PC2 Project CARS 2 Demo Released to all Platforms

[Paul Jeffrey]

Been wondering what all the fuss is about? Now you can have the chance to sample Project CARS 2 for yourself thanks to a new multi platform demo available with immediate effect!

It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to say Project CARS 2 is one of those games that causes a dramatic mix of emotions from the sim racing population, veering from the fiercely loyal defenders to those who don't hold much love for the latest Slightly Mad Studios racing game.

If you are finding the frankly confusing mix of opinions too difficult to navigate on your own then this might be a very good piece of news for you - Project CARS 2 now has its own demo, and better still it is available on all platforms that support the game, and its free... and available now!

Featuring the laser scanned Red Bull Ring in Austria, the demo gives players a diverse range of cars to sample as you get the opportunity to try Project CARS 2 for yourselves and make up your own mind as to where this controversial title sits amongst the sim racing hierarchy. Offering drivers the chance to sample a high performance open wheel racer in the form of the Formula Renault 3.5, a high power GT3 specification GT car with the Ferrari 488 GT3 or the beautiful road going Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4 supercar. So something for all tastes then..

According to Slightly Mad Studios the demo will offer "three scenarios" that will "test you with escalating challenges, allowing you to experience class-leading physics in various cars and varying conditions, and give you a taste of what there is to be experienced in the full game".

The demo can be downloaded from the respective platform stores now. Go on, have a try and see what all the fuss (good and bad) has been about...

Project CARS 2 is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC now.

Check out the Project CARS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for more news, discussion and features on this sequel release to the hugely popular Project CARS franchise of games.

Like what you see here at RaceDepartment? Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow us on social media!

RaceDepartment YouTube
RaceDepartment Twitter
RaceDepartment Facebook
RaceDepartment Twitch
RaceDepartment Instagram

Still on the fence about Project CARS 2? Will you be trying out the demo? Already an owner? Would you recommend the game to other players? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[CC]

Damn this game looks so nice

 

[Darius Ramoz]

Shame you can't race at night time in the demo, just tried the 3 events available,

AI's still awful, hate how they aren't affected by weather conditions, perfect grip all around while the player struggles.

 

[billymitchell]

I needed to use the Jake Spades setup Standard Low Comp DD to boost the feedback which was weak with defaults for my CSW. FFB is still mediocre with the rear tires disappearing without any feedback indication to simulate the rear axel and its level of grip.

The VR looks great, and auto-dropped quality to increase frame rate. There is still a full screen glitch at least once a lap, pop-in issues, and poor weather transitions which are likely all a function of the lower quality settings for VR.

Avoiding standing water in wet races is lots of fun, perhaps the best part of the demo.

 

[JoelGL]

Where do you get the demo? <found it> Is the Demo with the latest patch?

 

[Darius Ramoz]

Where do you get the demo? Is the Demo with the latest patch?

It's on Steam.

 

[Rob]

Was this out on the console before release? Or is the new definition of "demo" something that is played before you have a chance to buy the game, but months after release? If so, way to trail blaze SMS!

Can't really blame them though. If this were available to everyone before release, SMS would be talking to their shareholders (or announcing Project Cars 3 about now) instead of releasing a "demo".

 

[max_power]

Where do you get the demo? <found it> Is the Demo with the latest patch?

In the pc2 demo reviews at steam many people have a bad opinion of that demo. Seems not to be patched and not good at all.

 

[OtherWorld]

Was this out on the console before release? Or is the new definition of "demo" something that is played before you have a chance to buy the game, but months after release? If so, way to trail blaze SMS!

Can't really blame them though. If this were available to everyone before release, SMS would be talking to their shareholders (or announcing Project Cars 3 about now) instead of releasing a "demo".

Come on, if they had released the demo before launch you'd blame them because there's only 3 cars in the demo or something. People like you are clearly only interested in blaming SMS for everything. Which other sims on the market has a demo ?

 

[Jockey]

In the pc2 demo reviews at steam many people have a bad opinion of that demo. Seems not to be patched and not good at all.

You can't review the demo. There is no store page for the demo.

 

[MarcG]

Downloading now, things I will be concentrating on as to which will sway a purchase or not:

A) How good/bad the AI is, probably the deal breaker for me being so used to RF2s AI. I've heard bad things about pCars2 AI so I'll see shortly.
B) How good/bad the VR is, I've heard good things so as long as it's smooth at 45fps then I'll be happy.
C) What the FFB is like out the Box, I don't really wanna faff around with a community members files/mod in order to make the FFB better. I'm looking to this as a possible "Jump in and race" Sim for when I fancy a change, not a "Jump in and have to mess about with files for half an hour to Race".

If the criteria isn't met then I'll pass until a future sale and updated Demo (I do hope they update the Demo after future patches).

 

[Fat Rich]

Hmmm, the demo hasn't won me over.

The AI is so slow it's impossible to evaluate it, and there's no way of speeding it up in the demo.

Dry physics are mostly OK but a little bit odd over the limit of adhesion, but ultimately I just don't enjoy driving pCars2 quite as much as rF2, AC or AMS.

The wet weather physics don't feel right to me, I would expect a fair bit of grip until the car starts to slide, then that feeling of helplessness when it loses all grip and the challenge of trying to hook the tyres up again. It just feels like dry physics with slightly slower laptimes.

The puddles are cool, but the AI seems to be unaffected by them. I was hoping the wet weather capabilities would sell the game for me, but it hasn't.

Overall I reckon I'd get £45 worth of enjoyment out of pCars going through the different cars and tracks (plus it's in the Steam sale at the moment) but I can't see myself playing it long term.... will keep an eye on it and see if SMS improve it with patches over the next few months.

It's not a bad sim and better than pCars1, but at the moment it's not going to tempt me away from other sims.... I just don't have enough free time

 

[justfdl]

To be honest I'm a bit disappointed about the FFB, I tried different settings, while raw wasn't bad, it felt a bit mushy like GT6. Maybe with some fiddling it might be good enough?
Was wondering about the driving aids, as I had turned them down in the options to authentic and still felt the hand of god turning my car. Well, you have to turn them down in the options of the race itselt, too, to get the change take effect.
On the other hand I'm really impressed by the graphics, especially the wet race looks simply stunning and avoiding standing water or bust is quite fun.

All things said, I'm still undecided, personally I still like the FFB of AC better (no flamewars please, just my very personal opinion), but weather, night and loose surfaces are surely tempting. Most likely will follow the upcoming updates and will pickup later when things settled down.

 

[pafe]

I can't get the demo to run at all.

 

[MarcG]

Downloading now, things I will be concentrating on as to which will sway a purchase or not:

A) How good/bad the AI is, probably the deal breaker for me being so used to RF2s AI. I've heard bad things about pCars2 AI so I'll see shortly.
B) How good/bad the VR is, I've heard good things so as long as it's smooth at 45fps then I'll be happy.
C) What the FFB is like out the Box, I don't really wanna faff around with a community members files/mod in order to make the FFB better. I'm looking to this as a possible "Jump in and race" Sim for when I fancy a change, not a "Jump in and have to mess about with files for half an hour to Race".

If the criteria isn't met then I'll pass until a future sale and updated Demo (I do hope they update the Demo after future patches).

A) Poor AI, they are far too slow with no way of speeding them up like said above. Can't get a good feel for AI unless I'm racing side by side lap after lap, I did go slow and tried to race them but they seem uninterested!
B) Good VR, nice and smooth, directional sound is overdone IMO, effects looked good in VR, main thing is this is a selling point for me.
C) Poor FFB, need to fiddle some more I think to make it better but concerned using outside tools is the only way to go, can't be bothered with that.

Additional thoughts:
It needs an AI Strength parameter to the Menu then I'd be able to make a better decision but as it is right now I simply can't, Menu UI is OK nothing fancy if anything a bit cluttered.
The Rain Effects on the windscreen are a bit poor, I've never seen rain like that on my road cars windscreen in 23 years of driving, the effects between the wipers was weird as well as if it's bugged perhaps. As above AI in the Rain another poor point as they simply glide through puddles, that'd make offline racing against the AI utterly pointless.

Conclusion:
Demos are there as a selling point, they are supposed to sell the game to you and this Demo only goes half way for me, AI representation is Poor whilst the VR is Good and the FFB a bit Meh.
I'll stick at the demo over the coming days and make a final decision later, but right now even in the Sale it's a No Buy...but things can change.

 

[Atom1kk]

What really helped about the sudden oversteer is to change the damping settings in the controller setup. Tje saturation level got to 20 and damping on 40. Also in the setup of the car you can load a stable setup which helps also. I also agree that you have to install jake spade ffb, otherwise its still not so good. Atleast in the full game the ai is pretty fast at the right level

 

[Gevatter]

Come on, if they had released the demo before launch you'd blame them because there's only 3 cars in the demo or something. People like you are clearly only interested in blaming SMS for everything. Which other sims on the market has a demo ?

For the current gen rFactor 2 and R3E is Free2Play, which I consider to be a very extensive demo version.

 

[Alistair McKinley]

A few months ago I decided to get PCars2 when it would be under 30 EUR.

Two days ago I grabbed the demo and tested whether my computer can run the game (Troublemaker is my old CPU: i5-3550). Check!
I had the same impressions like many of you (read the other comments above).
Although I was rather disappointed by AI and rain (puddles of death, while AI can accelerate on them), I purchased PCars2 for 24,99 EUR - just to explore the game by myself. (I've watched many YouTube videos the last couple of weeks.)
A demo should sell a game. It didn't due to all the issue mentioned above (in your comments).
It was the low price which sold the game to me. I know that it must sound strange to you but again: I just wanted to fully explore the game by myself.

I hadn't have much time in the game yet but here are my first impressions:

I tested X-Bow GT4, Ginetta G55 GT4, Porsche Cayman GT4, AMG GT-R on the Nordschleife yesterday evening:
I'm really impressed by the looks of the Autumn Nords (as it is called in Assetto Corsa modded by JW Modding). It looks gorgeous.
The sounds are absolutely awful/terrible/distracting. I visited a VLN race a month ago and the "sounds" of the cars mentioned above are not even close to their real counterparts (exluding the Ginetta here because I haven't heard/seen one yet).
I remember the X-Bow GT4 when it passed by at the Nordschleife. That sound! I was really impressed by its loud, brutal and grunty sound - much deeper than I would ever have imagined.
In PC2 the sounds don't do these cars justice IMO. The sound of the KTM X-Bow GT4 seems distorted (again only IMO). I'm a bit disappointed because sounds do play a major role for me when I'm sitting in front of my screen and pretend to drive/race a car.

It's simply not as satisfying to drive these/such cars on the Nordschleife as it is in other games - despite the beautiful looking scenery.

I don't want to comment on the FFB for now because I haven't found a good setting yet.

What the cars did on track seemed legit/authentic - besides wet conditions. They "behaved" as I would have expected it - so that's a huge improvment over PCars1.
I hope I'll find some nice suprises in the next couple of days concerning sounds.

 

[Gevatter]

So I tried the Demo for about an hour yesterday, and I wrote about it on the AC forums and thought I'd share my thoughts. From what I understand the demo includes parts of the fixes that will be in the v3.0 patch, so if one buys the game after playing the demo they receive an older version than they tried, which is a weird decision. Let's hope the patch arrives shortly and the demo receives updates as well to keep them on par with each other.

Generally the demo feels better than what I remember the v2.0 full version of the game to be. I guess they carefully chose the track and car combos to be as good as the game can be. The FFB felt good on RAW with 100/30/50/50 to me, and a bit more fine tuning would make it better still I'm sure, but it also felt good on v1.0 on the laser scanned tracks, so I'm not sure what has improved if anything. The FFB still doesn't communicate the rear of the car very well, nor braking.

Generally the AI was set way to slow, so it was more hotlapping than racing, but maybe I could have raised the AI difficulty. They did not crash in the first corner, however they almost came to a standstill several times. What I also noticed was that the game chamged the assists settings at the start of every race, what made the Formula Renault behave very weird on the first run as Stability Control was turned on. On the one cooldown lap out of six races where I had cars in front of me (GT3 in the rain) they almost stopped in the corners and floored it on the straights, that seemed weird.

The crew chief always told me to push somewhere halfway through the last lap, even when I was already several seconds ahead of 2nd, which also didn't really work out in my head. Shouldn't he have told me to slow down and take it easy?

What I do like immensly is all the detail nd procedure the game offers, from starting my own engine, to manual pitstops, to the cooldown lap, standing vs. rolling starts etc. Those are the little details that I sorely miss in AC, but luckily AMS and rF2 offer those things as well.

For the races in detail:

Lamborghini on RBR National:
Boring car, ****ty dial textures. Very light steering compared to the other two cars, but that might just be power steering. Wobbly under braking. Very subtle progression from evening (or moring) sun to full on foggy weather, which I liked. I was in first place after the 3rd corner. Nothing spectacular.

Formula Renault on RBR GP:
The car looks good, and I liked the sound. What I don't like is that the virtual steering wheel was fixed instead of turned off. I know that's also how pC1 handled things, but I'd like to make my own decisions please. The first race was with the assist settings the game chose, whioch made the Renault handle very weird and simple. After resetting and changing the assists to "Authentic" it handled more believably but still felt like it had more grip overall than the mod in AC or the version in rF2. I don't know which is more realistic tho. It kind of felt like racing in R3E, but with less communication through the steering wheel.

I managed to spin into Schlossgold bend when I was to harsh on the gas and clonked the wall. I didn't loose any parts, but the game told me I had severely damaged my suspension, and my crew chief wanted me in the pits urgently for repairs, but the car handled just the same, I just lost ~10kph of top speed uphill towards Remus bend. In the last lap my crew chief told me to push again when my car still had damage and I was ~3 seconds ahead.

Ferrari 488 GT3 on rainy RBR:
Here is where the illusion started to break down hard. It started in heavy rain, progressed through a dry phase where parts of the track dried up and endid in full on rain again. I felt not a lot of difference between the wet and dry parts of the track. My braking point and my driving in general where not different from how I usually drive the car in AC, I could just push as hard out of corners and even clocked similar lap times to AC. The only difference was dodging puddles which make your wheel go in all sorts of funny directions while the AI just glide through them. The only thing that kept me was the AI, which can hold its pace on straights but is still very slow thorugh corners on the wet, even in the cooldown lap. I went through the first corner at around 30 kph twice. I managed to win once with ~4 seconds gap and came 4th the secons time as I overcooked it into Würth and slid through the sand trap.

The rain effects look alright, although not as good as in Forza 7. The drops on the windshield should be a lot more dynamic and in heavy rain in the spray of the car in front of me I should not be able to see very much without wipers, although I can in the game.

I will still hold off on buying the game even on sale and will wait for another patch or two, because I want to see if SMS can manage (or are willing) to fix the inconsistencies in their content quality. If everything felt like the Red Bull Ring does, and all the cars handled and communicated like the Formula Renault than I'd consider it. The demo is not the full patch v3.0, but it already feel s like a tiny step up, and the full patch might be a bigger step. Still not high enough for me, but I'll be keeping my eye on it.

 

[Rupe Wilson]

I'm still not temped to even try it. my loss i suppose