Driveclub Review Round-Up

You really have to love the Autumn, as we get this wonderful deluge of games in time for the festive season. Next up in our review round-ups is Evolution Studio’s racer Driveclub, which is set for release on the 10th of October, nearly a full year after its original launch date. A cut-down version will be available to all Playstation Plus members so chances are the majority of PS4 owners will get to sample it, though clearly Sony will be hoping that it draws everyone into buying the full game.

Our very own Stefan gave it a great 8/10, praising its focussed gameplay and graphical fidelity; “As you finish the Tour and start to take on more and more on-the-fly Challenges, Driveclub starts to show its true colours. It may be difficult for some to adapt to in an age where racers sprawl across open worlds featuring hundreds of cars and tons of tracks, but this is a game with a very singular focus. The overarching goals soon start to peel away, and you’re left with the purity of competing against the times and records of friends and rivals, the stunning scenery and the joy of driving cars absolutely on the limit.”

It seems like the community has reviewed it mostly positively, with many focussing on its beautiful next-gen graphics but many seeing a negative in its traditional framework.

IGN – 7.9/10

“Driveclub is the best-looking racing game I’ve ever seen on a console, but down deep it’s a more modest, conventional arcade racer than the sprawling, open-world types we commonly see today. While it successfully creates fast and fun races with a great sense of speed, the overly aggressive AI grates, the difficult drifting seems at odds with the accessible handling, and the single-player loses zest once the solo content runs dry.”

Gamespot – 5/10

“Driveclub is ordinary menus and ordinary races, standard time trials, and a few drift events. Driveclub is bland social competition. Driveclub is the fear of risks and the embrace of the ordinary. It’s basic racing in basic packaging, beautiful and inert and full of attractive cars. It is not, however, an argument for a new generation of driving, given how it fails to exceed the standards of the old one.”

Polygon – 7.5/10

“DriveClub doesn’t have any one element that makes it an incredible game or a huge leap forward for the racing genre, but it makes some smart choices underneath top-of-the-line presentation. And in embracing a social media-influenced setup to build enjoyable asynchronous multiplayer, it teaches a few important lessons other developers should learn from.”

Digital Spy – 4/5

“Driveclub isn’t necessarily the innovative or revolutionary game that we were expecting, but that doesn’t make it a bad racer. Far from it. It is a visually impressive game with a clean, straightforward progression system, interesting courses and enough user-friendly social features to keep clubs entertained for the foreseeable future.”

Videogamer – 8/10

“I stayed up until the early hours of the morning one night frantically trying to beat a challenge set by another games site. They won. I lost. But the desperate desire to win – and the urge to silently brag about the victory – made the race deeply exciting. And it’s intense rivalries like this that lie at the heart of DriveClub. It’s a game whose appeal lives and dies in its online time trials and sensational visuals, and whose sense of one-upmanship and competition is leaps above the rest of the pack.”

Destructoid – 7.5/10

“Driveclub is fast and easy to get into, nice to look at, and it has a lot going on in the background to keep you connected and competitive with your club members and other individuals. But that doesn’t change the issues in the foreground. Its approachable and enjoyable racing is marred by AI cars that love to unfairly bash and crash on the single-player side. And bugs with the interface and the networking kept me from fully enjoying the multiplayer side. Beyond all of this, it feels like Driveclub needs more race and event types.”

Joystiq – 3/5

“Driveclub is a well-made, sometimes irritating juxtaposition of the old and new. The career mode is old-fashioned and its AI is hopelessly ignorant, but the graphics and competitive jabs online feel perfectly fit for 2014. Embracing your fellow human is key to overcoming Driveclub’s faults, which ultimately make it a better staging ground for car-loving friends than an expression of automotive admiration itself.”

Games Radar – 4/5

“While too simplified to be a sim and too serious to be an arcade racer, Driveclub’s online integration, beautiful environments and accessible handling make for a great new-gen racing package.”

Eurogamer – 6/10

“What we’re left with is a flimsy framework – a sort of clothes horse for content – rather than a truly great racing game. DriveClub is patently intended to attract a global, interconnected audience of fiercely competitive racers but, to quote the increasingly obscure 1989 Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams: if you build it, they will come. And, unfortunately, Evolution hasn’t quite built it.”