Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 21/Nov 02:08

RENNSPORT – Review

With massive titans such as Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, and Assetto Corsa still dominating the racing sim scene, it’s hard for new contenders to step into the ring and make a name for themselves. Even so, that’s exactly what Nacon is trying to do with the recent release of their racing sim, RENNSPORT. The game is currently not performing all that well on Steam with its full ‘free-to-play’ release after spending quite some time in Early Access. We, however, will be talking about the paid version for PlayStation 5, which also leaves a lot to be desired. Story RENNSPORT has no story whatsoever. You can basically pick the mode you wish to play, and that’s about it. While we didn’t really mind the lack of a story here, there’s also not really a career mode in the game, which does make it feel less interesting for gamers looking for a single-player experience. The tutorial is also very barebones, making it hard for new players to get into the game. Graphics Graphically, RENNSPORT left us with mixed feelings. A lot of the car models look fairly decent, albeit somewhat dated, but still good enough to give a realistic impression of the licensed cars. The tracks, however, look really basic, and when you actually drive around slowly, you’ll see that everything is just empty, the tree models are pretty much flat, pixelated assets, and so on. We could count the pixels in our rear-view mirror as well, and the game does suffer from a lot of texture pop-ins too. It’s a bit of a rough mess in its current state. Credit should be given where it’s due though: a lot of the cockpit views looked quite good. All in all, the performance is quite decent, but given the subpar quality of the graphics, the developers really needed to at least nail one aspect here. Sound The sound design of RENNSPORT also left a lot to be desired. The game is absolutely void of any music, which is quite odd to say the least. Even the in-game menus greet you with total silence, which felt a bit lazy and disappointing. The cars all have different engine sounds, at least making the limited roster of vehicles sound diverse, but the actual engine sounds don’t always match the real-life counterparts. We were often more under the impression that these were random engine sounds or that we were listening to them from a big distance, rather than hearing the sounds from the actual driver’s seat. Gameplay RENNSPORT is a racing sim with extremely limited content. The game only has 17 cars, 12 tracks (with a few additional variations), and hardly any gameplay modes. The offset is quite simple here, you pick a mode, a vehicle, and you’re pretty much good to go. You can tweak certain settings to make the game a bit more beginner-friendly, but even then, RENNSPORT isn’t a very welcoming game. There’s a subpar tutorial that just lets you drive around a bit, but it doesn’t really explain anything. The game just lets you pick your button layout or input device, and then a few optional assists (with not all of them being visible even). Truth be told, the game already shows its cracks mere moments into the experience. Cars feel very floaty, the game has actual bugs where we consistently couldn’t get our car into drive at the start of the race (which was always solved by simply going to the menu), and the penalty system is out of control. We tried playing online several times, and on the few occasions we found one or two players, the experience simply wasn’t any fun. We could have had a perfect lap, and then another player rear-ended us, knocking us off the track, only for our lap to be cancelled. It’s a frustrating gameplay loop with other players, and the single-player options didn’t fare any better. The AI is horrendous, and actually drives into you a lot too, and they simply crash half of the time for no apparent reason. We have seen our fair share of massive pileups mere moments into a race, half of the time even before we took our first turn. In its current state, RENNSPORT feels more like an Early Access project than an actual full release. Conclusion RENNSPORT felt like a valid attempt at entering the racing sim scene with a new and interesting release, but sadly, it ended up feeling like an unfinished mess. The game has its fair share of bugs, an overactive penalty system, a severe lack of content, dated graphics, and an unfun gameplay loop that will frustrate genre enthusiasts. While we can’t deny that a workable foundation is already present, RENNSPORT will need to put the pedal to the metal with polish and content updates if it still wants to have a podium finish.