rFactor review

Image Space Incorporated, better known as Isi is mostly known for its F1 games published by EA. When Sony bought the license for F1 games – basically to stop its games from looking like a joke in comparison with the competition – it meant the end for Isi’s engagements at EA. Luckily, I’m tempted to say, because Isi’s small garage project rFactor may very well be the fresh blood the sim-racing scene needs.

A small racing game

rFactor is a new game in a long range of quality games from Isi. This time it's upgraded the game engine with the latest graphical advancements, using DirectX 9. There are seamless transitions between night and day to make long-term races more realistic; the sound and the program handling it are brand new as is the tyre modelling. Add to that a huge number of car types; different careers and some shiningly new and well working net code.

The first thing that greets you when starting the game is the new interface. Here you select nationality; the colour of your helmet and in what racing league to compete. This brings us elegantly to the new career portion.

Who wants to drive an old wreck anyway

Right in the middle of the positive impression I find the career portion to be uninspiring. It’s worth noting that the crew behind Project Gotham racing 2 concluded that 70 percent of players never made it past the third chapter of the total 14 in the game (Edge Magazine September 2005). Why Isi would force us to play a career portion that hardly fulfils the basic requirements is a mystery.

You can choose to either start a Formula career or a sports car career. If you opt for the latter you’ll start out with three different types of cars. A Hammer that looks like powerful Ford Mustang but drives like a has-been race horse; a ZR which is reminiscent of a Mazda 323 in appearance, though quite entertaining to drive and finally there’s the Rhez, which mostly resembles a Renault Clio but handles like a lawnmower.

Accountant on four wheels

Every car in the game can be upgraded. Every time you participate in a race or a season you earn money and experience – which applies to both online and offline. Problem is, though, that the moneymaking becomes a goal in itself, and in a way that reduces you from being a race car driver to a mere accountant with a mission.

Since the artificial intelligence controlling the other cars is mostly more artificial than intelligent, it can be a bit boring collecting money. The AI controls the other cars fairly well under normal conditions and defends itself with a touch of drama. But it goes overboard sometimes when, for instance, the opponents abandon their racing line to prevent you from overtaking in places where sensible drivers wouldn’t dream of overtaking anyway.

Full blooded Formula racers

Sports cars are obviously really cool when they are maxed out in upgrades and the most powerful in the bunch, Howston, is a real challenge to manoeuvre around the track. But Isi, being a former Formula 1 game developer, also gives us the opportunity to drive Formula cars.

You start out in a practice car which can be upgraded like the sports cars. It has enough power to make it fun to drive and at the same time it’s very challenging. Eventually you’ll be able to afford a full blooded Formula IS that pretty much looks like a F1 car, and that one really kicks ass. The controls are super accurate but unfortunately the game shows some limitation in the track design. The Formula cars are simply too fast for the tracks included in the game.

Homemade racing circuits

The tracks are all fictional and only the large oval with its infield race track suits the powerful Formula racers well. But all five tracks are made with a lot of creativity and have different configurations that ought to challenge most people. There are two ovals; a small bullring where drivers inspired by the American style can spend a lot of time. The large oval is very similar to Daytona though it might actually be closer to California Speedway with its wide race track.

The regular circuit at infield is inspired by Indianapolis Motorspeedway. Here, drivers must decide whether they’ll drive with low downforce, which increases speed in the oval, or high downforce which increases speed in the infield section.

The real racing circuits have a lot of topographic differences and challenging twists and turns. The many challenging brake sections allow for plenty of overtaking opportunities. I almost get the feeling that the tracks have too many highlight zones.

Physics 101

rFactor has a completely updated physics engine with 15 degrees of freedom. For all I care they might as well have written 15 extremely aliased gizmotrons in its feature list. That would have made just as little sense to me. What I DO know about, however, is what it feels like when I’m behind the wheel and on this point I am very pleased with the game.

I’m specifically happy with the accurate conveying of gravity and weight dispersion in the cars. Even the Formula cars feel right in terms of gravity as opposed to many other games where the cars often feel two-dimensional.

Tires are also modelled better than in previous Isi games and you definitely need to watch the temperature if you don’t want an ugly surprise. Unfortunately I don’t think the tires are as realistically modelled as in Simbin’s GTR and GT Legends – the latter is designed with the same game engine. This is probably due to the fact that tires are at the centre of Simbin’s focus and it’s certainly also the tire modelling that have been Simbin’s claim to fame.

DirectX9, finally

The graphics in the game are spectacular. The tracks in the game look real and are highly detailed; the seamless transition between day and night is impressive and of course you can speed up the time so you don’t have to drive for 12 hours consecutively. Isi does need to tweak the headlights a bit, since right now they don’t light up far enough to be useful in night races.

Textures have never been Isi’s strong side. I think that tracks and cars look very good, though the cockpits in the sports cars are too low in detail and are generally uninspiring to look at.

All this does mean you need a pretty new graphics card to get the most out of your game, but if you don’t have a state of the art card, don’t despair – rFactor has the option of running in DirectX8. This will not give you as much eye candy but at least your fps go up.

Sound please!

I’m not too happy with sound in the game. It sort of lacks the potency that GTR and GT Legends possess, but you have to give credit to Simbin’s huge work in the sound department of their games. But at least Isi have a better taste in menu music as opposed to Simbin taking trashy Euro-pop to a new low.

What I’d like in rFactor is some better differentiating between the single elements in the overall sound scheme, so that you can actually listen for audio cues as to when for instance your tires block etc. I tweaked some of the game files to get some more out of the sound but such tedious work shouldn’t be necessary for the ordinary user.

The best multiplayer in the world?

Yup – big words for sure, but it really seems that Isi has provided the best net code ever for a racing game. Where previous games from Isi have suffered from hopeless online components this is apparently no longer a problem. Lag is very rare and is basically nothing you need to worry about. And this is all good news since rFactor is primarily an online racing game, and it simply sets new standards for the genre.

Not everything is pure joy, however; not all tracks support all 30 different cars that can be in an online session. And instead of closing for new players, everyone is allowed to join the party which means that if there are 30 cars on a circuit that only have room for 20 the race can’t be started, since the game insists on placing the rear cars on top of each other. This is a minor problem, though, that ought to be easily solved by an alert admin for the respective online session.

One has to bear in mind that multiplayer bugs are often not discovered until after some time so we have to consider the possibility that new problems can surface in the future. But right now everything looks fine.

Modmakers’ heaven

All that has been mentioned up until now isn’t what make rFactor truly great. No, what makes rFactor so good is its open architecture that is every modmaker’s dream come true. In many games developers have been almost terrified of users fiddling with their racing games. The explanation can be anything from licensing problems to downright pettiness and the community has been frustrated about this. It seems like rFactor brings new times because users can really play around with creating new content for the game.

rFactor hadn’t been out for more than a week before the community had created a really great Formula 3 mod and it will be exciting to see what other mods the community will come up with and see if they’ll keep the game alive long after it would have been obsolete.

A small game with huge possibilities

You might ask why the game only receives a grade of eight when I’ve spent the review showering it with praise. I have taken into consideration that rFactor is a small game with a bad career portion; mediocre AI and a phenomenal multiplayer component.

rFactor shouldn’t really be viewed as a stand-alone game but as a platform for modifications. It’s brave of Isi to return to something similar to the garage spirit for which the makers of Live for Speed are also known for, when Isi has been associated with such a huge distributor as EA. This takes some guts and I have to give them my respect for that.

The game still lacks aspects such as changing weather, but as far as I have understood it’s just one of the many things Isi are still working on. rFactor isn’t a product that stands still just because it has been released on the market.

rFactor is a solid racing game with the potential to become a classic because of its open architecture, well designed physics and outstanding net code.


Source: Boomtown DK
English version by: Julian Henlov (Progrock)