Assetto Corsa Review - Quality over Quantity

Assetto Corsa isn’t your standard racing game. Sure, the whole point of it is the same as any other racing game but with a focus on realism and simulation. In fact, even the game considers itself a simulator more than anything, heavily favoring quality over quantity, something that may be a turn off for some players.

 

Assetto Corsa greets you with a very basic menu; no music and no fancy animations. From here you get to pick whether you want to practice, set up a race, continue your career or take on the world online. These are an acceptable amount of game modes for a racing game, and the special events section challenges you to race in different events and conditions which adds some variety. First of all, if you are anything like myself, the first game mode you really want to check out is career mode. Unfortunately for fans of climbing the ranks against AI opponents, Assetto Corsa’s career mode is easily the weakest one. The idea of starting from the bottom and rising to the top is still there; you are only allowed to race in the lowest league at the start and, as you complete enough races and challenges, you unlock higher tier leagues with faster and more powerful cars.

Each league has about five or six events in which you can partake in, usually an even mix of races or time trials. Being a hardcore racing simulator, Assetto Corsa’s events are tough to say the least; time trials require you to be very precise and races are a test of endurance and pace as one mistake can easily knock you back to last place. Whilst you don’t have to arrive first or achieve a ridiculously fast time to pass, some of these events are too tough to even complete. Even after going back to the lowest league after some practice I still wasn’t able to complete all the events.

This is also where Assetto Corsa shows its greatest weakness: variety. I got bored of  the career mode rather quickly; if we compare it to the career mode in Forza or Gran Turismo, there is a severe lack of content. Forza and GT have hundreds of cars to unlock and customise, races and events of varying skill level and some sort of reward system. Assetto Corsa has none of that. At the moment of writing this review, Assetto Corsa has 41 cars and 15 tracks to chose from which means that repetition is a big problem. You’ll be racing with the same cars on the same tracks for a very long time in career mode and even the more hardcore players are likely to get bored of attempting the same race again and again.

 

After being disappointed by the game’s lackluster career, I decided to just fool around with some ridiculously powerful cars in practice mode and maybe try out a few events with some of the faster cares. This is where Assetto Corsa shows its very best. Driving a La Ferrari feels phenomenal; you can feel the power behind the car as it quickly accelerates and how it nervously twitches as soon as you budge the steering wheel. Everything about the driving in Assetto Corsa feels accurate and authentic, the sound design is particularly impressive which makes the game that much more immersive. This is the kind of game you want to play with headphones on - and the volume all the way up. The sound of the engine revving up, gravel kicking against the back of your car and tyres screeching under the pressure of a sharp corner all feel like music.

When you look at all the attention to detail, you realize why there are such few cars available in the game at the moment: every car was very carefully simulated down to the smallest detail so that they drive exactly as they would in real life. Obviously, I can’t confirm that fact, having never driven any of these cars, let alone in race conditions, but Assetto Corsa does an excellent job at making it feel like it should.

The online multiplayer works fine: a standard server browser is used to find the type of experience you want and the game offers some nice features to customize your server - including a booking feature to organize proper organized races. Lag didn’t seem like an issue in the few matches that I played, but the people who are online tend to be rather good and don’t mess around. It’s really a place to compete rather than joke around, and the nice community allows for proper racing instead of bumper cars.

Graphically, Assetto Corsa is quite impressive, featuring detailed car models and interiors. Where the game could use some extra work is in the tracks and visual effects departments, both of which feel a bit underwhelming. One glaring omission is the lack of damage simulation - when you crash your car, neither the performance nor the aesthetic of the car are affected. Whilst this isn’t mandatory, especially in a game in which you would probably hit restart as soon as something doesn’t go your way, it is an important part of many racing games and it’s a shame that this feature is lacking.

 

Without a doubt, Assetto Corsa features some of the most realistic and authentic driving in any racing game out there that I’ve played. The biggest issue with the game is the fact that, Assetto Corsa is, at its core, a simulator more than a game. Therefore, whilst the driving is second to none, the lack of features and, more importantly, the lack of vehicles and tracks as well as a proper and accessible career mode makes this game very difficult to recommend to casual racing game fans. In addition to this, the menus and navigation in the game isn’t exactly intuitive and all the options and statistics that are available can be very overwhelming to the average player.

Finding the right balance between arcade and simulation in a racing game is always a tough job to do. Even as a fan of the more simulation oriented racing games, I found Assetto Corsa to be slightly too focused on simulating everything to the letter rather than providing an enjoyable experience for all.  This isn’t a negative point at all, however, it does largely restrict the amount of people who would be interested to play such a game. If you want to experience the most accurate and authentic driving experince, get yourself a steering wheel and get ready to have your racing dreams come true. If, however, you like your racing games to be accessible and packed with content, Assetto Corsa is not for you.