k from 6' away. It's really bad compared to playing stuff like Uncharted 4, Horizon: ZD, and Forza Horizon. Bleh

I completely disagree 100% with anyone that says the majority of the races (in daylight or in light rain/sunny weather) look even remotely good when you're looking to the apex and ahead of the car. (now everything within 20 yards looks great, but I don't stare at my car while racing) Such a graphical mess anywhere distant from the car in gameplay.

Edit* Snow track racing looks nice most of the time...as the exception...even during the day...except for those mountain/rocky textures....and the water, sometimes.

I still have had a blast with it gameplay wise though (shrug).
 
I have limited exposure to the game, but from what I played it felt like a gorgeous game trapped in a horrible physics/driving model.
 
Haven't enjoyed a racer as much in a long time. I thought the updates continually improved the game and it had a certain almost retro feel to it in terms of pure fun.

I own an Xbox One too and am very into my racers. I would say DriveClub is my favourite of this generation so far, yes even more so than Horizon 3. Probably in my top 3 of all time actually.
 
I got it when I got my PS4 last month since it was only 8 bucks, and its been pretty underwhelming so far. The handling doesn't feel great, and every car has the same tire squeal sound.

It has made me go back to Forza 6 while I wait for GT Sport. I will probably still play through the whole "career" mode still.
 
KyleOnTheRun said:
Funny and regrettable: I've never been more mercilessly ripped for loving a game as when my review of this came out in 2014. The hundreds of comments were brutal.

http://www.psu.com/review/24853/DRIVECLUB-Review--Greatness-arrives

And here we are, in 2017, with a positive consensus.
Click to expand...

Not really supporting people posting brutal comments on a review but also I feel like the positive feedback towards Driveclub was after they started fixing the mess the game was when it launched...
 
Peltz said:
Boring racing game that doesn't feel good to play.
Click to expand...

My take as well. The worst part about it is that it's so boring to actually play. I love me some arcade racers but Driverclub was bad, it was hard to even get through a single race tbh.
 
Not much into racing games in the last 10 years or so, but Driveclub is my favourite of the genre this generation alongside Forza Horizon 3.
 
faberpach said:
Not really supporting people posting brutal comments on a review but also I feel like the positive feedback towards Driveclub was after they started fixing the mess the game was when it launched...
Click to expand...

True enough. The netcode and networking wasn't prepared at all for the full release, which meant the review environment felt very different and its potential was fully realized from the start.
 
It's a racing game with poor priorities. Graphically very nice, handles poorly, and launched in a terrible state both technically and in terms of feature sets common to modern racing games.
 
As SP experience I found it terrific from the get go. Driving was right balance between arcade and simulation for me and the tracks lovely.

Once online was fixed the overall package was really interesting and the challenge system fun in addition to traditional online racing. Clubs and team angle was very good too.

Bikes was one of the best expansions this gen I think and if you add that in to the mix you've got a great package.

Shame they borked the launch as today I see it as a great racing title that's more fun to jump into for quick race thatn GT/Forza and more focused than Horizon's open world approach (sue me I just prefer corridor racers).

Graphically it's the current king IMHO - at its best it looks terrific.
 
Best racing game of this gen IMO and one of the best ever. Immense amount of content, amazing visuals, best season pass I've seen, great track design... Pretty much a spiritual sequel to PGR.
 
One of my favourite games so far that I still go back to and play quite often since I installed it day one. I wish more games this generation were as overall enjoyable as this one has been, but sadly that has not been the case for me anyway.
 
It was ok, but just not my type of racing game. I still think the recent Forzas were a lot more fun than this and this is probably the most overrated game on GAF.
 
It just got ridiculously hard after a certain point so I ended up putting it down. The graphics had their moments, but left me flat a lot of the time. Not that they were bad, just not the heavens themselves opening up like people wanted to treat them as. The controls were fine, kinda fun, but I always felt like it needed some kind of gameplay hook - it reminded me a LOT of a Dreamcast era racer, but without a cool powersliding mechanic a la Metropolis Street Racer or something. Menus were pretty awesome.

Overall, I paid very little for it so I was satisfied, but would have been much happier if it didn't have a brick wall of difficulty.
 
Questionable IQ (jaggies, lots of jaggies, bad LOD in long distances), bizarre handling controls, sterile presentation, 30 fps.

Not for me, I bounced off it at around 5 or so hours.
 
It's a pretty fun game, I enjoyed it and bought the RPM Expansion pack. I definitely do not go back to it as much as I go back to Forza Horizon 3.
 
I really like it for all the things it doesn't have. No racing line (and I sure as hell could've used it), no rewind, no story, no narrator, not a single cutscene, and especially not open world - in a time when being anything but is unfashionable unless it's a sim or a kart racer.
 
Gorgeous looking game, I thought the driving was fine, it just didn't have its own identity.

Like, if I want to play better arcade racers, they're out there. If I want to play better arcade-sim racers, they're out there, if I want to play better sim racers, they're out there.

Also, while 60fps would have definitely been better, I think they did the best they could with 30fps, good sense of speed.
 
Easily the most beautiful racer ever on any platform. Lighting is unmatched. Great racer too.

I had even more fun with Motorstorm 2 though.
 
Utterly mediocre game that would have been completely overlooked if it wasn´t for the launch game exposure and if Polyphony could be bothered to put out a game every once in a while.
 
Really liked it.

It reminded me of PGR 2 ... 30fps no-frills racing without car upgrades or tuning.

The lighting, time of day changes and weather are still peerless in a racing game.

It looks like the responses in this thread are already splitting into predictable tribes.
 
BAD AF, not arcade enough and trying to add realistic cars wasn't what I wanted. I'd rather they focused on the game play and track design instead of "lighting" and car textures etc

This would have been so much better as a revamping of Motorstorm with increased mud and visuals adding to new tracks and bringing in all the old tracks from the first game.

The speed of that game is a bit too slow and could have really used a revamping to the franchise after the third game. Then we could have gotten another PR like sequel that did the same thing.

I am not talking about a remaster but more or less a sequel to the first game's idea and creating new tracks while remaking the old ones in the new engine.

Then, fixing up the bikes which were always sort of strange to drive for me. Adding in better mud, better physics and destruction while keeping the fun track design and mayhem etc

Driveclub was good for what it was but I feel it was not what we needed on the system. The AF issues and visuals are not quite as good as I would want, and they should have scaled back on vegetation to bring a better look via IQ and resolution in textures with that type of game. Maybe not use outside areas and cramped roads as much and going more of a ridge racer/burnout mix instead.

If they had to make roads and sports cars could have mixed the idea of DC and Motorstorm into one where it may be a bit like Horizon... at least I think their track design and physics is more to my liking in motorsotrm. Having tracks with roads and off road areas where the sports cars can cut across or jump through roads, dirt roads while the bigger mud cars can travel deeper into the canyons or jungles where the sports cars just can't go would have made for one awesome game as well. Not open world design though.

THey have some of the best track designers in racing period and having room to expand those tracks to be a little wider and have more room for short cuts would have been cool to see.

Again, we have our sims or sim likes, this game could have went in many other directions that would have made it stand out.

I feel they were rushed while other teams got to take a bit more time and polish things and it's obvious this team needs a year or so more to push out a solid title.
 
I appreciate what they were going for forcing you to drive different cars constantly, but it really made me miss the other sim racing games where you have to drive one car for a while, and really sink your teeth into it.

After driving the 20th hypercar in 20 different races they all start to blend together and I lost appreciation I would normally have for such beautiful cars.
 
Best racer of this gen.

The challenge system combined with the almost non-existent load times made it an addictive and thrilling experience

The sense of speed is still unmatched.
 
Nice game, I had fun with it, but a perfect example of "you only get one chance to make a first impression" and the developers of DriveClub tanked theirs. It's admirable that Evolution worked as hard as they did to fix it and add content, but soon as it launched as broken as it did, a huge chunk of gamers wrote it off completely, and with how quickly this industry moves, how often games are released, I can't really blame them.
 
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