Product Reviews

When it comes to off-road racing or driving games there’s no shortage. The DiRT series leads the way, but it faces stiff competition from a quickly growing genre. Granted most of the games that attempt to take it on are lesser known. However, some do find success.

We know a mouse is the last thing you want to play a racing game with. However, we also know that many of you are more than just sim racers; you’re gamers through and through. This is why we decided to check out two of the latest mice from Logitech — the G703 and G903.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest review from a former member of staff here at GTPlanet. Jerome purchased the RSeat himself and offered to share his review with the community.

How many things in your life have you kept for 20 years? Even better: how many of these two-decade old items have gone relatively unchanged?

“Burn it to the ground.” That was the message from a certain other franchise at E3 this past summer. Proselytizing competition over car collecting, it was a strong statement of intent from a series that had single-handedly created the CARPG sub-genre.

The sim racing season has begun. Okay, it arguably kicked off a month ago with F1 2017 (read our review), but for those looking for a game featuring multiple disciplines, Project CARS 2 is the real starting point.

If there’s one thing that rings true about the sim racing rig market, it’s that it can become oversaturated. How does one stand out from the crowd? Next Level Racing is hoping its latest creation can do just that.

If franchises in the rally genre were students at a school, each would have a vastly different personality. DiRT would be the trailblazer, constantly showing off new, innovative ways to approach work and tackle a wide variety of subjects. Sebastien Loeb Rally Evo would be the quiet smart kid, offering a lot but not quite making the impact it should. WRC represents the bank-rolled student who has a private tutor but still manages to underachieve.

It’s been a year and Codemasters is back with another installment in its long running F1 franchise with F1 2017. The return of classic cars is the headline this year, as well as a revamped career mode. How will the game stack up against past F1 games? Will it be able to hold its own against the other big hitters releasing this fall? We hopped behind the wheel to find out.

The world of sim racing rigs can be a challenging one to navigate. Products come in all shapes and sizes — and prices can easily stretch into the four digits. If you’re looking to get into a full-on chassis, but are concerned about affordability and ease of use, GranStand has an offering you won’t want to overlook.

Earlier this year, Fanatec unveiled its latest product, the CSL Elite. No, not the one we reviewed last year — a new model, featuring official support for the most popular console this generation, the PlayStation 4.

It has been a staggering 11 years since the last proper Micro Machines console game. The local multiplayer champion last graced our consoles during the PS2-era with Micro Machines V4. Micro Machines: World Series aims to revitalize the tiny toy racer for a new audience but unfortunately teeters between fun and frustration way too often.

The GTPlanet rating system is a consistent, site-wide approach to product reviews.

DiRT 4 always faced a challenging road to release. After the immensely successful DiRT Rally, Codemasters now had two sets of fan to please: the thrill-loving mainline series fans and those enthralled by the hardcore spin-off. The good news then, is that DiRT 4 manages to impress on both sides generally but that doesn’t mean it’s without its blemishes.

Video games, at least in the beginning, are a fairly inexpensive hobby. Sure, a console will set you back a few bills, and games cost substantially more than a physical copy of a movie (I hear some people still buy those). But on a cost-per-hour basis, gaming has its advantages.

Next week, Ford of Australia will produce its very last car. The Broadmeadows assembly plant will cap off a 57-year production run of over 4.5 million sedans, wagons, utes and crossovers on October 7. Only two days ago, the Geelong facility — Australia’s oldest of its kind — wrapped up engine production after 91 years.

There’s a local brewery that has gained a lot of fans in Toronto since it started selling beers at the turn of the millennium. Despite winning numerous awards, the team has bucked the craft beer trend of branching out, opting to exclusively stick to the original product their reputation has been built on. The motto? “Do one thing really, really well.”

The DiRT series has had a bit of a checkered history. From the first game’s rallying roots, to the ‘xtreme’ era pandering of DiRT 3, and finally the game that brought the series to a lasting hiatus – DiRT Showdown. To say that the series has a split fanbase would be an understatement.

Need For Speed is a racing touchstone for a lot of people. Up there with Mario Kart and Gran Turismo, it is a name that crosses boundaries, recognizable to not only the driving-obsessed, but also those that don’t consider video games “their thing”. It even has the necessary cachet to attract Hollywood, delivering a movie last year starring Jesse Pinkman (a move the GT franchise looks likely to follow).