Pong and Beyond

295th played so far

Genre: Racing
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: SimBin
Publisher: Atari

There’s not much more I can continue to say about these racers, to be honest. Car. Race on track. All sorts of classes and types. And supposed to be very realistic. Go!

Our Thoughts

Here’s the problem with all racing games (except, possibly, some extended arcade installations): You just don’t get the right sort of feedback. Moving a stick left and right is no substitute for a steering wheel and its more direct feedback, and you lack the feedback from the car, the engine, control over the pedals when you grab a controller when you compare it to actually driving.

That doesn’t mean I’d drive with record time on the track, but I think I’d at least know how to keep it on the track better.

This becomes a bit of an issue when the game touts realism as its big selling point and wants you to play as such. In a Mario Kart game, physics can be tweaked to account for the inaccuracies in the game, you get some leeway and it’s all well and good.

Which means that when you get to playing a game like Race Pro, where its realism and ultimate simulation are big selling points, you get trouble. Originally a PC franchise, you can see how you could play with a racing wheel to get it more right. When you transfer that to an Xbox 360, it becomes more awkward.

As much as the simulation might be right (and I’m sure it is in this case), it becomes borderline unplayable for the casual player. Just getting past the first ‘introduction’ lap takes a few goes, and we lost the first race several times when we tried, never winning. Playing against each other we didn’t do much better – although that had the added disadvantage of no split-screen multiplayer, with us taking turns racing, with the other player being CPU-controlled. Probably better for the simulation, and absolutely tweaked for online multiplayer, but not fun when playing in the same room.

If you’re more into racing games, this might come together better, and the breadth of options seems to indicate that there is a lot to discover here. We just couldn’t spend the time needed to get there.

Final Thoughts

This feels almost like a waste of a port. There is what could be a solid simulation racing game here, realistic, but the demands that placed on the controls just make this a lot less playable (for us at least). It’s a shame. It’s also a waste of money if you ask me, in the wide genre of driving and racing games this just feels ridiculously hard.