By John Robertson : Project Cars is simultaneously trying to be both a driver simulator and a racing game that can be played by everyone. In most circles, this kind of dual ambition is thought to be impossible... at least in the sense that no one has come close to pulling it off up to this point. Even popular racers that refer to themselves as 'simulators', such as Gran Turismo and Forza, do not feature the kinds of handling models and physics systems that a hardcore digital petrol head would consider realistic.
This is, however, the perfect time for Project Cars to prove that it has hit this Holy Grail of balance. Out this November, with no Gran Turismo or core Forza title lining up as competition, developer Slightly Mad Studios has the grid almost to itself in terms of serious racing options.
With that in mind, here's our breakdown of Project Cars most interesting elements and ideas. Will these be enough to carve itself a place in this fiercely contested genre?

1. A New Approach to Career Mode

Slightly Mad has been vocal in its belief that the traditional career systems employed by the likes of Gran Turismo and Forza is broken. In Project Cars, you won’t start your career in the slowest car available and be forced to hoard cash until you can afford a better one. It won’t be tens of hours before you can finally sit behind the wheel of that Ferrari F40 you’ve always had a crush on.
Instead, an approach similar to that of a sports game is being embraced. From the off, you can choose whichever car you like, with progression centred around how far you can take your career rather than how many impressive vehicles you can collect.
Three career goals are available for you to attain, and it's up to you to focus on one or achieve them all. The zero to hero route sees you start as a fresh-faced newcomer in a racing discipline of your choice, the challenge being to become champion and be recognised as a star driver. Another goal gives you an illustrious, fictional backstory and sees you attempt to continue that success and win championship after championship from day one. The third sees you trying to prove yourself as the world's best all-round driver, frequently switching between car and race types and besting the competition wherever you go.

2. All Types of Cars

Undoubtedly, the range of different cars types is impressive. American Muscle, GT, Le Mans, open-wheelers, go-karts and more are all included, with full championships, multiplayer and everything else available for each of them.
This provides a deluge of handling models to get to grips with, the precision of something like a Le Mans car bearing little-to-no resemblance to the hold-on-and-hope approach of muscle cars. While this gives you plenty of choice when it comes to hitting those career goals, the challenge for the design team comes in making sure all of these disciplines feel unique and equally meaningful.
So far, the signs are positive. Open-wheeled cars feel suitably twitchy and eager to react to even the most subtle of inputs, with yanks on the steering wheel to either side resulting in a loss of speed and grip. Racing a BMW M3 is completely different, the weightier and less precise handling allowing you to attempt riskier maneuvers without losing too much ground over the competition.
The challenge is to replicate this across all of the included disciplines. If karting doesn't feel as exhaustive as GT cars, for instance, then questions will be asked regarding why time was spent on it at all and if that time would have been better spent on achieving best-in-class quality elsewhere.
Simulating handling accurately isn't easy. Simulating multiple handling and car types is less easy.

3. Attention to Detail

With the top racing games providing such a high level of baseline quality, the difference between them often comes down to the little details. Project Cars seems to be taking this seriously, with every car's interior individually modelled, pit stops being fully animated, weather dynamically changing during races, no less than two separate cockpit views and the option to compete in races of up to 24 hours in length.
The top cockpit views are particular interesting, one of them placing you inside the driver's helmet. As you're driving the camera changes position and angle to match the g-forces being applied to the driver's head, a feature that works especially well if you're playing with a sophisticated racing setup - including a racing wheel, pedals and bucket seat.

4. An Evolving Experience

This being a crowd-funded project, the game promises consistent and meaningful game updates and additions well after release day. Given that progression is based more around personal achievement than unlocking new vehicles, Project Cars has the potential to sustain a long-term audience with players competing against each other's success, as opposed to the game itself.
It is, therefore, essential that Slightly Mad gets the community management and game updates right. Any sense that players are being forgotten and not taken care of will see numbers drop dramatically, just as they do in poorly managed MMOs and online-driven shooters.
The most important consideration here is how well the console editions of Project Cars are going to be looked after, since such platforms have not traditionally able to support the same degree of post-launch alteration and upgrades as the PC version. Expect significant dissatisfaction if console players feel like second class citizens.

5. Future Proof

Design boundaries are not the only limits trying to be pushed, those relating to technology are getting equal attention. If you've got a PC hefty enough to handle it, Project Cars can be outputted at what Slightly Mad has taken to calling '12K' resolution. In reality, you can display the game on three 4K screens side by side. Not 'true' 12K, then, but still impressive.
More interesting than that is support for both Oculus Rift and Sony's Project Morpheus. The VR headsets make sense for a racing game, giving you the ability to look into mirrors, out of windows and over your shoulder without having to fumble over the buttons to do so. This will come in particularly helpful for those dedicated to using wheels to play their racing games.
Project Cars might present itself as a game for everyone, but there’s no doubting that it’s veteran racing game fans that are going to get the most out of it. The sheer range of content, and the unstructured nature of it, makes it feel like the kind of game that casual players will only ever scratch the surface of.
Whatever the case, in the absence of Gran Turismo and Forza this year, the time is right for both Project Cars to make its mark and for racing fans to try something new.
​John Robertson is a freelance writer who doesn't wear a hat to cover up his bald head. Honest. You can follow him on Twitter.