I can’t explain it; I enjoy driving in games. Not just these racing games where all you do is drive in circles for hours, swearing that you aren’t going one-millionth of a nano-second faster than the last time. I enjoy driving around open-worlds, sitting and watching traffic, people, and watching how they all navigate the world without killing each other. Then again, I am weird. With a wealth of experience driving in-games on four generations worth of consoles, in a plethora of games, and all with different theologies dictating how they feel, I want to say I should know if a car handles well.

If I know how a car handles well, I should be able to fling it into any corner of the fully-fictional world or a fictional version of a real-world corner. With Assetto Corsa Competizione, I don’t have that strong feeling that I can hurl a Lamborghini Hurracan through Maggotts, Becketts, and Chapel or around La Source, up Eau Rouge and Raidillon, and down the Kemmel straight. Anyone who knows those parts of Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps knows how important those sections of track are. If you lose confidence, you’ll lose speed as you lift off going through them. If you lose speed and turn, it doesn’t matter what car, you’ll find your pants brown or your life cut short.

I think that is the major difference I’ve found between every other racing game with these same circuits and Competizione. I just don’t have the same level of confidence in driving the cars that I do in other games. Sure, I’ve driven versions of them in other games, I’ve seen them be driven by professionals, as well as Hammon, Clarkson, and May. There is just one problem, the feeling is wrong. I don’t know why, but it feels like the weight of the cars (all of which feel similar) do not match any other experience of driving or racing. There is a sense that there is no weight over the wheels. You know, the important bits.

It has now become common for me to refer to Competizione not by name but what I’d do with it, swearing at cars. Between games that claim to be hyper-realistic simulators and those that simply are not realistic at all, I’ve never had an experience quite like Competizione. That is both good and bad, as it has taught me a safer way of driving, but also several new ways of swearing. This isn’t Dark Souls swearing where I’m asked by those in the next room “You can’t, what?” This is vowing violent time-travel based vengeance on whoever designed the track, who made the car, and everyone they have ever loved.

Assetto Corsa Competizione on the surface sounds great. High-performance supercars, track days, races around some of Europe’s best tracks, and nothing but raw horsepower between you and the track. Well, I say nothing, aside from maybe the controller. This could be entirely different for those playing with a wheel and peddles, but with a controller, there is a bit of input delay for turning. That, along with brakes that are almost as useful as a toffee apple is during sex, leads to the aforementioned flinging of cars into corners that made the driving we’re all used to feel like rocket science.

Lifting and coasting into corners, followed by late-braking still wouldn’t give me enough speed to carry through the corner. Yet it also wouldn’t go straight on into a wall. Which reminds me of stability control. It is bloody useless! The point of throwing a car into a corner is to lose enough control to make the backend slip out, but also point the car in the right direction. With even a tiny bit of stability control on, you’ve got no hope in hell knowing what any car is going to do going into (and out of) any corner. Letting the back of the car slip out is fun, yet that’s a killjoy.

For the most part, Competizione doesn’t like it when you have any kind of fun, either while driving or sliding. If you slightly slide either end of the car out, sections of the UI will yell at you for doing so. I understand why some of this happens to be the case. You can’t recover as easily from spinning out or doing anything fun. However, correct me if I’m wrong, that is the point of racing. To be on the very edge of possibility for human reflexes and mechanical design. There is just a lack of sitting on the edge of anything with Competizione.

Does that mean it is a bad game? No. I like power sliding without being shouted at, but I’ll take being shouted at if I can fling a car that’s worth more than some small countries into a corner. However, to do that, you have to forget all the stupid things you’ve learned from stealing cars in Grand Theft Auto. For some, I could see them picking up Competizione, playing for five minutes, and complaining the driving isn’t fun. I don’t disagree with them, but you need to learn how to drive in it first. There is just one problem: Nothing in-game will teach you how to drive the way they want you to. You just have to go out and learn.

What does make Competizione quite bad though, in my experience, has been in regards to the quality-of-life features. Saving in the middle of a race weekend does not work at all. In my estimated 15-20 hours of play, I was doing 10-minute practice sessions, two 10-minute qualifying sessions, followed by two 40-minute long races. Twice, the second time I made sure to check the pause menu save function. I had also tried what seems to be a save option in the middle of a session in the career mode. Both times I’d returned to find the entire weekend would have to be played again. So i’d start back from practice, to both qualifying sessions and both races.

I could see some argue that an hour or two isn’t much to replay, but it is when you’re trying to get through it. I understand I’m not going to see anything new I couldn’t see in the practice mode or the championship mode, but it was worth getting some time in. What is worse is online connectivity. I’ve had this issue with a few other games on the Xbox One, kicking you out of the game because the console lost the wifi connection for half a second. Now think about this for a moment. You’ve been playing almost two hours of a race weekend, saving in the middle of each session. Then you find yourself being kicked back to the main menu when the console lost the wifi connection. Wouldn’t you be upset?

I’ve still to find out what this save function is meant for, if not for saving in the middle of a weekend. In the replays there is a save clip option, so it is not meant for that. There is so much that Competizione expects you to know, that it makes it easy enough to get lost figuring out what gear you are in. Ok, joking aside, the on-screen furniture such as rev counter, gear display, traction controller, engine map, ABS setting, and everything else is a bit hard to glance at. You don’t want to spend more than a couple of seconds looking at any of this as you come up to a corner, and there is enough to try and remember that knowing those numbers by memory would be quite difficult.

Go into a corner with the traction control too high, and you might not get into or out of a corner in the way you expect. Tiny numbers on the edge of the screen make the task of reading them almost impossible. It is little things like this that build-up to consequential concerns, thus making the game not fun in the first place. Follow this up with driving that is both on purpose and (I hope) unintentionally lacking in some more accomodating amenities that we’re used to. There is just no desire to come back day after day, or week after week.

Assetto Corsa Competizione is a game for semi-hardcore sim-racing fans who want a bit of challenge in high-performance supercars. The question of fun was asked of me when talking about this one, and it is really not. I found myself wanting to play something else, anything else, just because I knew it would be more fun. That said, races are easy enough to win as long as you keep the car on the track. The most fun came from actual races with other cars on the track to overtake. Overall, Competizione is fine but a bit dull.

An Xbox One review copy of Assetto Corsa Competizione was provided by 505 Games for this review.

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Assetto Corsa Competizione

$39.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Interesting variable conditions during races.
• A strong selection of tracks, though few.
• A nice collection of supercars to race.

Cons

• A lack of FOV settings for first-person view.
• Can take quite some time to learn or unlearn bad habbits.
• A lack of working mid-session or mid race weekend save options.