I bought this game out of an obsession with old American cars and hot rodding. In the screenshots it looked as if there were some convincing recreations of classics like the '59 Fairlane, '61 Thunderbird and first generation Corvette. The last time I can recall a notable racing game focusing on this subject was EA's shortlived MMO "Motor City Online" back in 2001 which only survived a couple of years before the servers were shut down.
So what do you get for your money with this game? Well, not a lot really. The cars, it seems, have not been officially licenced, so although they look convincingly enough like the real things, the names of their supposed manufacturers have been changed. However, their actual model names are in many cases preserved. For example, there is a '53 Chevy 210 which is actually called a '53 210 but supposedly built by "Oceanic". There is a '53 Cadillac Eldorado called a '53 Eldorado but by "Belvedere". The models have Chevrolet and Cadillac badges, respectively, and have "Chevrolet" and "Eldorado" lettering, respectively. Perhaps it costs big bucks to actually use the manufacturers' names in a game, even when the vehicles depicted are sixty years old. So maybe we should not be too hard on the developer about this. What we can be hard on them for is the rest of the game.
The actual gameplay itself is not very interesting. The driving challenges are rather boring and the AI of the drivers you race against is horrific. The game is currently beset by bugs as well. There are fewer now than at launch, owing to a recent patch, but some remain. The aforementioned car models are quite pretty, but the car handling physics are awful, and you might also be stopped by invisible objects on the road.
Your AI competitors can collide with each other and with you, and you can collide with AI traffic. However, the AI competitors do not appear to have any sort of collision detection with traffic and just drive straight through it. They also find it difficult driving down a straight road without spinning off. The AI cars also get a headstart over you in each race, with you always lagging behind to start.
There is a progression system, where you gain levels by earning points for winning races and for "style" by doing things like overtaking, driving closely behind a competitor (called "slipstream", but why do they bother?), cornering "perfectly" (although you can get this even for massive imperfections), "drifting", and "speed threshold". The progression seems capped at the end of level 10 (i.e. you do not progress on to 11). However, thereafter you continue to get the end-of-level-10 rewards after earning even a single point in any race. This includes a special vehicle, so I have more than ten such vehicles in my "garage". This would not be so bad, if there was a facility in the game to sell these cars, but there is not, so I keep accruing them. The car awarded is a "1936 Emperor", which itself has a rather buggy model. It looks as though its suspension has collapsed, and it actually has some wheel hubs appearing lower than the actual wheel centres when you change the rims.
The biggest let down for me was the customization of the vehicles. Vehicles are presented as having four different performance characteristics: "Acceleration", "Speed", "Handling" and "Grip". Each one is awarded a percentage. There are eight ways to increase the performance of each vehicle: "Carburetor", "Supercharger", "Engine", "Torsion Bars", "Transmissions" [sic], "Suspensions" [sic], "Brakes" and "Tyres". Each component you can change has three levels of improvement over stock. "Carburetor" and "Engine" improvements affect "Speed", but not "Acceleration" (who knows why). "Brakes" improvements affect "Grip" but not "Handling" (again, don't ask me why). This is too simplistic to be in any way interesting, and pales in comparison to the customization options in Motor City Online more than a decade ago (which were not perfect by any means).
There are visual customization options for the cars as well. Each car has available four each of "Front Bumper", "Rear Bumper", "Side Skirts", "Hood" and "Muffler". Changes cost in-game money earned in races, but for some reason have escalating prices, despite not offering a performance benefit, and the most expensive part not necessarily being the best looking. Some of the changes, like "Side Skirts" are too all-encompassing. This option changes the front and rear fenders and door panels, regardless of whether the car model you are modifying actually has side skirts or not. It would be better if you could change aspects, like the front and rear fenders seperately, or the front bumper without changing the grille, for greater customization. You cannot chop the roof of your '49 Merc (or '49 Belvedere Bonanza, as it is known in the game), or lower its suspension. You can change the paint, but the range of paints is not very pleasing, and some body panels are inexplicably unpaintable.
There are options to change the wheels and tyres (called "Rims" in the game, seemingly an anachronism), but this does not always work, despite the fact that a lot of wheels have been unlocked. They just cannot be selected. Some of the wheel models are broken or missing, so when you do select them the car's wheelrims disappear or they appear incorrectly.
There is no drag racing. There is no option to just drive. There is no damage modelling. There is no dashboard camera, views being restricted to either the front bumper or a chase view. When you change the speedometer reading to miles an hour (instead of the default kilometres an hour, in a game set in 1950s America!), the distances remain given in metres. The music is a few tracks of boogie woogie instrumentals. Derivative modern compositions, obviously, and nothing faithfully from the era. These are played repetitively and there seems to be one track for the main menu, one for driving in game, one for finishing a race and looking at the score board, etcetera. At first I thought the music was by default a bit too loud, but when I turned it down to hear the dreadful sound of the engines I was glad for it. The engine noises are another major disappointment, as the sound of a V8 is a large part these cars' appeal. They sound more like four-cylinder Datsuns in this game. The only exception, so far as I can tell, is the Corvette, which does actually have a V8 sound.
This would not be such a bad game if it was available at a much lower price. The full price as of this writing is £14.99. I know the game is new but this what I would call a premium price range and this is a long way short of being a premium game. I have had plenty of better games through Steam for a lot less money.
To cut a long review short, I would not recommend buying this game unless, like me, you must have virtual representations of classic American vehicles on your computer which you can race, albeit in a limited fashion. [NB: In light of a recent patch, I have re-written parts of this review. The game is, however, still in a broken state owing to the level cap bug and its awarding you the same car again and again which the patch did not address.]
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