Slightly Mad studios have been working on a new sim racer titled Project CARS since the start of the year. Recently they released some screenshots showing some almost dubiously sexy graphics which is something of a rarity when it comes to sim racing games. We’ve been stuck in this rFactor rut for a few years now; ISI created a brilliant physics engine released around 2005, this engine powered rFactor, GTR, Race, iRacing (albiet heavily modified) and pretty much every cornerstone of sim racing released over the last 6 years. The engine is clearly showing its age, as much as I love some of the painstakingly created mods generated by the rFactor community, it depresses me to have to be stuck driving in a primitive (to the point of looking surreal) world, the sort of world where corners are made up of straight lines.

So this is all changing now, rFactor 2 is on the way along with GTR3 – both games boasting a completely new and cutting edge engine which I’m eagerly anticipating to see but it seems there’s a third player, Project CARS has come from seemingly nowhere and has hit the tarmac screaming with an incredibly fun, deep and challenging driving model and as mentioned; ridiculously good graphics. Interestingly pCARS is being developed using a ‘World Mass Development’ model meaning that anyone is free to contribute to the development and testing of the game. It’s an interesting development system that I unfortunatly dismissed initially because since playing the most current build of the game I see that things are progressing rapidly.

There’s currently 8 licensed cars with more unofficial models and 4 licensed tracks (again with some other unofficial representations), the tracks are going to be laser scanned which will provide unprecedented accuracy when it comes to modelling the fine detail of the bumps and curvature of the roads. I’m most impressed with the driving model, after getting my Fanatec wheel configured so the game knew I was using 900 degrees of rotation I picked up the Caterham and had a lot of fun with it. The physics feel very grounded, not so floaty as I feel with rFactor but also not quite as stuck down as GTR – there’s a much better sense of speed too with a physics engine that updates at a much faster rate than that of those old ISI engines. If you’ve ever played a Shift game you’ll be familiar with the graphics, it’s clearly the same engine with the same fonts and visual ‘bumpy camera’ simulation.

Throughout my current 4 hours with the game I haven’t shaken the feeling that this is the game that Slightly Mad wanted to make with the Shift series, it’s not tied down to over the top EA marketing spin and the game does not hold your hand or make any comprimises to its simulation. Even in it’s pre-alpha state where it is now there’s a very playable game on offer here, sure there’s a few bugs and track detail is minimal but damn it’s fun. You can become a self-appointed developer of the game for 10 euros which grants you monthly builds of the game plus acess to the forum. You can even provide feedback and content if you’re so inclined.

This game in its current state offers a slight glimpse of the future of sim racing, we’ve already seen where these sims can go graphically through Dirt and Grid but here we get a taste on how these games can feel, and I can’t wait.