5/5 ★ – ShadierRook7561's review of Assetto Corsa.

Where to start with this game. This is my sim racing fantasy game. Honestly the fact that this game, and the modding community, exists is one of the things that always makes me happy. I already reviewed this game, but I don't think that my past review did this masterpiece the justice that it deserves. Most importantly in a sim racing game: the physics. To get it out of the way, Assetto Corsa will NOT work well with a keyboard (obviously) or a controller (somewhat obviously). Do not get this game if you are looking for something to casually cruise around with that won't require any effort (IMPORTANT side note: Assetto Corsa is great for chill cruising, but you definitely need a wheel and will have to learn the game first). It is a true sim racing game, and there will be a steep learning curve for beginners to even be able to get a car around a track without wrecking. However, this is not to the games detriment and just adds to the realism. In real life, you have to learn how each car reacts and learning how to drive a track car without crashing is presumably very difficult as well. Once you get the hang of it, it feels amazing. Pulling off the perfect turn to shave a half second off of your laptime is incredibly satisfying, and you'll know through the great FFB. The force feedback in this game is great out of the box, and required no tweaking to get it feeling great. Overall, Assetto Corsa has some of the best Force Feedback and physics in the business, and is leagues ahead of every other game on the market for the price (iRacing might be better, but it costs so much to race in.) Speaking of leagues, Assetto Corsa is also my personal favorite in terms of league offerings. No other sim comes close to this one in terms of variety of cars used by leagues. Vintage cars, open wheelers, GTs, and even Hillclimb time attack style events are all available and online browsing lobbies are some of the most populated in any sim racing game. Assetto Corsa also has the pro of having mostly short online races, as opposed to the sometimes hour long races in Assetto Corsa Competizione multiplayer. I've also found the online population here to be less insane than ACC, but your mileage may vary. Besides physics, the car and track selection are often what make or break a sim game. While games like Assetto Corsa Competizione may have some more depth in their respective motorsport focuses over the selection in Assetto Corsa, it still has a high amount of high quality cars and tracks out of the box. Many of my favorite cars ever in sim racing are only available to drive in sim racing in this game, such as the Mazda 787B and the Ferrari F2004. This is helped by the amazing sound design, which is so much better than anything else. You can hear the backfires as you let off the gas on the 787B, the adrenaline inducing scream of the F2004, the earth shaking grumble of the AMG GT3. The game has an incredibly rich variety of high-quality sounds that help to make it the most immersive sim out there. Assetto Corsa also has a great track list, ranging from the Nurburgring to Laguna Seca (my favorite) to hillclimb and drift tracks. There is really something for every discipline of car racing, and it is a testament to the physics engine that all of them feel great to use. Most tracks are laser-scanned, so are extremely close to their real life counterparts. This lends a great feeling to the tracks and none of the proportions feel off. If all of this doesn't convince you to get it, there is still my favorite part of the game, or rather the community. Assetto Corsa has one of the best, if not the best, modding communities of any sim racer, or really any game period. To give an example of the dedication, take the KTM Xbow GT4 mod for the game. It is actually made by devs hired by KTM to drum up hype for their car through sim racing with real specs. How many mods are made for Minecraft or Skyrim by real companies, that actually add to the experience. The modding community takes everything very seriously and you can find a high quality version of pretty much every notable race car. There a ton of other high quality mods, and some even go so far as to change the physics model, such as the IER P13C , which has some of the best tire modelling that has ever been done in sim racing. Keeping with theme of almost everything being available, practically every track in the world is available in the game through mods. My home track is COTA, but unfortunately practically no sim racing games have it, but I was able to race here with any car that I could dream of thanks to the modding community. Not only have cars and tracks been modded, but also the launcher itself (Content Manager), as well as the lighting and weather in the game, allowing the player freedom to enjoy realistic looking conditions for any type of weather and any time. TLDR: Must buy sim racing game if you have a wheel. You can drive pretty much any car at any track that you've ever wanted to with mods. The combination of an extremely deep and satisfying physics engine, amazing engine sounds, updated graphics through mods, high quality base content, mod content, and online community make for the pinnacle of sim racing.