Race Pro

Review by I BlckJck I

Start Your Engines

2008 saw some big racing titles hit the shelves, Burnout, Midnight Club, Need For Speed. All of them continuing their franchises but what was missing was the realism and simulation, while there nothing wrong with never using brakes and boosting ahead on every straight Race Pro offers something different.

Gameplay

Single player is split into several different modes, Single Race and Time Attack are self explanatory, there's also a Race tester that allows you to practice your skills and tune your cars to just how you need them. The two major areas of gameplay however come from the career and championship modes. The former see's you progress through numerous contracts, each contract you sign gives you 3 races to compete in with a set car, the position you come in each determines the amount of points you will have at the end your contract, the more you have accumulated by the end of your contract the bigger your reward. A championship is similar to career but doesn't require credits to enter and is considerably longer, consisting of 11 races.

There's certainly an abundance of ways to play but at the same time it feels strangely lacking. The only offers a rather meagre 13 tracks, while their design deserves credit the limited number will soon have you bored out of your mind. Also while you earn credits for completing contracts the only thing you can buy is another contract. This will earn you new cars but the lack of anything to aim for gave me no real focus to push through the dozens of available contracts.

Also many things that could have been done to break the monotonous formula are lacking, there is no method for personalising your cars, making your own tracks even a weather cycle (although this does exist in multiplayer after dozens of single player races I've only seen clear skies). While you can tune your cars gears, brakes, tires and brakes this is only for the hardcore racing fans, adjusting the endless lists of numbers is not for the faint hearted.

Graphics and Sound

This game looks good, very good. Car models and track textures are stunning. The game is also played best from the cockpit view, something I usually avoid, here however the game sets itself apart from the competition. The cockpit view really drags you into the game, with each car having its own unique interior, and it's enough to leave you short of breath seeing cars all around you as you turn into a corner. It's when you start to around you when you'll run into problems. Very little attention has been paid to the ground around the track, usually one colour and texture is chosen with the odd tree poking out of it. While the flaw is a very minor one, if you spend any real amount of time looking around you'll send end up going head first into a wall. However, I can't help feel that even if half the amount of attention had been paid to the landscape that the car detail received then the game would have become much more immersive.

The game boasts realistic engine sounds to complete its simulation feel, each car having it's own engine tune, alongside this you also have a pit crew which occasionally will speak up to give you warnings. However this aside the game feels quiet lacking in the sound department, while for simulation purposes it is more than good enough the lacking soundtrack quickly becomes apparent and after a few races I ended up playing my own over the top of the game.

Multiplayer

It boggles the mind that with all the research put into this game for sound effects, car models and tracks that the multiplayer is so deficient. With only a single mode, standard race and only 13 tracks to race on the possibilities are extremely limited. It won't give much more than a few hours of extra play time.

Conclusion

Race Pro is certainly a game designed for those hardcore race fans. Akin to Forza 2 in many respects the game falls short of greatness by its very linear design and lacking multiplayer. However even with its flaws anyone looking for a realistic racing sim should not pass up this game, as it is certainly one of the most immersive racing games I've played, but don't expect to fill too many hours of your day.