izigame.me

Something happened to me playing this game. I don't say it would happen to everyone but I suddenly found myself 80 hours in, and loving it. This is truly a gestalt, only summing up it's various parts will reveal it to be...kinda...a life Sim? Wut? Hear me out :)
Obviously, you gotta be a bit of a petrolhead as there is lots of buying parts, browsing catalogues (yes really!) fixing things up and modifying them your way. Though there are only a few base cars the options are near endless. And are you fixing them up to race, or make money, or as a favour?
That's why you gotta like management games. There is a lot to get your head around, things don't always go your way. Will you be able to plan ahead or maybe lady luck will smile on you to get just what you need done when you need it.. But you're probably balancing your business with building your own killer racecar.
Because this is also a racer, a proper one. I'm not saying its the best racer out there but it definitely charms with it's variation of tacks and surfaces, race types, understanding of racing physics and cause and effect from parts you've used. And believe me, many of the races are not easy.
But if you need to take a break from the pressure, you can free roam around the small but perfectly thought-out world, and the kicker is it's all set, rather uniquely, in the Australian outback, and that fits the game so well and creates an immersive vibe. You might decide to tow a broken down vehicle, take the bait on a road race, find hidden junk secrets or just tool around working out shortcuts.
Put all these things together and the game is utterly absorbing. I really felt myself in my character's role and it's great to fire the game up and decide what you wanna do today on the fly. For a small world there is so much content and a tough but natural progression curve - these devs really thought about how they wanted to construct this game and in my opinion that design has really paid off.
You might not at first be struck by the look and feel, the graphics don't impress on first look but you soon realise that they fit just right with the game and are original. I grew to greatly love the art style. There's a fair bit of jank but it's that loveable jank, the game was super reliable for me. At the start you might find it very unaccommodating in what it does and doesn't teach you. If you love working things out for yourself you'll love this approach, if you don't the dev has posted several out-of-game help guides in Steam Discussions. Although controller support is there, you will need to use your keyboard and mouse a fair bit. You'll honestly probably need a notepad (can't believe I wrote that, can't remember the last time i decided I needed one!) And walking (well, running) is absolutely horrible! Luckily once you've got going you dont have to do that too often...
This game was not at all what I expected but after a couple of hours became a thing that exceeded any expectation I could have had anyway. Highly recommended unless any of the above descriptions don't float your, erm, Hotrod.

Retro, a bit bare feeling in places, but very effective where it counts and a lot of fun. Possibly one of the most challenging and involving driving games you can run on a potato spec system!
If your game choice is restricted by hardware spec (as mine was when I got this game a couple years ago) then I'd strongly recommend this title if it's on sale. It's entertaining enough that you won't care about not being able to run the frankly bloated-in-comparison 'premium' games. Just don't blame me if you find yourself in the garage in the middle of the night, shouting and cursing over a bunch of gearboxes and diffs...
Although quite modest in file size and basic visually (not necessarily bad things), plenty of work has been invested in the gameplay. Vehicle handling and physics feel pretty realistic and changes you make are accurately reflected in the vehicle's characteristics. Audio is good - I6s sound like I6s, V8s sound like V8s. The heavy torquey motors sound different to the revvy race units. A variety of different engine sounds are modelled too, so for example if you're using turbos you can hear them spooling which can help to judge shifting / braking etc.
This game is about more than just driving though, with the mechanical side being equally important. If you want to do well at this game, be prepared to spend just as long in the garage as behind the wheel.
That fact might be off-putting for some. So probably will be the fact that you can't expect to just jump into a hypercar right from the beginning. You start with a basic compact sedan. Want a hypercar? You have to *build* it!
That said, you don't need to be a professional mechanic (I'm not), but it certainly helps to have a basic knowledge of a car's main components. The garage is well laid out and straightforward to use though; just click on components to check their condition and repair / replace as desired. You can't tune individual parts but you can replace them - eg if you want different gear ratios, swap for a different gearbox. Same applies to other components. It's actually quite reminiscent of building with Lego come to think of it!
If you're coming to this with experience of playing big budget games on latest spec rigs, then I confess this might be a bit harder to recommend, especially if you're used to reality-challenging visuals. Some elements which you might not have experienced in other games though:
- Vehicle damage. Whether racing or in freeroam, every tree, rock or other car you hit causes damage to your vehicle. Cause enough damage and you might not even finish the race! (you can restart however). Even if you do win, you've probably still caused some damage due to wear. If you think you're good at racing a car which can't get damaged, how good are you at racing one which can? Also, no rewind!
- Vehicle modification. The lack of RL manufacturer licensing means no restrictions on modifications or vehicles appearing damaged. Do what you want with whatever you want (well, within reason. There are still some restrictions but they're not imposed by manufacturers)
- The overall sense of peril. Not just from the vehicle damage, but from the risk of losing your car. Yes, you can lose the car you invested hours of testing and thousands of bucks in. On the other hand, you can win your rival's car...

As for DLC?
Turbo pack is a definite recommend, especially if it's bundled with the main game. Really helps to get the most of out of the variety of different engines. I've had it since the beginning and wouldn't want to play without.
Lighting pack improves night vision but it's still possible to complete night races without. Optional.
Convertibles pack gives you access to some more vehicles and some extra races. Optional.
(It's actually possible to win turbos and extra lights from some of the races even without the DLC but what you get will be random and you can't replace it if you lose / break it!)

For context, since I got this game a couple of years ago I have upgraded my system and played a variety of more modern, hardware-demanding titles. I recently returned after some major updates piqued my curiosity. Having been spoiled by my experience with bigger budget games I didn't have very high expectations... but I ended up getting hooked again and playing right through another campaign! Maybe that was nostalgia, or... maybe this is actually a damn good game?

This game is somewhat non-user friendly in terms of movement. For instance, strangely enough, when the car is on the lift, you can hold down left-click and movie the camera around the car. However, when you're out walking on foot, you cannot move the view around and it makes it very awkward as the way the camera follows the character isn't great / has a strange delay in perspective shift during turns. Also on foot, you're either moving ridiculously slow walking or running at a sprint, no in between. Also have no camera angle control during driving except for the various camera views which you can change between with a key press, but that's not as serious an issue. I'd say the main downside to the game is the on foot camera.
The race mechanics on this game aren't bad. I think most of my issues are from trying to use the keyboard so far. It's one of the most detailed games out there that I've seen as far as mechanics go. I've learned a little bit I think. It has tons of mechanical jobs you can do, from changing oil/minor service, switching out electrical components, to having to figure out what is wrong with a car from scratch. You can also buy cars from the newspaper and fix them up to sell or buy any of the parts and switch out for the ones you have on your vehicles. As you race, parts degrade and you repair or replace them.
I did look through the discussions and for a game with as non-intuitive an interface as this one (check out the Youtube videos, watching people muck through is hilarious), people are pretty rude to some of the obvious questions newbies will ask (correction - there were some questions I read before posting where the reason for the question was obvious and yet the community responded rudely even though many things you need to know about the interface are very non-intuitive to new players - I haven't experienced that with mine though, so I don't know why my questions were treated better than some of those I read - I received good answers from two or three questions. Had I not, I would not be able to complete some missions - of course I read absolutely everything available as far as guides before starting to ask questions...some of them would have been answered if I read deep into the discussion threads too, but oh well).
As far as questions that newbies might ask - for engine timing, after going into the repair mode, before lifting the car, turn the engine on (check the water level first, you'll lose thousands of dollars in engine quality if it's empty because the engine will blow) and then the icon for timing on the bottom right will become clickable.
For deliveries and other mission targets in the map, you have to check the map in the garage because it won't be on the map after you exit the garage. Be sure of the car you want to use on a mission before selecting it, there's no undo or selecting a different one later, you will just have to cancel.
For times when you have no idea what's going on, you can quickly get help from the guy who owns the shop when you're doing mechanic work for him by pressing N. For times during mechanic missions when you have no idea why some of the checkboxes aren't checking, you can go to the project status tab on the top then to the '?' button on its top right to see the next thing necessary.
I think this game might need a driving wheel because it is very hard to race without one.