Any PC gaming PHer will be familiar with Assetto Corsa, available since 2013, it has earned a loyal following, with forum members even running their
own weekly challenge
. News that the much vaunted title was coming to consoles was therefore greeted with a great deal of excitement. Having recently concluded that F1 2016 was unparalleled in the immersion and realism of its racing simulation, Assetto Corsa should have been the game to usurp that crown. Unfortunately, it's not.
Let's start with the content. There are some interesting curio cars included in the initial 93 vehicles that the game launches with, which will be sure to please petrolheads. That said the variety can't come close to touching some of Assetto's competitors, and once you discount the cars which are just mode specific variants of each other, you lose about a quarter of that number again. This is where DLC should step in to bolster the offering but, at £23.99, a season pass adds another 50 per cent onto the price of the game itself, ridiculous when the paltry number of cars in the launch version is taken into consideration. When it comes to tracks, 12 are included from launch, amongst which the usual suspects (Silverstone, Nurburgring, Spa and so on) can be found, all beautifully recreated thanks to the use of laser scanning technology. The graphics remain strong throughout the rest of the game too, however frequent frame rate drops during play do detract badly from any true sense of immersion.
In navigating the game there are a few frustrating menu niggles which other reviews will no doubt detail but, especially from a studio the size of Kunos Simulazioni, those can be overlooked if the gameplay is up to par. Unfortunately, the mainstay of any good racing game falls down in several key areas. Assetto Corsa's career mode is, to put it kindly, a struggle. With a Talladega Nights "if you ain't first you're last" approach to the player, finishing anywhere other than the podium is sneered at. Unlike rival titles which give purpose to driving lesser cars by attaching equally reduced expectations, Assetto demands that the player triumph no matter what. It's an un-nuanced approach which feels very dated on current-gen consoles.
And that's assuming that you can finish the race at all. The accuracy of the physics and driving dynamics in Assetto are incredible, unparalleled on consoles to this point, but the fully fledged nature of the driving simulator will put it beyond the abilities of many gamers. Fair enough, but then you're faced with the AI. On Assetto Corsa it is so invasively bad that it renders any mode in which other cars share the track virtually unplayable. Competitors show no regard for you or your car, frequently attempting Maldonado-esque moves they never had a hope of pulling off.
The game's realism dictates that even the smallest bit of contact sends you careening off the track; frustratingly however the same does not hold true for the AI, which is invariably able to continue on unscathed. This makes an already challenging feat more difficult still, and leaves the player with an embittered sense of injustice. As a result you will likely find yourself spending more and more time putting in hot laps, as the nature of that mode allows you to avoid the majority of Assetto's most frustrating issues. There is fun to be had here, in shaving hundredths of a second off your lap time, just not enough to make up for the areas in which the gameplay is lacking.
Assetto Corsa is a very, very realistic driving simulator, though not a particularly good racing one. If you want to get in some practice laps before a real world track day at Brands Hatch, or you're looking to familiarise yourself with the Nordschleife before your inaugural tourist day, then look no further. But if you're searching for an entertaining racing simulation, then you won't find it here; F1 2016 and Project CARS are still the games for you.
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