360 - RACE Pro Road America Track - Details

 

Presentation is basic but absolutely fine - front-end menus are easy to navigate, each track has its own loading screen with hints and tips both for that track and for general racing and the pause menu is simple and uncluttered.  I've not looked too far into control schemes but the default is similar to that used in Forza 2 and so will be familiar to many.  You can customise throttle and brake response, throttle, brake and steering deadzone, and steering sensitivity settings for three separate stages of stick travel so it shouldn't be too hard to find settings that suit you if you find the default controls too twitchy (it seems that many do, though I personally think they're fine).

 

The frame rate is generally steady enough and while you can sometimes spot a little, brief dip it's never worse than acceptable, save for some judder and occasional pauses in replays.  Draw distance is good too, and while that tearing we were speaking of is present, I'm not seeing it frequently.  Then again, I said earlier that I don't see it frequently even when the rest of the gaming world is foaming about it, so take that for what it's worth.  The cars are pretty enough; well modelled and solid, though it'd be nice if the reflections across the hood were dynamic instead of being the same scenery no matter where you are on the track (it can be a bit strange, in hood cam, to go around a corner and have scenery from a totally different bit of the track pass across your hood) and if the resolution was a bit higher.  Still, it isn't, and it doesn't really matter.

 

The only cars I've driven so far are the Mini, WTCC cars, Formula 3000 and Radical SR3.  They're as convincing a representation of the cars as you can currently get on console, but if you're thinking that sounds daunting, you shouldn't be.  When you play some other sims cough Forza cough, some of the difficulty comes from the way the game handles basic controls.  When you give the brake a gentle squeeze you get all of the braking power in a very short amount of trigger travel, and if you use any more than a third of the left trigger's range you'll lock up.  If you've ever once had to slam the brakes on in your road car you'll know that's not how a braking system really behaves, and because Race Pro knows that too it's easier to get a basic handle on.  Same deal on the throttle - the kind of slides Forza puts you into are not all that easy to get into in the real world, whereas Race Pro feels much more natural, more intuitive.

 

The AI seem solid if polite - very keen to give me racing room, sometimes driving off the track to allow me that courtesy, and often inclined to wait behind me if I'm recovering from a mistake instead of driving past me.  I've not spent too much time around them, though, so I'm a long way from forming a definite impression of them.  The engine sounds are enough to make a car guy like me burst into song.

 

In summary: I like it very much.