Rate the Sims: Community Edition | Wreckfest

Paul Jeffrey · Jan 6, 2020

We are looking to crown the 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite' racing game - get your votes in now for our next game on the list... Wreckfest!

Our dear RaceDepartment community. You folks are the most mighty fans of sim racing, often displaying an immense amount of understanding and depth of knowledge when it comes to our favourite hobby.

With sim racing and eSports in such a wonderful boom period of late. Gamers looking to have some fun with their virtual racing machines have never before had such a wide and robust variety of software to enjoy.

Now occasionally I've been in a position to rate new racing titles that have come my way, and almost every time I've received a wide variety of folks agreeing, or strongly disagreeing with my own opinions.

Opinions are great, but sometimes the opinion of one person, with their own likes and dislikes taken into account, can often give a bit of a skewed picture (intentional or not) to the greater cause in which said person is trying to explain.

As such, rather than doing one myself, and in the spirit of engaging some interesting community discussion, I thought it could be fun to let our own community rate each of the key sim racing / racing games available today.

As always with these things, please do try and respect each other and their opinions, and let's try to see if we can give a fun, but fair shake of the stick to each of the games included in this poll.

For transparency, I'm going to be featuring the following racing games over the next weeks:

I'm going to launch the article each Monday evening, and keep the poll running for a full week until the next new article is pushed live. So get your votes in quick!

Once I've completed the full list of games, I'll publish a final results feature, and we can award the winning developer the lofty title of 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite'!

Have fun, stay sensible and let the voting commence!

Kriss047 · Jan 6, 2020

10 from me! Really fun game for the price and stuff, you can relax from the serious sims where you have to focus to not lose control and stuff, in this game you just have fun! Wreck your toilets or whatever cars you are driving!

Littlefysh · Jan 6, 2020

It does what it does really well. Not a sim so it's a 9, but it's a whale of a time.

ShredatorFIN · Jan 6, 2020

Gave it a 9, it's really not that far from a sim as people might think (sharing a lot of similarities/parameters with physics engine of rFactor, just temperatures are missing iirc). Definitely a wheel game (cockpit view of course), rather than a gamepad game.

While the physics nor FFB don't have quite the depth of actual sims, this game can be often more fun than sims. Especially in multiplayer.

Also loving the amount of free tracks they've recently added. Track roster is pretty impressive now

As a negative... Not a fan of the most wacky DLC designs they added lately (decorations) they get too tacky and move it further away from that "folk/banger racing sim" visuals. Also never understood why this game needs healthbars, judging the condition of cars from how they look would be much more interesting and intuitive

Damage model could be better, now it's phenomenal visually, but physics wise pretty unnoticeable...

Also the FFB requires a mod from the Workshop to feel nice, I disliked the new FFB they added in 2019. Luckily you can revert FFB by using the (official, as they are from a dev) mods

Steam Workshop::Natural FFB profile

steamcommunity.com

Steam Workshop::Classic Summer 2018 FFB profile

steamcommunity.com

Jugulador · Jan 6, 2020

This forum's folks recommended me this game and I said "Elite Dangerous can't allow me" (to be fair, from the Winter Sale to now I've collected 119 hours of space bloodshed, exploration and core mining). So, I vote Wreckfest as "I don't know /10".

Cheers!

PS: Anyone still "Eliteing" around and want to form a Targoid Merry Slaying Party?

RaceNut · Jan 6, 2020

I see this title as a fun crash'em bash'em title - nothing wrong with that. The car-handling is too arcade for my liking but, it does what it's supposed to do very well. While I supported the developers efforts in this case, it's just not something I'm going to play.

Ryan Soucy · Jan 6, 2020

Just fired up Wreckfest for the first time in a month or so and it has a ton of positives. I really love the graphics, handling, physics and tracks. Sometime the AI is so frustrating that I want to quit and never play it again. If you start midpack and you get caught up early in a wreck, the rest of the race is pointless. At least on expert level. I've gotten my money's worth though, and I recommend it to anyone.

Durge Driven · Jan 6, 2020

Anyone that rates any sim 5 or less must be using CODEX

tpw · Jan 6, 2020

Wreckfest is the only car sim I own where I spend most of my session laughing out loud. I give it a solid 8. If the devs could only fix the loading time and the blowfly in a bottle car audio I'd have given it a 10.

newbert · Jan 6, 2020

Just picked up WF last week at sale price in hopes of developing "controlled aggression" when racing. --- HA!

Well, I'm aggressive in WF alright!

How can you not be? Fun Factor is well worth the money. It's not really a "sim", as we might traditionally define that term, but who cares?

MoerasGrizzly · Jan 6, 2020

ShredatorFIN said:
As a negative... Not a fan of the most wacky DLC designs they added lately (decorations) they get too tacky and move it further away from that "folk/banger racing sim" visuals.

I will defend my giant teddy bear to the death

newbert · Jan 6, 2020

ShredatorFIN said:
Also the FFB requires a mod from the Workshop to feel nice, I disliked the new FFB they added in 2019. Luckily you can revert FFB by using the (official, as they are from a dev) mods

Steam Workshop::Natural FFB profile

steamcommunity.com

Steam Workshop::Classic Summer 2018 FFB profile

steamcommunity.com

Thanks for the FFB Profiles. I subscribed to them in Steam.....now how/where do I activate them in Wreckfest?

Keith Joyce · Jan 6, 2020

Never stop laughing with Wreckfest. Makes it worth a solid 10 from me.

Postipate92 · Jan 6, 2020

Only game I give 10. It delivers what it promises and it's not as arcade as people usually say here in RD.

Btw. Same studio made rally version of GPL back in 2001. Sadly forgotten game in sim community

Rally Trophy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Cote Dazur · Jan 7, 2020

10 because it is a demolition derby themed racing game with soft-body damage modeling, sophisticated driving dynamics and in-depth vehicle upgrading, featuring both demolition derbies and more traditional track races. It’s all about fun, breakneck racing and over-the-top crashes. So what it has no VR, no particularly interesting content, no specially interesting tracks, you get to destroy cars and see them all deformed and wrecked, this is awesome dude.

ShredatorFIN · Jan 7, 2020

newbert said:
Thanks for the FFB Profiles. I subscribed to them in Steam.....now how/where do I activate them in Wreckfest?

In game, main menus, go to the rightmost subpage.

There is "Mods" area. Go there, then enable mod from the list and restart game (I think it offers a restart automatically). Some mods prevent going into multiplayer, but FFB mods don't

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Hmm, and yeah as someone mentioned, engine audio could be better. Crash audio is great, but the engines sound in some cases really bad, and almost never great. Artificial and not "exciting" in the slightest (comparison point something like RaceRoom, ACC or Dirt Rally 2.. although different cars)

I mean, they are partially fictional cars, why not add little "oomph" into the sound, better shifting sounds, backfires, something. Many of them sound really tinny, monotonous and synthetic

newbert · Jan 7, 2020

ShredatorFIN said:
In game, main menus, go to the rightmost subpage.

There is "Mods" area. Go there, then enable mod from the list and restart game (I think it offers a restart automatically). Some mods prevent going into multiplayer, but FFB mods don't

------

Hmm, and yeah as someone mentioned, engine audio could be better. Crash audio is great, but the engines sound in some cases really bad, and almost never great. Artificial and not "exciting" in the slightest (comparison point something like RaceRoom, ACC or Dirt Rally 2.. although different cars)

I mean, they are partially fictional cars, why not add little "oomph" into the sound, better shifting sounds, backfires, something. Many of them sound really tinny, monotonous and synthetic

Got it! Thanks!

BorisK · Jan 7, 2020

9 points. Minus 1 - I need (maybe virtual) REARVIEW MIRRORS!

roadyroad · Jan 7, 2020

Postipate92 said:
Only game I give 10. It delivers what it promises and it's not as arcade as people usually say here in RD.

Btw. Same studio made rally version of GPL back in 2001. Sadly forgotten game in sim community

Rally Trophy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It has been forgotten because of the bad wheel support when new versions of. Windows came out. But I saw few years ago that a mod was allowing to use modern wheels. I forgot myself to try it, but it was, and for sure it still is, a true gem.

roadyroad · Jan 7, 2020

That's a 9 for me. The game lost 1 point for not supporting VR. That would be amazing. The rest is what a racing game must be : great tracks and fun cars with a solid driving experience (not that arcadey at all). I haven't played it a lot unfortunately, lacking time, but the hours I played, offline and online, were pure fun.