Mastery in Racing Games
So hey! Project Cars 2 is here! And long story short, I’m having a blast. I’m still working on a written review for PC2, but for now something pretty interesting crossed my mind when playing.
PC2 is a hard game. A really hard game. An unforgiving game. But it’s also a game that rewards you with the time you take to master it. See the wonderful thing about racing games is this insane level of mastery they offer to players.
From surface level things like track knowledge, or car specific quirks, to more nuanced decisions such as late braking, racing lines, pressure, fuel-tire management, and much more. And everything you do pushes you further toward that sense of mastery.
You get comfortable with the cars, you figure out the little quirks of the track. You break from the standard racing line to find even faster routes that adapt to your car, the best late braking points, how weather changes the dynamics and decisions you make during the race. I could go on and on, because Project Cars 2 does a lot of what makes a good racing game, and that’s making mastery clear and deep. Other games do this too, but that depth is why I love racing games so much.
I praise Project Cars 2 secondary depth because I want to dive deeper into that realm of mastery. I’ve been playing racing games my whole life.
Outrun, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, Midnight Club, Trackmania, Forza, the list goes on and on. And if there is one this I’m innately tuned into when it comes to racing games, from arcade to full simulation, it’s the physics and handling models. From the way the car reacts to my inputs via pad or wheel, to the way you wrestle control of the car on tarmac, gravel, or snow. In the vertical slice of a racing game, it’s you, on the track, against the clock.
The fun of repeating the action over and over, comes down to how the game translates the inputs of the joypad, or wheel to the physics and control of the car you’re driving. And this is where mastery come into play.
The Basics of a good racing game
So. Every good racing game does two things well, and that’s being predictable, and consistent. Most car nuts know when a car turns under power, there is an expected behavior that consistent across vehicles of that same drivetrain.
A FWD car will understeer. A RWD car oversteers. And an AWD car will grip. Usually. This is where racing games predictable nature comes into play. From real world information (which these games are inspired by), a player can quickly determine the expected outcome when a car turns a corner. It forms the decisions in which the player enters, brakes, turns, and exits the corner.
Next is consistency, arguably more important than predictability. All handling models in racing games start of with a base set of rules: think a skinner or a blank slate vehicle. With this, cars are then modified to give it a set of more intricate qualities that differ it from other cars. An easy metaphor, is Mario kart. Each kart body starts off with a standard set of statistics. Modify the tires and glider, allows for chances in its handling, speed, and air control, make each “build” feel different.
Another example: AWD cars. An Audi R8 V10+ and a Nissan GTR SpecV are both AWD cars, sending power to all the 4 wheels. However, due to the layout (front engine vs mid-engine), dimensions, weight, power bias and delivery, they behave quite differently.
But that base is important. It establishes the baseline response a player can initially expect from the game. The consistency comes from learning the quirks of the represented car in the game, and using those quirks to its advantage.
In Driveclub, the Nissan GTR is a grip monster, but requires a solid entry and minimal oversteer to get the best out of it. Slow in, fast out. The R8 is lighter and more nimble due to it’s mid-engine balance. It may have AWD, but you can give a bit of mid-corner oversteer for a faster rotation into the corner, allowing it to have a higher entry speed, giving it more late braking opportunities for overtakes. The GTR, with its superior mid-corner grip, pulls out with a faster corner exit speed.
But wait, you say. Driveclub and Project Cars are more grounded in realism, what about racing game that are arcade like from the get go?
Trackmania 2 is a great example. The trackmania series are arcade racers at heart. Not as ridiculous as Mario Kart, but their real world interpretations are very loose. Take the canyon car for example. It has a handling model that exaggerates the qualities of a drift car, forcing the user to not rely on any preconceived ideas about how this car handles.
Instead, drivers will rely on the consistent relationship of the cars responsive handling across various surfaces. There a clear behavior near the limit of grip, it has a large amount of forgiveness when controlling the slide, and it’s easy to transition between the two styles of driving.
This smashes open the amount of exploitation the car has when chasing lap times and world records. The consistency of the car is so well defined, it’s continued the tradition of the infamous “Press Forward” tracks: a track that only needs one key press, forward, and the rest takes care of itself.
You want another? The Wipeout series. The vehicle’s skinner is easy to grasp just by getting acquainted with the first ship you come across, the accessible Feisar group. You learn about air brake strafing, barrel rolling, double braking, among other techniques.
You exploit the defined mechanics to brake late, swing the ship into an aggressive angle, slam the throttle while using the inside airbrake to maintain the velocity and trajectory of the ship to speed past. The racing opens up as you’re exposed to other types of manufacturers and ship times. From the agile Auricom group to the ludicrous Piranha series.
Why is this important
This combination of predictability and consistency grants depth. And with depth comes mastery. That combination of skill, knowledge, and practice translates into faster and faster lap times. Try racing a ghost during a time trial. Even if you understand the intricacies of the track, as well as the limits and quirks of the car, things can still surprise you!
How the hell did he take that corner so fast? I was flat-footed the entire time, no slip, what am I missing?
Are you kidding? How can you pull off a braking overtake like that and still leave the corner at the same exit speed?
Where is that grip coming from? How did he get the car to hook up like that? We’re running the exact same setup!
I love racing games. I’ll play all the major ones. I’ll always be chasing the leaderboard, trying to climb, to get better, to get faster. It’s like Darius said: “There’s always someone out there a little faster than you are. And sooner or later they’re gonna catch up.”
