Game: Project CARS, Slightly Mad Studios, 2015, PCBeer: Spaten Optimator, 12 fl. oz., 7.6% abv
# of beers consumed during play: Many
Level Reached: That one...
Level of Intoxication: Three Sheets to the Wind
Game
I've always had a love of racing games, although my tastes typically ran more along the lines of arcade racers; the flashy, speed ridden coin-ops that didn't demand too much from the player's sense of realism. It wasn't until the first Gran Turismo that I began to consider games that leaned more toward simulation-style mechanics. I say "simulation-style" specifically for those diehard racing fans who do not consider GT to be a proper representation of the simulation sub-genre. Unfortunately, for many console-oriented players, games such as Gran Turismo and its primary rival Forza are as close to a racing simulation as anyone is liable to get. Or, rather were...seeing as this game is being released for all major platforms including PS4 and Xbone. Project CARS, ladies and gentlemen, has arrived to claim the throne.
Gameplay
Okay, "claim the throne" might be a bit premature, but let's go ahead and look at the basic facts here. Project CARS (hereinafter referred to as pCARS because it looks cooler...), is a project that has been in development for quite some time, sourcing input not just from the gaming community, but from the racing and automotive communities as well. Project CARS actually stands for "Community Assisted Racing Simulator". This rich interaction from so many varied industries has given birth to something quite special indeed. First of all--and this should be given credence by its own virtue--every car and every track are unlocked for play right from the beginning. There are no roadblocks to entry, none of the cars or tracks are hidden behind any progression, game economy, or worse yet, real money paywall. You can grab any car, roll it onto any track and have a custom race weekend, complete with scary stranger danger via the internet. You can also go noodle around a track in free practice mode without having to worry about opponents, and simply work on carving those race lines a little leaner, or, if you're like me, turn the weather effects up to insanity-land levels and crash your way around the track until your car is too destroyed to go any further. But again, all cars, all tracks, right from the start. GT and Forza, take notice and follow suit please. Another feature that sets pCARS apart from other racers is the rabid obsession with detail, from car tuning options, to car and track realism and polygon counts. pCARS boasts the largest track selection of any racer, and it's...sorta right. As long as you count individual track configurations and heats to be "separate tracks." Although yes, given that as a concession, I was quite impressed--and even a bit intimidated--by the sheer number of tracks on offer. The intensity of labor that has gone into this game has penetrated the very core of the machinery, as the game engine is a stripped down, rebuilt version of the code that originally powered the Need for Speed: Shift games. The game code has been so significantly rewritten, it is hardly recognizable from its roots, and has been beefed up to accommodate input from several professional race car drivers, including Ben Collins, a former "Stig" on Top Gear. To say that this team of developers at Slightly Mad Studios have brought the fight to Sony and Microsoft is an understatement.
Now, as I go on and on about realism and how many people were involved, and how many tuning settings the game has (exact number: a shit-ton), and blahbity-blah, please recall the statement I made in the opening paragraph; that I've always leaned more towards arcade-style racers. To be perfectly honest, I still do. I love my old Ridge Racers and NFS: Most Wanteds, and love that feeling of going really fast with very little effort. While pCARS does demand, at minimum, quite a bit more than "very little effort," those gamers who don't know what a camber rate is can still participate. When you first launch the game, you are given the choice between three difficulty levels. Each one changes variables such as AI aggression, traction control and steering assist, and the now-ubiquitous race line in order to customize the experience for people who own racing wheels, noobs, and everyone else. While I have seen other reviews lamenting the lack of accessibility, I have to respectfully disagree. The game includes a tutorial that is woven into the interface. Anytime you visit a menu screen you haven't been to before, a quick explanation pops up, and then goes away. The game never forces car tuning on the player, and at the easiest difficulty, race settings are actually much easier than the two main console rivals. Indeed, this game has adopted the "easy to pick up, hard to master" convention of gameplay, and once a novice (or arcade-oriented gamer) allows themselves to creep out of their comfort zones, this game will embrace them wholeheartedly.
Once you dive into these other options, you will discover that for better or worse, Slightly Mad have foregone certain features in order to more tightly focus the scope of the game. One omission is upgradeable cars. You can't swap out a better engine or gearbox like you could in Forza, and instead must define your ride exclusively through tuning of the nineteen mazillion slider bars this game offers. Sliders that control everything from suspension height, to coil stiffness, to gear ratios and even brake pressure. I looked for a slider that would control the level of dirt on your car, because I was sure that would have been included with so many other options, but alas, that one is curiously absent. The level of customizability that is offered in this game will boggle the mind, and for the true sim fan, will offer a cornucopia of extended gameplay. Tuning profiles can be created and saved, swapping out different profiles based on opponents, conditions, tracks, and other variables. The game encourages you to find the best configuration for each race, and--particularly with all the helpful driving assists off--the player will need to take hold of this control and learn how to wield it properly. The upside to all this is that with tuning being the only way to affect a car's performance, the online component is truly flattened out and races between players is not about who bought the best thingamajig, but is about who knows their car better. This might seem like a minor distinction on paper, but for those who race, both in games and in real life, that is the true distinction that wants to be made. If I can whip my car around a turn faster than you, that's one thing, but if I can take a turn faster and I shoot into the next straight faster, that's another thing entirely, and if so, you can suck it accordingly. It's a meta-game that takes place before each race, one that incorporates decimals on both sides of the starting flag. In a system as robust as this, spending the time to adjust seemingly minor details can mean the difference between dominating your opponent or seeing his taillights vanish around the next bend. To put it another way, this is the RPG of racing games, offering up as much or as little magic as the player desires.
Speaking of RPG conventions, the Career Mode is where you take on the persona of your very own racer. You name him, you pick a sponsor from a handful of offer emails, and from there on, you build your racing legacy and imprint your imperfections on him. The game even lays out three main objectives to shoot for: building a championship from nothing, defending a title for several seasons, and winning a cup in all three offered racing disciplines. These objectives add another wrinkle of character to the game, as well as replayability, and once Meatstick Bonelove chooses a career path and sets upon their journey, the game proper reveals itself. As you begin, you'll race in lower tier heats, taking slower cars around smaller tracks. You'll race through the season, participating in races you qualify for (which, right at the start will hardly be anything) and receiving invites to manufacturer races and special race weekends where you can preview faster and hotter cars. Between races, you'll have access to a newsfeed and inbox that will change based on how you're doing. You'll frequently see your character's name in hilariously repetitive fictional headlines heralding your racing prowess. You'll also see a mock Twitter full of racing fans that react to your race results, and who will all want to buy a MeatBone™ tee. The game has a clear feeling of character progression, going so far as to offer the player periodic choices on whether to stay with their racing team, or trade into a new organization. Although to be honest, for sheer giggles, you can't go wrong with the default starting team: Torque Riders. There may be a very poorly designed word filter for the character name, but at least Slightly Mad were kind enough to put in some unintentional self-parody. It seems as though many elements in the game need a revision or two to clean up the experience as a whole. For example, in the headlines as well as career emails, the writing is dry and mostly uninspired, with a great deal of repetition in the passages you'll read. I actually ended up trading teams, because in context, the dry uninspired writing made me feel like my team really didn't value me, and so I accepted another offer. While such a series of events may speak to many things, I think it weighs most heavily on how small details in a game can truly influence the experience, and how attention to even seemingly inconsequential items can greatly impact how the game is played. While on the subject of minor but noticeable issues, your emails and newsfeed can also occasionally glitch, losing track of how many wins you have. This does not affect your standings or any race-related aspects, just that every once in a while, everyone around you will sound like idiots as you get congratulated on a win twice in a row. There are minor glitches and bugs like this sprinkled around the game, making the experience unintentionally funny.
There are a few places in the game where it seems the developers had minor blind spots. For example, in a game so heavily focused on the beauty of the cars, the showcase mode is needlessly limited and difficult to use. Camera angles are carefully restrained to angles that won't let you break the illusion by getting too close to the car, and controls for the camera are obtuse and overly sensitive. Every time I showcased a car, I'd get the urge to take a dramatic picture, and be denied my desired shot thanks to the walled-off camera. Even with the tempting capability of custom livery and the GPU-crushing weather effects to dress up a scene, I miss the freedom to capture that scene just the way I want to. Which is a pity, because off the top of my head I can think of some epic camera angles that would look absolutely incredible with the kinds of weather effects this game can provide. Although really, this is another mild quibble considering the depth and accessibility this game has to offer gamers overall. I would imagine that a few focused patches can remedy this, although the fact that we must weather things that could have been easily caught with a few weeks of playtesting is disheartening on it's own level. At least it isn't the flaming trainwreck that is the recent release of Batman: Arkham Knight, so there's that.
Graphics/Sound
If you've been paying any attention at all to pCARS, you should know by now that one of the reasons it was getting so much attention was the ambitious nature of the graphics. Well, the graphics are most certainly ambitious, as the game is wholeheartedly earning its reputation as the "Crysis of racers." The breathtaking dynamic weather effects deserve top billing here, as the rain, fog, mist, and thunderstorms roll in and out with a smoothness and realism that I don't believe I've ever seen in any game before. As you careen through corners, you'll dimly register the fact that the sun is slowly being swallowed up by clouds. While you thread in and out of hairpin turns, fog will envelop the track, hiding the dangers lurking around the next turn. Once the raindrops begin smattering on your windshield in a long straight, you'll marvel in the beauty of the glorious reflections as everything around you takes on a wet sheen. The rain effects definitely tax even the most robust machine, and for any rig that can pull it off, the end result is a fireworks display of beautiful things to look at. As far as I can tell, the more wintery weathers are still absent, which is a shame, but not unexpected. As far as the garage is concerned, while pCARS doesn't have the sheer number of cars on offer as mainstream games, what it does offer is refined to an obsessive quality. Each road rocket in the game can have as many as 300,000 polygons which makes these things the most exquisitely detailed digital racers ever. Vehicle interiors are beautifully appointed and whipping through an s-curve while light rays stream in through the windshield and gleam off the chrome accents is a particularly special treat. The fact that it has taken this long for a racing game to push the boundaries of what are considered cutting-edge graphics is the true shame. One can only hope that pCARS has successfully set the bar for all other racing games to follow. Just from watching the game in action myself, I can't see how we can ever go back.
Yes, two in a row this time...this game looks that good.
Tell me that's not delicious...
The music...oh deity-of-choice, the music...I really hate to continually make comparisons to GT and Forza, but this is such a striking difference between the mainstream games on offer, the comparison actually helps to illustrate what I'm getting at. Anyone who has played either Microsoft or Sony's flagship racing titles knows that the music in those games ranged from the forgettable to the atrocious. The frenetic jazz numbers found in the Turismo series and the disjointed pop-lounge music that perforated the Forza games are gone. In place is an epic, adrenaline-pumping score that incorporates the best bits of a full classical symphony, a male/female choir, and electric guitars and rock drums. As you choose your car and track, or just flip between options pages, the music will steadily build, urging you to stuff your pasty melon into a crash helmet as soon as possible. The upward energy of the tunes constantly evokes a feeling of speed, or at least the thirst for it. As I tried on different paint jobs and track layouts, the quick symphonic movements combined with the rock/metal elements to actually paint a mental image of me ripping through a tunnel at top speed in some jet black envy machine. As the music added layer upon layer of audible awesome, I felt a mild panic that I wasn't already racing. Without a doubt, the music in this game is keyed to putting you in the moment that lies just on the other side of the loading screen...the moment you find yourself sitting in a badass car, engines all around you are revving, and a bunch of red lights are counting down. pCARS knows that moment is what every racer--digital or flesh and blood--looks forward to, that that moment waiting for the flag to drop is the culmination of all the preparation that came before. More than anything though, it is that adrenaline-soaked purgatory of not yet knowing if all the preparation will be rewarded with a spot on the podium. From the incredible musical score to the pulse-quickening tone that goes along with the light tree, the sounds this game offers are mostly spot on. Okay, mostly. There are a few rough edges in the sound department, mainly the sound of engines. I've heard some great samples of engine noise, and I've heard terrible samples. pCARS falls somewhere in the middle. Perhaps upper-middle. By and large, the engine and other car sounds are very nice, particularly considering that engine noise is the sound equivalent to fire in video games, it is such a subtle thing that faithfully reproducing it is tricky. At the end of the day though, when you're scrabbling around a turn at 70 miles an hour (112 Kph for you silly metric types), you'll hardly notice when the engine sounds a little like a cardboard cutout because when taken as a whole, the immersion this game offers can weather a rough edge or two.
Story
I will say that this game has a more robust story than many racing games, although that story is told more through your victories than through any plot device. Considering the main competition are games that have nearly no story at all, I'd have to give the nod to pCARS, as it takes the story and allows the player to invest as much or as little of themselves in the goings-on as they desire while preserving the feel of a true racing sim. Granted, in the grand scheme of things, a storyline for a racing game seems a bit superfluous. With the exceptions of games such as the first NFS: Most Wanted--where you played among a cast of unique characters and raced through a mostly straightforward plot--a deeply involved story really doesn't need to be an integral part of a competent racing game. This is why pCARS not only gets credit for trying, but gets extra credit for making the story something that feels like a natural part of the racing experience. If I'm a serious up-and-coming race rookie, you're damn right I'm going to be focused on my news feed and sponsor inbox. Of course, as touched on above, you aren't given the freedom to be anyone you want to be, especially if you want to be someone who had extremely vulgar parents, but as shown...there are ways around that too. I will say that watching young Meatstick Bonelove and his intrepid race crew fight their way to success comes with the appropriate warm-fuzzy whenever you see your little MeatBone's name on a shiny new trophy. Isn't that what a story is supposed to facilitate? I just hope the next patch fixes the repetitive news entries, the glaring typos, and the far too wooden emails. I mean, if this is what we have to work with, let's polish it up, mmm'kay?
Beer
Spaten Optimator. Never put it past a German brewery to make a beer that has seemingly been named after a second-string Transformers character. Also never put it past a German brewery to ensure that that same ridiculously-named brewski would be surprisingly good, notwithstanding the fact that not long ago, we were reviewing a German beer from the world's oldest brewery to a positive result. To say the Germans have a handle on this beering thing is an understatement. Again, to be fair, we are speaking about a country that not only gave birth to the modern brewing process, but is routinely known for mind-bending feats of perfection. To assume one is in a safe harbor beerologically speaking is likely a safe one. If you'd like a fun exercise in typing, try emailing the makers of Spaten Optimator, who all work at the wonderfully long-winded Spaten-Franziskaner-Brau. Yes I typed that by hand, yes it sucks, and I only wished there had been more hyphens. At any rate, what the talented employees of Spa-Fra-Bra have come up with in Spaten Optimator is a dark, meaty beer that is welcome in my fridge any day. I realize that I'm extending my hearty endorsement before I've given myself a chance to qualify any of it, so, spoiler alert. Also, if I take the time to type something unwieldy in connection with the beer, it generally means it's gonna be good. Case-in-point, Spa-Fra-Bra. Yes, I love typing that, yes I feel clever. Let's continue.Smell
I smell hoppiness, but not the Nu-hop that screams out of modern IPAs. This is a calmer hop, sweeter, with a strong roastiness that will satisfy anyone with a palate for Guinness. This is much fruitier though, with a streak of caramel that makes this olfactory excursion take a turn for the Willy Wonka. While the sweetness may put off certain drinkers, it is definitely an odor that once gotten used to is a wonderful precursor to the taste. This is a beer that is definitely designed to be enjoyed fully, and one that brings with it a greater satisfaction as more senses are added to the process of drinking. Many drinkers may scoff at the notion of putting a beer to one's nose and sniffing at it like wine, but truly, to the individuals making these brews, it is a tradition of excellence. It is another metric by which to measure the success of a specific batch (or in the case of Four Loko and cohorts, a way to determine toxicity...). In Spaten, there is a truth and clarity in the smell, and with a good whiff comes an understanding of what this beer is going to offer the taste buds.
Taste
The taste is quite expected as long as you were paying attention to the smell. This beer truly has a marriage of taste and smell, and while one would take it for granted that the two properties are always intertwined, Spaten seems to weave them into a particularly tight agreement. The taste at first is very bitter, seeming to cut in right as the sweet body of the smell is filling the nose much like someone who cannot goddamn wait to get on the airplane first. Once the bitter line-cutting subsides, the taste takes on the roasted caramel which helps to reinforce that first whiff of sweet, like having the line-cutter sit in front of you and aiming your air vent at the back of his head and turning it on full blast. Nothing says sweet, caramel-coated revenge like a frozen bald-spot. At the very end, the fruity aftertaste sits on the tongue like an obedient pet, waiting for the next drink to start the ride all over again. The nice thing about an aftertaste such as this is the fruity nature, it avoids the trap of the dry, beery tang that most beers seem to give. The figgy hints are muted enough so they don't clash with any food, and the creamy backbone that fuses all the different elements is a pleasure to coat one's tasters with. I will say that the pronounced flavor can get overwhelming after too long, and the richness may limit this as a beer that only sees one or two rounds for many drinkers. Overall though, the taste is nicely balanced for those who tend toward the darker taps.
Intoxication
Optimator, being an extremely rich dopplebock, has a very stout 7.6% abv. This means all that creamy, sweet, roasted flavor was hiding a dark secret, a secret that seeps into your body and makes you do extremely ill advised things. This dark secret will slither into your bones, and you will dance to music only you can hear. The dark secret will also whisper that you're so much more handsome than you really are, while coating your eyes with a thick layer of distorted reality. Some may have met this dark secret in the past, and trust me, Optimator is easy enough to drink that this particular pond of intoxication can get deep alarmingly fast. You'll start with a slight warmth in the chest, owing to the higher-than-average alcohol content. That warmth will soon spread directly to your arms, making you look like Kermit the Frog trying to pick up a beer bottle. After you have the hand-eye-coordination of a brain-damaged orangutan, the alcohol will merrily go to work in your frontal lobe, where the possibility of forgetting your own name becomes a concern. There is a merry feeling of recklessness that comes with higher levels of intoxication, but that is likely long past the point you have been of any amusement to those around you. And really by that time, you'll be about as threatening to the bouncer as a Muppet, and everyone will likely enjoy what happens next. As always, I urge you...don't be in the next "drunk fails" compilation on YouTube, drink intelligently...or...you know, don't, and be a living lesson for everyone else.
Feel
All of the words swirling above may clue you, dear reader into the fact that this beer is very creamy and full bodied. It is, and gloriously so. It rolls slowly out of the bottle and seems to coat like cough syrup with a lazy but welcome fizz that prevents it from becoming too heavy. Although, dopplebocks such as this have been known for centuries as "meals in a mug," so when I'm saying too heavy, really, the scale of comparison may as well start with "runny concrete." Now, despite such fancy language, the bottom line is that the feel is nicely balanced with a healthy lean to the thick side. Not only is this fairly in line with the well-known Guinness Extra Stout, but it may perfectly describe some peoples' preferences toward the opposite sex. If I need to explain why that automatically makes this beer awesome, you obviously haven't been reading long, welcome to Games 'N Beer, enjoy your stay. At any rate, all told, this beer has a thick but satisfying feel that accompanies both the taste and the alcohol content in superlative style. While the unabashed level of indulgence this mix has may hold back prolonged drinking, the time that's spent with this beer is assured to be a good one. I will say that the viscosity of this beer does not lend itself to physical activity, especially once it has settled in the gut, so bear that little factoid in mind as you go bar hopping.
The Matchup
On the one hand, we have a game that is engineered from the ground up to be a densely packed racing sim with a meaty feel at every turn. On the other, we have a beer that is truly hearty and richly flavorful. I couldn't have made a better matchup if I'd tried. Not only are they cosmic twins aesthetically, but they are each striving for excellence in their own field, attempting to stand out among the mediocre masses. While each property succeeds and fails in small ways, it's obvious a great deal of attention was paid to the underlying mechanics of both, meaning the finished product is still quite good in spite of some rough edges. pCARS is a good example of how a new property can burst onto the scene, surprising and pleasing fans, while Optimator is a fine example of an incredibly long bred heritage that can bear fruit of particular beauty. While both are to a certain degree, an acquired taste, both are a fine investment of both time and money for those so inclined.
Cheers/Game on.