1) the "mixed" reviews are coming from people who are expecting this game to behave like need for speed. This is a simulation. Your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ xbox controller will not give you the control required to play this game on it's maximum difficulty.

2) The AI "smashing into you" And players "smashing into you" is YOUR fault. Learn what an apex is, and follow it. Learn your racing line and don't act like you own the road. Would you drive like this in a real car with your life and the life of others in your hands? No! Don't do it! They're hitting you because you're bad at racing. This game's physics isn't for casuals. Practice, practice, practice.

Everyone says they want "the most realistic driving simulation possible". Slightly Mad gives it to you and the crybabies realize that they actually didn't want that. They want to feel like a racecar driver without realizing it takes actual skill. Go play need for speed.

This is the single most incredible racing experence you can have in VR, if you have a proper racing wheel, and you want something that is a little forgiving and looks fantastic.

It translates to real track time improvements, I feel, as long as you set the game to the hardest, full manual difficulty.

The simulation is not 100% ... but it's damn close. It can be somewhat forgiving when it comes to damage or vehicle on vehicle impacts and so on - but the driving and road physics are top notch. If you don't drive like a lunatic and keep it on the track, the behavior is incredibly close to a real car.

As someone who has raced in road course time attack in a real racecar, this is the closest you're going to ever get without splashing 20k on a racecar and making it your life: or getting a full motion sim rig and going all in on iracing.

I'm playing this game on my HTC Vive, and I have to say it's one of the best racing game I've ever played.
The VR support of all the menus and in-car is the perfect example of how UI/UX should be done in VR. The immersion is just incredible inside the car.

Sure it's not a simulation like Assetto Corsa and it has its faults: the tracks are very flat (no bumps) and large, grip is tremendous for every car, braking points can be missed without consequences but the fun is definitely there. The AI is sometimes very stupid and will ram you for no reason, overall it's not a difficult game, but it's aimed to enjoy racing with different cars, reducing frustration of having to learn the tracks by heart and mastering a car.

The graphics are gorgeous. Cars are perfectly modeled and the weather is actually the most impressive thing to witness both on cars and on tracks.

TLDR:
For non-VR:
I really recommend this game if you'd like a great and enjoyable racing experience. It's a perfect balance in between Assetto Corsa which is a pure racing simulation, and Need for Speed Shift, or Need for Speed (the latest) which are arcade racing games. Graphics are really above its competitors.

For VR:
Best racing game at the time of review. Everyting can be done with the Vive on and the immersion is incredible. Definitely a must-buy.

I have 170 hours logged in the game, but about 50 of them are using the internet trying to figure out how to get the thing running stable, and 100 trying to work out how the force feedback works. It is the worst implementation of force feedback I have ever seen in any game ever. There are so many settings, and no matter what I do, I feel like I'm driving a boat that somehow suffers from snap oversteer.

Of the 20 hours I have actually played, the AI drive like pastor maldonado on a sugar high, and the career mode is about as rewarding as watching paint dry, only to decide you dont like the colour.

However credit to the art and sound team, the game looks and sounds really good

2/10 Quite possibly the worst but prettiest racing sim I've ever played.

Car variety is severly lacking, even with all the dlc installed, it has great tracks and physics are great, amazing racing wheel support and VR support.
I'm not sure this is the best racing game on steam though, assesto looks better in regards to car variety, but if you dont mind not being able to drive any lambo or ferrari then you should probably get this and drive a go-kart against f1

I played this game when it first came out and I really didn't like it. Too little cars and tracks and the game didn't have much to offer, so I played forza for a few months. I just recently came back to it and fell in love with it, infinitely more tracks and cars and the handling is so much more realistic than that forza crap (motorsport 6) although you can't really drift which is one of the only reasons I still play forza, project cars is one of the best racing simulators I've ever played!

this is a great game,you do have to change a few settings to get it to handle good but once changed the game is great,graphics are ace and gameplay brill,loads of fun,i would recomend to any racing fan

I can only recommend this game to people who have the latest Nvidia or AMD cards, especially when it concerns AMD. The game was co-developed together with Nvidia and thus runs better on Nvidia cards, and not as well on AMD. This is not Nvidia's fault of-course, but SlightlyMad's ... who should have ensured the game runs well on AMD before launching it.

I really like the content of the game, it has a large number of tracks and a good selection of cars. I also enjoy the driving physics, it is very different from the other sim racers in my collection (RaceRoom, Stock Car Extreme, Assetto Corsa etc).

Being different is a good thing, because it means you get to learn and experience something new. I don't want my sim games to share the same kind of physics, that would be very boring. I enjoy racing games and want to experience as many of them as I possibly can.

There are traces of Shift 2 in the physics, in the way the cars are eager to loose traction or grip around corners. However there's definitely more depth in the physics than what you got in the Shift games, as evidenced by the complex tuning or setting options.

Ignoring snide comments, the game can be played by anyone since there's a wide range of assists you can use. It plays really well with a controller, though you may need to adjust the car settings for smoother steering.

The Career mode follows the usual PC sim racing system, where you are free to do whatever you want basically; there's no linear path as in console sims like Forza and Gran Turismo.

A detail I appreciated was the track narration and engineering comments, which reminded me of Grid Autosport and the F1 games. It's something which makes your progression in the game feel more personal. I wish my other sim racing games had this feature.

Another nice detail is that the game actually offers a helmet view, something I've only seen in the later MotoGP games. I don't use it that often myself, but it's a very cool addition.

The AI is respectfully aggressive, it is neither too passive and neither too aggressive. The perception of a racing game's AI often reflects the player's own temperament: if you are not a mature and level-headed sim racer the AI in Project Cars might seem overly aggressive, but being rather experienced with sim games I do not share these sentiments.

As far as multiplayer goes, the game seeems to have lost some ground to Assetto Corsa and Dirt Rally, so it's probably not as easy to find online races as it used to be. People who mainly play multiplayer modes tend to migrate to other games rather quickly, usually the very latest big budget game. So if you mainly want multiplayer gaming you might be better off waiting for F1 2016.

Visually the game looks great, but that is also a negative aspect of the game: there's too much fluff and flair. I know the prupose of this is to attract a wider range of consumers, not just sim racing fans but also mainstream gamers, but it also alienates many sim racing fans who don't have powerful PCs. Most other PC sim racing games do not have the same high requirements.

In contrast, the games by Reiza Studios, ISI and Sector3 (ex Simbin) can be played by people with OK or Medium PCs. Project Cars is not as generous. Focusing on graphics and fluff over user accessibility is bad for the sim racing genre.

In summary: if you have one of the later graphics cards, post AMD 7700, this is a great game; it has lots of single-player content, challenging physics and a career mode that feels more personal than in other sims.

Got this in the Steam Summer Sale for £11.99 (Half Price). I've basically played this game in 2 sessions since I've bought it, and I cannot get enough. However, the reason for my Little Hours since i've bought it -- CSGO is life. But, that means i've played it in 2x12 hours sessions. This game is amazingly addictive and if you have a wheel, I strongly suggest picking this game up. The physics are great, the community is ok (The start of public games are attrocious though) and the "few" cars implemented into this game have had some real time and effort put into it.

GT3 and LMP1 seem to be ruling the online community (This isn't a bad thing, but more variation would be better).

The only negative with this game seems to be braking. You can go from 100mph down to 20mph in a split second, and i would prefer it to take some time as you can just race full speed untill you are about 5m away from the turn itself, and then just slam on the brakes.

I also wanted to find out how Drifting was. As a big fan of the Forza series, I had to try it out. This game wasn't built for it, and I went into a game with a stock car. I used a Touring Car B (Can't remember which one, there's 2 of them and I chose the bottom one hehe) and it was not forgiving in the slightest. It was difficult, but I managed to pull a few off.

Overall, this game is amazing for anyone even slightly interested in racing. I wouldn't recommened playing this game without a Steering Wheel or Controller though; A Keyboard is On/Off with everything, and precision with Throttle and Turning in this game are key.

Definitely in the top 3 driving games I've ever played. Codemasters' F1 series can go and cry in the corner with their outdated graphics and handling. This game provides everything I need for a racing simulator, although I would be happy to have more shorter online races.

Great game for racing enthusiasts & realistic racing game fans. It's a challenge and it's fun.

Suggestions:
- add more cars, honestly, the Japanese pack is a joke...where's the iconic Mitsubishi Eclipse and the Nissan Skyline / GTR?
- add the functionality to go into options menu during the race to tweak for example control or graphics setup without having to quit the race every time, that is annoying.
- add a paint shop for your car, so you can create custom looks inside the game (like in NFS for example)
- make it easier to access your car setups & tuning options, the menus could need a little touch-up in terms of being user-friendly.