I also bought the game on PSN's Black Friday sale. However...I don't think I've been as perplexed playing a racing game as I have been playing PCARS 3, and it's sad too, because from the little I've played, if you stripped any mention of SMS, PCARS as a series, or the Madness Engine, then you'd have what is by all accounts a really good racing game that has a lot of content, and has an actually good career structure, and makes good on all the big picture ideas and promises Ian Bell made when he more or less tipped off that PCARS 3 was going to be a more NFS SHIFT like experience.
However, 95% of the problems with the game basically trace back to the very name on the box. Considering the series reputation as a hardcore sim that very much pushed the limits of physics and how weather is applied in that regard, it is really quite strange and honestly disheartening that SMS (though really, I have my beliefs that it was more so Ian Bell) would throw that out the window for no discernable reason and make what is basically an NFS SHIFT level of racer. Which I am all for, it should be noted! However, by this point, what does Ian Bell and SMS think that they can get away with going this far back, and not only that but doing the one cardinal sin in the sim racing genre (that is, lying about the authenticity and realism of your game), and so boldly and confidently at that before launch?
I don't have the highest estimation of the sim racing community - I'm of the strong belief that the drive for realism has more or less killed any sort of creativity in the racing game genre, among many other factors, and have lead to developers caving in to the frankly pathetic hissyfits and crying from hardcore sim racers who want a return on investment for their sim racing rigs and setups - but they are bang on the money here with how this game has turned out. I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall at SMS HQ when Ian Bell was pitching and developing this game, to his staff, to Bamco especially. I just simply don't get why you would go this far back in terms of realism and not expect a backlash, when this could have been avoided if the game was simply not named Project CARS 3. This is about as close as a sim racing developer can get to making a spin off that can appeal to a wider niche then the main games are in - and yet it wasn't taken. I legitimately want to know why, considering it kneecaps an otherwise well done racing game that, if it wasn't named PCARS 3, I'd probably consider as the racing game of the year.
It really goes to show just how much one bad decision (in this case, not making this game a spin off) can have so many poor ramifications to the legs of any piece of media, but for racing games especially. Now SMS and Ian Bell especially have pretty much burnt a whole hell of a lot of bridges (something Mr. Bell seems adept at doing, truth be told) with the sim racing community, and for what?
Some ancillary notes from my short hour and change long initial play test:
- The handling on a pad is leagues better then anything the PCARS series (or really, NFS SHIFT if we're going that far back) has given. That in of itself is a major accomplishment considering how pathetically little SMS had done previous in making the game actually fun to play on a pad, but it still really doesn't feel right. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels like there's some things holding it back.
- Compared to PCARS 2, where the road classes felt so cobbled together and so poorly thought out but were ignored (probably because 95% of people were going to be in racing cars for most of the game) the actual road classes feel really good in terms of the vehicles chosen and paired. But the race classes are mind-bogglingly bad in how they've paired vehicles. Nowhere is that more evident then the first race of the game at Monument Valley in the C8.R. Sure, it's mostly the same GT3 cars they had in PCARS 2, but for whatever reason they shoved the Sesto Elemento in the class...for what reason, I don't know. It's worse in some classes - in what world is the F355 Challenge considered a Group A car? Why is an Indycar roadster from the 50's in the Ol' Calhoun in among the classic F1 cars? - and it just reeks of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
- Game looks great when you prioritize framerate on PS4 Pro. Pretty crispy graphics and smooth graphics when there's no rain or weather effects, and it does take a dip when that comes into play, but by this point it's to be expected. A part of me wonders if the same problems from PCARS 2 where certain tracks (Bannochbrae, for one) with full grids and weather effects would cause most systems, including uprated ones, to take a total dump when it came to framerate persists.
Again, it's sad that so many of the problems with this game lie with simply the name of the game, alongside the things SMS did to more or less bald face lie to fans before release, because if they did the right thing and made this as a spin off, I guarantee reception would be immensely more popular and you wouldn't have this pretty much unneeded schism within the series.