Recent reviews by class800

Cars all look, feel, and sound great. Stages look great and feel real. I like that the brakes aren't OP like most other rally games. FFB could be better but it's not completly useless. Ultra settings are difficult to run, but turning everything down to medium barely makes a noticeable difference visually while drastically improving performance. Unlike other modern-ish rally games, I find myself actually wanting to drive tarmac stages, as well as older and/or non-AWD cars.

A few small things I'd like to see improved:

-I don't want to have to wait 10 seconds for a 3D scene of the car to load in the vehicle selection menu just so I can select it.
-Co driver needs to have more dynamic calls so it sounds a little less robotic. Currently it sounds like they're reading them while sitting in their living room bored, not being shaken around in a car at 80mph over bumps.
-Having the crowd scream "YEAAAAHHHH!" before you've even started the car, let alone started the stage, is amusing but also odd.

Two major issues I have:

-I am yet to find a sim with a realistic throttle model but this one is really bad. At anything other than near-full-throttle, the throttle position feels as if it's directly controlling an rpm target, and that the engine torque has a mind of its own to achieve the rpm target depending on load.
-As of right now, the biggest issue I have is that the planned driveable stage kilometres for the release version is insanely low, 120km. That's less than 10% of what EA WRC offers. There is already half that in the EA release. Driving one stage for more than about 5 times becomes about memory and perfect line optimisation, not about taking risks and really relying on the codriver. All 120km could be driven in about an hour, so let's say 5-10 hours to learn each stage to a confidence-inspiring level, or somewhere around 20 hours to lock down 90% of the corners to memory. Then what? I still recommend it as what's there is very good, but I haven't played in over a month as there's no challenge left other than grinding perfect runs to get pointless medals by shaving off hundreths of a second.

Overpriced for only 3 tracks compared to other ACC dlcs, and 2 of the 3 tracks are pretty boring. Execution and representation of all 3 is incredible though, don't get me wrong there. It's the CHOICE of tracks that I'm calling "boring". From myself and what I've read elsewhere, nearly all of us wanted/want Sebring and Road America instead.

Possibly even worse than the track selection though is that there is no option to filter the GTWC America liveries so you have no choice but to have GTWC Europe cars running at these tracks alongside, at least that I can figure out.

Further, in the track selection menu the tracks fall under the title of "track pack", whereas all other tracks to date fall under official series titles. Why not group them under "GTWC America"?

These things combined gives a really weird vibe to the dlc that makes it feel more like a few quick track imports that someone made as a mod than an official release.

Well worth the price even for the 3 out of 5 cars I'll actually use. Note that the following is a review of the user experience, i.e. any negative points I make could be reflected in the real cars too.

Audi - The least unique car in the pack as it's just an evolution of the audi's already in the game. This particular version has amazing modelling and texturing in the cockpit, and is a bit more balanced through corners (less of the entry oversteer and mid corner understeer of the previous audis). This latest version looks awesome too. Nothing exciting, just a very nice car to drive.

BMW - New sounds are always nice, which this has. Similar to a GT4, but even slower. A bit sluggish and boring to drive on its own, but great fun in a race at smaller tracks like Brands or Oulton.

Ferrari - New sounds compared to the 488 already in-game. Acceleration and speed is really noticeable (and slightly scary) out of slow speed corners. Less grip through corners than GT3s but tbh cornering pace is still better than I expected. Awesome interior and exterior modelling and texturing.

Lamborghini - Pretty boring tbh. Slow on the straights, understeery through corners, and way more balanced than the old lambo ST so it's dead easy to keep under control too. Super cool exterior model but of course you don't get to see that when you are driving.

Porsche - Highlight of the pack for me. Revamped sounds (exhaust now sounds awesome on downshifts and when the sound bounces off walls). Car looks completely different, inside and out. The main thing I like is it FEELS super fast, possibly due to a combination of audio, gear ratios, and corner-exit behaviour. Super planted through corners when throttle and brake are managed correctly, and you can get quite a controllable corner exit slide happening which is really fun to try and balance. Super fun at bumpy, walled tracks like Bathurst and Imola.

Dearly missing split screen or online multiplayer (ideally something official and less jank than beammp), but other than that can't fault it. Big updates continuing to roll out, superbly simulated cars. Pure driving physics and FFB are not quite as complex as your standard racing sim, but it's such a complete package of working parts and systems that this doesn't matter in the slightest.

Update 2025: My thoughts still stand the same, although my personal preference would be less focus on eye candy vehicle updates/new vehicles (particularly if they don't add any significant new functionality) and a bigger focus on improving the game's multi-genre capabilities. Interactive construction work, fleshing out rally more with some dedicated tracks and a more alive world, improving tyre physics, aero phsycs, component wear for racing, proper drag racing parts and physics and procedures/events, etc. Currently it's like every time they add something new, it's just a tech demo for what the game COULD do. I understand things take signifiacnt time to develop, but it feels like it's spending too much time trying to appease the " *insert car name here* remaster when?????" crowd.