RACE 07 is the sequel to the 2006 title RACE - The Official WTCC Game. For further details on the prequel read the review from our website. Race 07 remains a racing simulator officially licensed by the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC). The game is again developed by SimBin Studios which are already known for GTR2 (read the review here). In a gaming industry where racing-simulators are rare as an exotic car, this little Swedish company is one of the few to create nowadays such games. And they do it really well following the legacy left by Papyrus or Geoff Crammond.

 

Content

Although RACE - The Official WTCC Game was an officially licensed game, it had a lack of diversity. That's because the championship itself doesn't have to many car brands involved in it. With an upcoming 2007 season with more less car models, SimBin decided it's time to add some more licensed championships to it. In the end they stopped at 8 championship categories: WTCC 06, WTCC 07, F3000, Radical, WTCC 87, Formula BMW, Caterham 7, and Mini.

If you think it's not enough, you can create your own custom championship with cars from all the other categories and with any of the 32 tracks. 32 tracks from all over the world with two tracks never recreated in a game: Macau and Pau in France. The tracks are selected in three categories: the 2007 WTCC championsip, the 2006 WTCC championsip, and variations. In the variations category you can find three additional tracks (Estoril, Imola and Vara Raceway) and different versions of the same tracks (Curitiba Oval, Magny-Cours National, Monza Junior, etc).

Cars and their physics are all that matters in such a game. And Race 07 has both of them. Amost 15 different car models with lots of different official paintwork to satisfy everybody' taste. You can play with front wheel drive cars, rear wheel drive cars and with open roof cars: F3000, Formula BMW, Radical, or Caterham 7.

If you remember the prequel had only the WTCC season and after a while it received an add-on with the Caterham championship. Race 07 can be considered as a double pack because it includes actually the whole content from the prequel plus additional championships. Physics are plenty present in the game and further improved from the previous version. The shifting process of the gears is much smoother, the choking effect being much less present compared to the first installment of the game. I think that most of the physics work has been done to the suspension simulation. Remarkable already from the demo, the suspension feels much more real. Every bump of the track can be felt at the wheel and somehow influences the handling of the car. On the Anderstorp track, I have spinned a Formula BMW because of the soft setting of the suspension. The downforce was too high and in one of the curves the bottom of the car touched the ground several times until I have entered in a spin without any control of the car. But like in all racing-simulation games you can't feel the pleasure of driving unless you have a wheel and play without any additional help from the computer. The force-feedback effects were improved so that the connection between the wheel and the computer are more natural. The acceleration is extremely sensitive. Take a F3000 car and drive it on a wet track. On a straight line you can spin its wheels even in the fourth gear. So pay attention how much you push that gas pedal. But unlike others, SimBin offered the chance also for the newbies to try this game. There is a lot of help material in the game and with all the automatic assistance systems activated everybody can drive the car with the keyboard. I am disappointed again by the lack of a real deformation system of the car. If you get in an accident the hit has to be extremely powerful in order to totaled the car or to lose some parts.

A.I.

The A.I. drivers remain almost the same like in the first installment. But they are probably not so aggressive anymore. On a 85 % difficulty on the prequel with no additional setup to the car it was hard to take the pole-position while here at 90 % the chances are much higher. Instead the A.I. is more realistic simulated. It can struggle like a human driver for more traction and can avoid collisions. Though they constantly hit each other making your life much easier in getting the checking flag.

Online

When you thing you're done with this game, try an online race and you will be amazed by how many are playing this game in different custom championships. Like GTR2, Race 07 will have a big fan's community who will develop new mods and patches for the game. Despite the graphical engine which was updated from 2006 version, but not necessarily to a next-gen version, the game runs smoothly in multiplayer races. The only freeze moments are because you probably don't have a last generation video card. Try it on a least GeForce 7600 and you will get a good frame-rate.

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