PC2 Project CARS 2 Official Screenshots Revealed

[Paul Jeffrey]

Slightly Mad Studios reveal first official images from the upcoming Project CARS 2 game.

Following the recent leaked trailer and several leaked preview images of the latest instalment to the popular Project CARS franchise, Slightly Mad Studios have released the first official screenshots from the new game. Posting on the official Project CARS twitter account, SMS have been releasing images over the last couple of days with a mysterious hint at a big announcement, due possibility as soon as Wednesday (8th February). The images revealed so far have formed part of a countdown that includes mysterious titles such as #anytimeAnywhere and #ProRacing. Could this be a build up to news of some kind of advanced eSports solution within the new game, or could it relate to an interesting official association with a major motorsports governing body...?

Regardless of the meaning behind the teaser tweets, it is at least nice to be able to cast our eyes over something official from SMS for the first time, and it looks like the developers have been hard at work ensuring Project CARS 2 leaves nothing left of the table in terms of graphical quality. We are already fairly confident from the leaked trailer that PCARS 2 will have yet more versatility in the weather options for the new release, with snow, changeable wind direction and enhancements to the rain modes already teased. The new official shots back up these leaks, with one image showing off snow in the game, possibly taken from the same scene as the drifting Mercedes in the trailer leak.

One thing is for sure, despite selling over 2 million copies of Project CARS on all platforms SMS will have to hit the ball out of the park on first attempt with this new title, following the heavy criticism from some quarters of the gaming public after Project CARS 1 shipped with a number of frustrating and unacceptable bugs. SMS will be keen to avoid a similar situation with the new sim and win back some of the sim racing public trust, as can be evidenced by several messages from SMS head Ian Bell when he assure fans the new title will be undertaking a much more robust quality assurance programme before receiving it's public release.

The game is looking to be shaping up to be one of the stars of 2017 and personally I'm intrigued to see how it fairs once it hits our shelves towards the end of the current year.

Needless to say we will be keeping a close eye on the upcoming announcement and post any details for you here at RaceDepartment as soon as they become known.


Project CARS 2 is expected to be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC during Q4 2017.

Check out the Project CARS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartmet to keep abreast of all the latest news and discussions surrounding the sequel of Slightly Mad Studios best selling racing game. Join in with your fellow community members and get involved with the discussion today!

Looking forward to PCARS 2? Do you like the look of the new screenshots released by the studio? Will the title improve upon the often frustration original? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Brownninja97]

that fuji right?

 

[JDougNY]

As far as bugs.....since I've dug into 3 of their past games (pCars, S2U and NFS Shift) and corrected countless errors/typos in many different file extensions, including modeling UV mapping errors made by SMS. Add to that workarounds for hard coded bugs/issues never corrected by SMS....I'd have to go by their past track record and say...pCars2 will be probably be similar to their past offerings. I also think that some of the gameplay (some driving conditions) will fall more into the Forza/FH territory for physics. But, I'm not involved with testing this game...so...just an educated guess.

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

that fuji right?

That would be my guess too but I'm not 100% and don't see anything official from the devs.

But yeah, if I was a betting man I'd have it down as Fuji

 

[Leemz]

As far as bugs.....since I've dug into 3 of their past games (pCars, S2U and NFS Shift) and corrected numerous (too many to keep count) errors/typos in many different file extensions, including modeling UV mapping errors made by SMS. Add to that workarounds for hard coded bugs/issues never corrected by SMS....I'd have to go by their past track record and say...pCars2 will be probably be similar to their past offerings. I also think that some of the gameplay (some driving conditions) will fall more into the Forza/FH territory for physics. But, I'm not involved with testing this game...so...just an educated guess.

Look, I'm no fanboy of SMS or PCars but I do own it along with Forza 6 and I can promise you the physics in FM6 does not come close to the physics in PCars. FM6 is nowhere near as good. I still think rF2 and AC have better physics and FFB than PCars but it's really unfair to compare PCars to FM6. In fact, it's just downright silly.

 

[Deleted member 113561]

Mod edit: this is the last time we removed a personal attack from you against another user. On the next offense you're out.

Look, I'm no fanboy of SMS or PCars but I do own it along with Forza 6 and I can promise you the physics in FM6 does not come close to the physics in PCars. FM6 is nowhere near as good. I still think rF2 and AC have better physics and FFB than PCars but it's really unfair to compare PCars to FM6. In fact, it's just downright silly.

Winner comment

AC physics are worse than PCARS physics (excluded are bugs) - rF2 has the best physics sofar ...
The questions where will PCARS 2 end up? How many bugs has the game?

FFB of PCARS is brilliant when you have tweaked it - I recommend using the Jack Spades Tweaker Files & Settings

 

[PaulH]

Oh boy here we go........

 

[Patrik Marek]

As far as bugs.....since I've dug into 3 of their past games (pCars, S2U and NFS Shift) and corrected countless errors/typos in many different file extensions, including modeling UV mapping errors made by SMS. Add to that workarounds for hard coded bugs/issues never corrected by SMS....I'd have to go by their past track record and say...pCars2 will be probably be similar to their past offerings. I also think that some of the gameplay (some driving conditions) will fall more into the Forza/FH territory for physics. But, I'm not involved with testing this game...so...just an educated guess.

can you share some light on the UV mapping errors ? wonder what exactly you are talking about
and even more so, have you ever done it yourself ??

 

[Kurupt CDN]

Looks prettier than the first one lol

 

[Tom Blackett]

Hope they can improve on the disaster, I guess the only way is up.

 

[Lino Carreira]

Mod edit: this is the last time we removed a personal attack from you against another user. On the next offense you're out.


Winner comment

AC physics are worse than PCARS physics (excluded are bugs) - rF2 has the best physics sofar ...
The questions where will PCARS 2 end up? How many bugs has the game?

FFB of PCARS is brilliant when you have tweaked it - I recommend using the Jack Spades Tweaker Files & Settings

Seriously ? you can only be joking....

 

[Nick Gregory]

Who is the fu...

Oh these are official? Carry on then.

 

[JDougNY]

can you share some light on the UV mapping errors ? wonder what exactly you are talking about
and even more so, have you ever done it yourself ??

This list of issues I cited spans the past 3 games. UV mapping errors were more present in S2U (reversed/inverted mirror images for instance).
Heck, in pCars, you can go into the debug logs in your documents folders and see numerous errors....game can't locate gui related textures, for some tracks the game can't locate track related files, another funny one is the game can't find vehicle upgrade catalog files (old S2U upgrading code left in pCars code). Unpack BFF's and you find old S2U files that are not in use and shouldn't be packed in there, after official game release.
It's the difference between a person that simply believes what their told by devs and a person (like me) that actually breaks the game open a looks at what they actually have done.

As far as pCars physics code, they changed it all to binaries. So, I translate it all back to a readable text and, of course, some wonky stuff going on, yet again. On the modding thread, I have a link to my public folder that provides most of the game unpacked, along with translations files for people that want to dig in for themselves.

Why is it up to me to read the debug logs, create folders and toss in all of the files that the game can't find to clear away the errors/warning in logs? That's QC 101, the first thing the devs should do is flush all errors out of the debug logs. From there, I go into files such as track.lod for each track and, on again, syntax errors. To make some corrections stick, I have to force parts of the game to run in unpacked/loose form.....seeing as people report back to SMS on how I break the game open, and SMS takes measure to block...I no longer provide what I'm opening up in pCars.

Can I make a game out of thin air?...No. However, anyone with the knowledge can bust the game open and review a lot of the work that was done by the devs. Bottom line is, I want to try to enjoy their games...so, I break the game open and fix what is obviously wrong and move on. It just gets tiring having to fix their errors on every game they release.

 

[Patrik Marek]

well, I'm not you have skills to see/check stuff for yourself, rather then reading what people tell you , but files that are no longer needed isn't something that it's that uncommon

back in the day when I worked on Mafia1 , I was making a BigFoot truck that wasn't released because the engine didn't work well with big wheels, you couldn't drive over obstacles, becasue the tire collision was computed only in a line , not a full circle/cylinder , yet the Truck made in in the released game and people discovered it

also, i'm not a coder, but with a tiny bit of pything scritping, when you have codes dependencies on other codes, "deleting not used stuff" gets way harder then what it sounds like

but that's not to say that it can't be better, it always can, but the question is if you want to spend that week of cleanup on cleanup or rather on polishing other stuff

not a fan of the game, and that's fine. We all like different things, so yep, enjoy other sims, there's plenty to chose from

 

[Tobiman]

More laser scanned tracks maybe?

 

[JDougNY]

@Patrik Marek
Well...you diminished things to just cleanup. However, I think you missed where I mention actual errors that impact the game, ranging from syntax errors in files, typos, wonky physics calibrations, etc. So, SMS would rather spend time to polish visuals while not taking care of actual game impacting errors and/or calibrations. That is very obvious when I review unpacked game files, debug logs, etc.

 

[Patrik Marek]

@Patrik Marek
Well...you diminished things to just cleanup. However, I think you missed where I mention actual errors that impact the game, ranging from syntax errors in files, typos, wonky physics calibrations, etc. So, SMS would rather spend time to polish visuals while not taking care of actual game impacting errors and/or calibrations. That is very obvious when I review unpacked game files, debug logs, etc.

I cant speak for debug logs, since I'm not checking those

as far as focusing on content, polishing visuals, rather then improving gameplay , well that could be said about others too, but no point in arguing.

 

[Tr3voRR]

The video was not a trailer leak, it's the current intro video of the PC2 early access, so someone broke the nda...

 

[Spitfire_88]

I want Porsche and Sebring.

 

[Rodent]

Sidenote: Patrik, I loved Mafia 1, ya'll did great and I look back it as a true gem of gaming. Cheers for the memories.

On Topic: Really hope it turns out well, pCARS dropped at a time when I was craving geting back into the sim side of gaming and it worked well as a gateway drug as it were, but looking back on the title, or even taking it for a spin again it doesn't hold up very well. The game could really have benefited from a few solid patches more.
Loved the content in pCARS though, the track selection in particular and I still miss some of the tracks from it in other sims. For pCARS 2 so far the thing that tickles my imagination is Arjeplog, I really hope we can get it in different layout. I know they did Silverstone on ice at some point, that'd be fun.