The whole reason we play videogames is to get away from the real world, to be able to try things like you have never done before and to experience things that can only be possible in a simulated world so why do companies think that we want real world style games for our consoles?
Well the answer to this question is that what if you couldn’t take part in these real world style events or what if you were obsessed with that event and you wanted to take it over to a videogame setting as well.
The genre that seems to thrive is this kind of quandary is the racing genre and companies are always trying to out do each other with realistic handling, real looking cars and all the tracks to can race one.
The new game added to this list is Ferrari Challenge and like all other realistic car games the developers Eutechynx state that this is the most realistic car game ever and while this is true in some form most of it has been done before and done much better by other developers.
In the main part of the game you are given the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Ferrari F430 and have to race over 16 tracks from Europe, America and Italy (why Italy isn’t a part of Europe in this game remains to be seen) to try and boost you winnings so that you can take on better opponents and also release more cars for you to take into arcade mode and the online portion of the game.
Straight from the bat you will notice something and that’s the fact that in the main mode of the game you can only control 1 car and while this is a fantastic car it still is only 1 so the variety that other racing games have has been lost in this game.
Now don’t get me wrong you can customise this car with different decals and also given a mountain of options to tune up this car but it is still only one car so you are just going to have to stick with it.
After coming to terms with the car this is where the game starts to become more for the hardcore and not the casual amongst us as the game will punish you for bad driving because you need to be precise with what you do and concentrate from the start of the racing right to the checkered flag at the end and this is where i got frustrated as I’m not the right person to be handling this kind of game as i don’t like realistic racing games and i don’t have the patience to keep spinning off every two seconds for me to try and get back on to the track to compete in the rest of the race.
Thankfully though you do have the option of the racing line that’s mapped out on to the track that will come in real handy if you are like me but i still felt like this was to much for me.
What did help me though was how indifferent the A.I can be with them one minute pulling away from you giving you no chance of catching them up only for them to screw up a corner for you to easily passing them by thus leaving the A.I cars with egg on there face, however they will catch up on you again and make you cry because one minute you were cheering on the fact that you have finally gotten past someone only to have that snapped away from you and you dumped back behind the pack again.
Unfortunately on of the other big bad points of the game is down to the look of the tracks and the only word to describe them is bland, you wouldn’t expect a Playstation 3 game to have very static and flat backgrounds and also in some cases pop up appearing in the distance when you are driving down the straights.
However the car models are fantastic with rich detail down to the nut’s and bolts on the tires and with the sun gleaming off the bonnet of the car showing how well the paint job is.
When you try out the other modes in the game the game itself picks up a little because you get the chance to try out up to 50 cars and not the one that you have to stick with in the main mode and like the main car each car has been modeled on the original in a lot of detail making each car look more realistic than usual.
Don’t be down beat if you think that there is no online mode because that would be stupid on there part if they didn’t include it and there is one and this is where i had most fun as i wasn’t just the only one who found it hard to control these cars and i was starting to enjoy myself until you race against somebody who knows how to play games like these then you get beaten into a bloody pulp and have to get the smoke form your chest as you will always be behind them.
On a happy note the developers have promised downloadable content that will be free every month but also premium content that will only cost £5 giving you the chance to have one new track and another 5 cards added to your list while the free stuff will range from game mode updates to driver roster downloads and many other cool things.
Overall the game in the right hands is a descent attempt at a realistic Ferrari games as lovers of Ferrari will get a lot out of it but if you can’t play these kind of games (like myself) then you are going to be frustrated with the realistic feel of it.
7/10
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