Project CARS, the flawed but fun racing simulator is one of this months free titles on Xbox Live for Gold members. Like Forza Horizon before it it’s nice to see Microsoft providing some free games for us gear heads in the audience, especially those of us that like to challenge ourselves with a bit of a more hardcore sim than the Forza games. I’ve spent some time with the game recently, so more thoughts after the jump.
Slightly Mad studios, the developers of Project CARS cut their teeth with EA developing two sim focused Need for Speed titles, and if you ever spent time with those two games you’ll no doubt find their DNA all over their newest game. From the engine to the UI it’s very much a Slightly Mad game, which isn’t a bad thing, but can take a bit of getting used to. I found myself having to start off on a much slower car just to get familiar with the way cars handled again. Trying to jump immediately into a Formula car will leave you nothing but frustrated, especially on a controller.
Even as frustrating as the game can be you can be sure that when you do get things right you’ll feel a major sense of accomplishment, overwhelmingly so when you finally master something like an old Turbo F1 car. That and with plenty of free new cars on offer, and other DLC you’ll be sure to have tons more to play with once you finish your time with the main game. At the low, low price of free I can’t recommend the game enough, especially if it didn’t grab you the first time around.