Cars have limited visual customization options.Tiny tutorial text is difficult to see even when sitting up close.The difficulty is probably too high for casual audiences, even when turned all the way down.The lack of music during races creates a sterile atmosphere.Day-night cycle and seasonal and dynamic effects add realism and challenge to races.

An amazing 63 locations and 146 total track layouts will keep races fresh for a long time.

The career mode offers plenty of player choice and motorsport disciplines.A beautiful racing game that will look even better on Xbox One X.I'll be surprised if Forza 7 doesn't top this one overall, but it's still great to have options – especially one that appears on both Xbox and PlayStation. The difficulty is still on the unapproachable side, but racing sim fans will likely stick it out anyway. Overall impressionĪlthough the first Project Cars didn't quite capture the hearts of mainstream gamers, the sequel has a much better shot thanks to its polished career mode, wealth of motorsport types, and unparalleled track selection. Thus lobbies can restrict anyone who likes to play bumper cars from entering, hopefully making for a more peaceful experience. In addition to rating players' overall skill level, each player has a reputation rating based on how aggressively they race. You can select from all 146 tracks and every car (no buying cars here), fully customize the weather, number of laps, realism and difficulty settings for all players, and much more.īehavior can be an issue in online racing games, and developer Slightly Mad Studios has even taken that into account. Hosts have a ton of options too, making it possible to create extremely specific multiplayer races and series. You can use filters to customize which games show up, too. I always like a good server browser because it lets you know just what you're getting into before joining a lobby, as well as get an idea of how many people are playing online. Rather than matchmaking, you join games via a PC-style server browser. Project Cars 2 has 16-player online races on consoles. As it stands, you might be tempted to listen to something else while playing. Given that racing sims tend to be very sterile experiences, some quality music would have helped keep things lively. The menus play a small rotating selection of stirring tracks, but there is no music during actual races. Project Cars 2's sound doesn't match up to its visuals, unfortunately. Slightly Mad Studios has promised Xbox One X support, though, which should improve on the frame rate while bumping up the resolution and visual effects. It's a shame the developers didn't opt to use dynamic resolution to maintain a rock-solid frame rate. You might be tempted to toggle some of those visual effects because the frame rate sometimes dips noticeably on more complex tracks when playing on Xbox One. Like the cockpit mirrors, these can all be turned off – an unusual but welcome feature on consoles. Project Cars 2 features numerous graphical effects too, such as post-processing filters, lens flares, bloom, heat haze, and more. The actual tracks generally look just as sharp, with high-resolution textures helping to maintain immersion. It just takes practice (or a lot of retries) to make it through tougher events. Whereas the Forza games offer a rewind option to help novice players like me keep up, you'll get no such assistance here. Project Cars 2 is a tough and uncompromising game. But after a couple of hours of playing, I've pretty much got a handle on them.Įven with improved controls, a lot of players will want to turn the AI difficulty way down. They're still a bit finickier than the Forza games, even with assists turned on. Project Cars 2 features much-improved controls. The original Project Cars was widely criticized for its poor gamepad controls, even on consoles. You can jump between manufacturer, invitational, and regular career races at any time. They showcase specific cars and track conditions (some historical). The former are manufacturer-specific races, and the latter are Project Cars 2's equivalent to the Showcase events in the Forza Motorsport series. As you progress in the career, you'll unlock two additional types of races: manufacturer drives and invitational events.

Real racing 2 with game controller