SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Review: RACE: The WTCC Game

SimBin Hot on the heels of GTR2 which was developed by SimBin spin-off company Blimey on behalf of SimBin, SimBin in Sweden fortified by staff hired from developers such as DICE released WTCC the World Touring Car Championship. Or was it the other way round? Who worked on RACE, and did it hit the shelves, or was it primarily a download via Steam?

Regardless; With two major sim racing titles vying for your attention, what are the differences that should entice you to purchase WTCC?

The WTCC

FIA’s World Touring Car Championship features car makes by major European car manufacturers: Like the BMW 320, the Alfa Romeo 156, the Pegeout 407 and the Seat Leon, as well as the Honda Accord and Chevrolet’s Korean manufactured Lacetti. All these are promoted and sold on the European markets and as such the brands and models are house-hold names. This title therefore seems to be aimed firmly at audiences familiar with these cars, and in the countries where WTCC race.

Interestingly, these car types also feature in a number of European national championships and this fact could prove to be of a beneficial value to sales of WTCC as skinners should be able to partly create these national championships, simply by reskinning the cars that are provided in the game. It remains to be seen if skinning and perhaps track-conversions are a feasible proposition, as the files in RACE reportedly are compressed into larger archives, and are perhaps even encrypted. I have tried taking a look in the directory structure and all I can say in this matter is that I don't understand where half the files are.

Points are awarded for finishing in the top eight, as in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, with 1st being awarded 10 points, 2nd 8 points, 3rd 6 points, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point for the finishing positions from 4th down to 8th position. A number of regulations apply to the series including the use of a limited amount of pre-defined sets of tyres and a limited number of engines. As is common these days in several Touring Car Championships, weight penalties are imposed in order to maintain a high degree of competetiveness during the season and avoiding that one car make runs away with the championship way before the final race of the season, and it certainly worked out that way in the just recently concluded 2006 championship. No less than six different drivers could win the championship before the final race in Macau. The weight penalties for the WTCC are as follows: 1st is given + 40 kg to add to the car, 2nd + 30 kg, 3rd +20 kg, 4th +10 kg, 5th 0 kg and the finishing positions from 6th to 8th are allowed to remove previously added weight by 5 kg, 10 kg and 15 kg respectively. From 9th onwards, 20 kg are removed, until eventually all previously acumulated penalty weight is gone. For anyone interested in the complete set of regulations the official WTCC web-site offers several documents in PDF-format to study.

The tracks used by the series in 2006 were, Monza, Magny-Cours, Brands Hatch, Oschersleben, Curitiba, Puebla, Brno, Istanbul, Valencia and Macau, the latter famous for its tight and twisty narrow streets. And all the tracks are present and accounted for in the simulation.

Packaging and Documentation

You can purchase RACE with no box for $45 on a download from Steam. Then you can pay approx. $48 for one version which is marketed in a white-ish box, and finally I found a version marketed in a yellow-ish box for c. $31 which was delivered by snail mail. In a box. When the box arrived, it was in fact the white-ish box. It’s been a long time since I went to business school, but I do not understand at all, why exactly the same product is sold with a difference in pricetag of $17. Oh well, perhaps It is Tom Lehrer and New Math rennaisance week.

As a represenative for the paying customer, I have to remark that apparently the reduction in cost by saving the box and art-work for the steam version was not turned into a lower asking price for the customer. Hopefully the extra bucks went to the developer, and maybe the lack of availability of RACE as a regular item on shelves in the stores I frequented is connected to this fact.

The white-ish cover, with its illustration of the cars coming towards you in the metropolitan settings I believe is an attempt to get the NFS-folks to pick up the box. It mixes the elements of having an official license to a real life racing series and perhaps also tries to evoke associations to “street-racing”. Whether you find this combination appealing is entirely up to your own taste.

The manual is the usual skimpy 30-pager, barely containing sufficient info with regards to installation (see my comments below). It does contain a brief section including driving tips however which is good although.... erm, brief.

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