[Lynxis]

Thought I'd post this for the other PC gamers out there because we've finally got a sim style racer with a twin in it. No, it doesn't have the BRZ but the FRS is practically the same car so I'll take what I can get.

Here is a copy of the notes concerning the release of the Japanese Car Pack:

"Project CARS continues its programme of continual updates and delivery of fresh new content with the release of the fan-requested Japanese Car Pack featuring two amazing Mitsubishi machines, 2014 Toyota Le Mans hybrid, the 2012 Toyota GT86/Toyota 86, and the latest Rocket Bunny Editions of both the Toyota GT-86 and Scion FR-S."

I bought the game and the Japanese Car Pack and played it for a bit with the FRS on Laguna Seca and I'll give a little mini-review. I've driven my BRZ on track a few times (but not any of the tracks in this game) and done a bunch of autocross so I have a good idea what the real thing behaves like.

I played the game with a controller and all driving aids turned off.

About the game first. I felt the graphics are middling even on the highest settings. It looks like a PS3 game to me but it's nice that it runs at a very smooth 60fps without ever dropping frames at 1920x1080 on my GTX770 and i5 4670. I hear the weather effects are very good but I haven't gotten to experience them yet.

Driving physics seem good but sometimes strange things happen under braking. In particular, I've seen the car veer hard right under heavy braking several times. I've seen the real car squirm a bit under heavy braking but I've never seen anything like this. Also, I've seen the RPMs drop way down in a braking-but-not-downshifting zone. This is like if I was holding in the clutch when I shouldn't be. It doesn't affect anything driving wise but was just strange to notice. Other than these things, no complaints, behaviour is as expected.

From what I could find in the 20 minutes of messing around in the menus I did before actually driving, the customization of your car appears to be minimal. You can choose from a few different tire compounds and tire pressures and a handful of other minor tweaks but that's all I could find. I suspect this was intended so they could model accurate physics for each vehicle with a minimum of variables.

Now about the car. It drives very close to the real thing but the one thing that really threw me off was how it sounds in the game. The real car doesn't sound this good. I'll get an exhaust someday.

Besides that, everything seemed pretty accurate. Acceleration is accurate, torque dip is present and punishes you if you fall into it like the real car does and cornering speeds are accurate like if you have the stock tires too. Saw a RL video of someone taking one of the corners on 280 tw tires at 65mph and I took the same corner at 70 in the game which I think would be pretty close to the Primacy's 240 tw rating. I did feel like the FRS in the game was a bit more tail happy than my BRZ but I think that is expected because the BRZ has a more neutral suspension setup than the FRS.

My final verdict: If you're like me and PC is your dedicated gaming platform then this is great! I've ordered a Logitech G27 wheel and I'm going to be playing much more of this over the winter. That said, the apparent lack of car customization options is a bit of a downer for me and lots of options appear to be present in the Forza and GT games so if you have a console for those games, then you might want to look at those instead.