- Title: Race Pro
- Publisher: Atari
- Developer: SimBin
- ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone
- Genre: Racing
- Pros: Amazing gameplay; tons of performance tweaking options; very accessible; cockpit view; $40 price
- Cons: So-so presentation; track list and car list are both pretty thin
The main single-player mode in Race Pro is career mode. You start with offers from lower class teams and can join them by either running a hot lap and impressing them or by simply paying them a fat wad of cash to buy your way in. As you win races you keep signing new contracts and moving on to better teams and different vehicle classes.
The game has three difficulty levels. Novice gives you full assists, a glowing racing line, and very forgiving damage modeling. Semi-Pro and Pro difficulty levels are, obviously, increasingly closer to being true simulations. On Novice the game is pretty darn easy, and even on Semi-Pro you can smoke the A.I. by several seconds during the career if you have any experience with sim games. Turn it to Pro mode, however, and it is a completely different game where even slight mistakes are punished and near perfection is required to run near the top. This gives the game a nice wide appeal because both racing newbies and experts will both be able to jump in and have a lot of fun.
Other modes include standard time trial and practice offerings and there is also a Championship mode that focuses on just one season of racing rather than a whole career. Multiplayer on Xbox Live is fairly smooth and has plenty of options to set up races exactly how you want.
Gameplay
As far as the core gameplay goes, Race Pro is just about perfect. I know “Feel” isn’t the most descriptive word, but Race Pro just feels right. If you don’t drive correctly – that is, braking and accelerating when and where and how you should as well as taking the right path through corners – you are going to suffer. This style of gameplay certainly isn’t for everyone, but for sim fans it is amazingly satisfying and Race Pro delivers. It also certainly doesn’t hurt the realistic feel to have a great in-car view available to drive from, which I highly recommend you use rather than the normal third-person views.
Race Pro also has a full suite of tuning options so you can adjust and tune your car to your heart’s desire. Tuning a car and really feeling the result is easily the most satisfying aspect of simulation racing games and Race Pro does a great job with it.
Graphics
The presentation is another area of disappointment in Race Pro. The car models look okay, but there are jaggies and screen tearing all over the place. The tracks are also pretty bland looking and unimpressive. Race Pro just isn’t a pretty game, and when almost every other racer on Xbox 360 looks miles better, that isn’t a good thing.
Sound
The sound is similarly uninspired. Engine sounds are a bit one-note and don’t quite capture the throaty roar that a lot of these cars really have. There also isn’t any commentary or music during races so all you hear is the monotone engine sound, which gets old very quickly. Thank goodness for the Xbox 360’s custom soundtrack option.
Bottom Line
