The Therapist Gamer

Driveclub

Driveclub is a racing game that is not quite a simulation game, but not solely an "arcade racer" either.  Essentially, it plays as a driving simulation game but has some unrealistic physics so things feel a bit faster.  Driveclub was revealed when the PS4 was announced, and wowed many people with it's pretty graphics.  Not only do the cars look nice, but virtually everything else looks good, right down to the rain puddles.

 

I didn't actually play the full game, but rather the "PS Plus" version.  This was basically a trumped up demo where you had access to only a few cars and tracks and have to pay for the rest of the game.  I mention this because my thoughts about the game should be taken with a grain of salt since I haven't really experienced everything the developers intended.  

 

Driveclub is designed such that you will join a "club" with your online friends.  As a club, you compete against other clubs in a variety of ways.  The simplest form of this is simply racing, but the developers are aware of the fact that it is often difficult for friends to be online at the same time.  As such, you complete a variety of challenges while racing single player, and these stats are then aggregated and compared against rivals.  For example, a track may have 3 spots where you are tasked with drifting for as long as possible or a straight-away where you try to go as fast as you can.  Your efforts are combined with your clubs scores.  I thought this was a pretty novel idea and added a lot to the game.  In general, I'm not a big fan of racing games - they're just not my thing.  But this game gave me many opportunities to excel besides simply winning the race.  Perhaps I'm not the fastest, but I learned to take corners really well - and that mattered!  So even if you aren't very good at racing games there are a variety of ways to compete.

 

All in all, I thought Driveclub was fun.  I imagine if you are into racing games then you'll think it's much better than average.