I regret not getting all the dlc. I kept waiting for a sale then one day boom! Game gone. I still enjoy pcars2 solo in vr. I think its a great experience. Thank you for the video dave. Peace✌️
Still one of my main go to VR games and I love the ffb on the Fanatec wheel. Sad to have no one in the lobbies anymore and yes, I believe people are missing a great game that deserves a revisit.
I picked this up on pc years ago for a few dollars. My pc was never good enough to run it properly, so I played on console where I remembered it having good physics underpinning. I returned to it a few months ago and it's now my favorite circuit racer. I think the physics are really good and ffb is really good with some tweaking (I actually prefer vanilla to ffb mods, but vanilla has some weird bugs like curbs pulling the wheel too hard). The physics bend just slightly arcade, mostly an over exaggeration of grip, but it makes for a more enjoyable drive that I'm not constantly dancing on the transition from grip to understeer. The cars have a great weight to them and you can really push them hard. I didn't get into online racing or hot lapping, I know there are tuning exploits and such, but for a solo experience it really is good. Many cars benefit from some tuning tweaks. I will argue with anyone that it has the best rally physics of any modern title. The cars have such a good feeling of weight and weight transfer. The differentials and tires and suspension all feel so natural and those cars make wicked sounds. If I could get those car models and physics with some proper stages, it would finally dethrone Richard burns rally. I think the graphics have really held up too. The car models, lighting effects, the whole thing. Weather effects are especially good. The only faults are with older textures, especially in off track elements. But, I'll say I much prefer cars 2 Bathurst over ams2 Bathurst. Ams2 the track feels empty. I cars 2 you've got grandstand and billboards and the heat waves off the tarmac. What a gem of a game. I still play ams, ams2, raceroom, and acc depending on what type of car I want to drive, but since I mainly play offline, pcars 2 is where I spend my time now.
Unlike vanilla AC, this sim always felt like you had actual rubber tires under the car thanks to the SETA tire model. CSP fixed this for AC but IMO PC2 was better off the shelf, and probably the most complete racing sim ever made.
Good video! I agree with a lot of your points. No game has ever captured the atmosphere of being at a race track like PC 1&2. The selection of lesser used race cars and tracks was awesome, and made it stand out from titles like Forza Motorsport. I even bought the full edition of PC2 on Xbox with all of the DLC's because i believed it would be a top tier game. But when i hit the track however, all of this just faded as i couldn't understand the physics model. I like competitive racing, thus being on the limit of what a car can do. Project Cars however doesn't simulate this well enough for me to understand. I was constantly spinning and flipping the car whenever i tried to push to a certain limit. If Project Cars had the Assetto Corsa physics engine, it would've been the best sim racing title out there. With weather, easy to use ui and a good selection of cars and tracks. Project Cars could've been like a very heavily modded Assetto straight out of the box. What a shame.
This is in part because SMS screwed up by adding a new tyre model without removing the old one, it causes the game to randomly switch between the 2 and cause the weird handling effects. Reiza who paid for kernal level access and the rights to adapt or change the game engine code actually solved this for AMS2, though AMS2 does feel floaty and slidey atm their V1.6 update due soon DOES address this issue. Trust me, Myself and 100's of others have been testing this update for the last 4 months to get it ready and functional for launch. Reiza's approach and dedication to chasing perfection is why AMS2 has player ratings of 92.22% positive right now, only getting beaten by ACC and AC with 92.30% and 92.46% respectively. Whilst PC2 has just 80.99% and PC3 a mere 54.01%. A dev team that was just 25 people with a revenue of $400,000 when they started AMS2, has run rings around SMS with 185 staff and $41,000,000 revenue and even Codemasters with 750+ staff and a revenue of over $85,000,000, making BOTH companies look like amateurs... SMS abandoned PC2 and f****d up PC3 completely, destroying SMS and Codemasters to the point both had to sell (SMS to Codemasters in late 2019 and then Codemasters sold themselves to EA in early 2021). Though SMS and Codemasters had ruined several franchises by running them into the ground, Grid, PCars, Dirt, alongside creating Fast and Furious Crossroads, net result is EA have been trying to sell themselves or merge with the likes of Apple, Amazon, Disney and Comcast-NBCUniversal just to be told "GET TAE F**K!". Makes a change for EA to get robbed for once!
After PC2 became discontinued , I was newer and didn't know anything about PC2. So I searched for a Steam Key and found a deluxe version and a Eastern add on as well. So I loaded it into my Steam account and viola , it works perfect. I'm running this in 4K, Just recently I started to observe the FFB setting. I'm running a Fanatec GT-DD pro with a CS 2.5 RIM with Podium paddles. For pedals I'm running a full set of VRS Now the FFB felt not so good when I'd try to turn it up a bit within game settings. After further review within the game's settings I discovered three modes of operation being RAW , Custom, and Immersive. Of the three "Immersive" with all the games settings to Max changed everything! With all my Fanatec's GT-DD base unit settings maxed out the game feels so smooth and I can actually feel the tires rolling along the pavement. I can feel everything sliding if or when I break loose when hitting the throttle. In Custom mode when I'd try to turn it up it felt mike it could damage my wheel base as it felt most unpleasant. I've been so impressed with these VRS pedals too that I am building a VRS wheel base to jump from 8NM to 20NM. I couldn't believe the difference. In Custom mode I thought it was maybe because the sim is older and left behind, but in Immersive mode, my gear rides FFB better than any sim I've driven. I was having trouble setting up one of the F1 rides as I kept breaking loose and the car was fighting me! But after I set my gear up in Immersive mode then the car's settings in the garage were better dealt with and made sense. I can't believe how it's handling now. It's sad that some Mod squad hasn't jumped into PC2 and worked with it like AC. Too bad licensing laws discontinued this sim. Now days large companies want to sell to a larger market as opposed to a sim market so we get sim-cade. I still found some live online racing at the Ring "Nurburgring" a few weeks ago.
Project CARS 2 was really special, it had things a lot of sims still don't have (the stuff you mentioned with weather, the choice of tracks, cars etc.) and it was also drivable with a controller if you can't afford a wheel. It's a shame. I would still do some racing, championships and in general produce content including even making car skins, but without a community for the game it's not really worth it anymore. The 3rd installment of the series ultimately killed it and yeah, you cannot buy pCARS 2 in 2024. Well, at least we can still turn it on whenever we want.
Give AMS2 a try dude, it's what PC2 SHOULD have been, it also adds over 40 YEARS worth of weather data into the mix and the devs fixed flaws SMS never bothered with...
I was an original 'notInvestor'. We were not screwed out of anything. We voted on key decisions including extending release dates and changing release platforms.
@@1PHXTHUG About a 3x return on the first game, so 5 figures hit my bank account over the course of about 3 years (even after pC2 released). The FSA (UK government) made it difficult to repeat the WMD crowdfunding model for the 2nd game (remember this was before Kickstarter existed). Signups to WMD2 (for pCARS2) made it clear that there would be no returns, which was fine. Steam early access didn't exist back then, for the price of the game you got all of the pre-alpha builds and the ability to discuss the direction of the game and see how it was created, a very worthwhile deal imo. I learnt a lot about game development.
Project Cars 2 is beautiful and lovable, and like you said, at least to me, it has it all - weather changes, day and night (real or accelerate), you can even do long races and have the AI take over for you for a while. So many kinds of cars, kinds of tracks. And lets not forget Long Beach - enough said. I got in "late" in 2018, so I never had the experience of being let down with the first one. But I'm always amazed that the big "streamers" always dump on 2.
Oh sorry, quick add. My only gripe with project cars 2 is when I go around corners, if I mess up, even the tiniest bit, I very easily wipe out all over the place and crash off the track.
AMS2, from where I sit doesn't compare to the driving action within PC2. With my gear in PC2 I can feel the tires on the track surface. I can feel the car drift a bit or break loose. In AMS2 it feels like I'm driving on a wet track on a sunny day half the time. People tell me that PC2 is Arcade compared to AMS2. I say Bullshit. I think it also depends on the gear your using and setting both your gear + the set up from the garage.AMS2 has improved but even one other thing I also noticed too... racing on Imola in PC2 or RaceRoom or iracing, the track is long and fast. In AMS2 "Imola" the straights are shorter and turn radius's are smaller or tighter. Totally weird feeling. It's like two different tracks.
After PC1/PC2 "killed" by EA , I was lucky to buy Steam keys for both games. I've played AC, ACC, Forza Motorsport, AMS2, and WRC, but PC1/PC2 are truly interesting and are the two racing games I've spent the most time on. However, the unfortunate end and the rocky development process of Project CARS make me doubt whether Ian Bell can genuinely dedicate himself to the players with the upcoming GTRevival, haha.
I think although your point has merit, Project Cars 1 was fully featured and nothing except some cars and tracks were missing /not featured. There was dlc and insure there was stuff that probably due to time constraints they couldn't include, which turned up in 2,it the game had massive bugs no weather etc then I think your argument would hold up. Personally both are fantastic esp in VR with beautiful cockpits and weather.. Yeah ffb was off but everyone got their monies worth
What happened to soft lock on pc1 and 2 nothing matches your wheel input on pc don't know about consoles. If the engines the same for AMS 2 then why can't someone come up with the fix for pc2?
I agree love it and the only game iv got that I found that I can use my controller since my stering wheel packed up I'm going to get the moza r3 that's good enough for me to play on my xbox one s my daughter gave my love the menu so easy on project cars 2 love it now controller setup right the disc lives in my xbox love it project cars 3 was horrible want moza r3 now for my other car games I got you need wheen for them really
Project cars 1 was brilliant at the time and very popular,so many variations of cars/tracks,despite bugs and poor default settings. Shame they didn't learn with pcars2 release, many players I raced with played once and never again. Was so hyped for pcars 3 to become the ultimate racing game/sim, reading the pr guff was very disappointing. they had the chance to have there game rise to the top ahead of Forza/gran turismo but they blew it.
And to add I found out about the ginetta jr races from pc2, if you want to watch some entertaining racing pull up some ginetta jr races on youtube, those young kids give it all they got on track.
F355 challenge cars are amazing. Group b and rallycross are some of the best mixed surface physics you can find. Gt4 and gt3, the skyline time attack car, btc cars... There's very few bad cars. The little one 100hp clios are pretty terrible tons of lift off oversteer)
PC1 and PC2 were both good, PC2 being the better game....I hear AC EVO will have dynamic weather... advertising it like its a hard thing thats never been done...
@@jamesrather1510 on the contrary, AMS 2 has custom championships.....PC2 does not. So you can make your own career mode, heck, even just copy the PC2 career mode ladder into AmS 2. Man o man, the lack of custom championships in PC2 is probably my biggest frustration with PC2, even more than the few bad cars and whatnot. Eventually running single races gets old, and you've done the same limited career mode many times over. It would be nice to have championships for the historical classes that did not get championships in the career mode. It would be nice to do tracks in a championship that were not in career mode. But you can't, because there is no custom championships. But with AMS 2 and custom championships, I can do whatever I want. Choose any points system I want, any track in any order I want, at whatever time of day or weather I want, or even all random if I wanted. Heck, even the skins in AMS 2 can all be replaced for real skins or whatever you want. One frustrating thing in PC2 is it has so many cars in some of the racing classes that when you do a race, the game automatically picks only a few of the cars and you get a bunch of duplicates or different teams of the same car instead of racing against every car in the class, and you just got to restart over and over until you randomly get a good variety of cars in the class. And good luck trying to do a custom championship yourself in PC2 using the single race mode, because you're gonna get a random pick of which cars you are against and random pick of skins. It kinda makes it practically impossible to do a custom championship yourself without the feature. If we had custom championship feature, or simply the ability to choose the cars & skins you race against in single race moden(enabling you to create a custom championship yourself somewhat) then I would have MORE HOURS on PC2 than ANY other sim most likely. I really really really love the old GT, Group, and Prototype cars in PC2. But not all of them have a championship in career mode, and for the ones that do, well it gets old after doing it so many times on the same tracks in the same order at the same time with the same weather. Those historic cars are on another level. Even Assetto cords doesn't have mods for them all, and even then, AC just does not have the weather or ai pitstop/endurance system that PC2 has. AC AI is terrible for pits and endurance races, that you basically might as well not do it unless you have hours and hours to waste to get the AI to somewhat simulate a real full length race with realistic seeming strategy's. Too bad the community for this game is not really around anymore. I still hold on to some hope that we will get custom championship mod PC 2.
In terms of graphics and sound it was great, but the physics were really bad and not realistic at all.. it was a simcade at best. PC1 was better in terms of physics than PC2.
the 'simulator' you say was a 'great racing game' (and i use the term simulator extremely loosely) was not a sim by ANY STRETCH. it had almost NO VEHICLE DYNAMICS that correlate to reality in any way. the suspension tuning did almost nothing to the 'handling' and 'feel' of the vehicle in game rather only adjusted feel of forcefeedback in the wheel. it was a joke. the suspension tuning SHOULD HAVE adjusted the in game VEHICLE DYNAMICS when in truth was just a placebo to making the wheel feel different. SHOULD HAVE made the roll and heave visual cues different. BUT since you say 'great racing game' none of what i said matters to you. like the arcade game of pole position. as long as you can race you don't care.
Huh...No wonder the game has felt pretty good and fun as a newcomer to sims. I guess that's the result of not sacrificing the experience of people like me in favor of the tiny niche of pretentious purists. 😁
