You didn’t all think we were going to get through this month without any mention of a PC sim racer, did you? Come on…it’s ME! As it stands, I have a new one for you guys, and while it may not be making any huge splashes yet, Auto Club Revolution has eaten up more of my spare time than I care to admit.
 
A full hands-on preview is coming in the next few weeks, but today we will take a look at the single player experience in ACR. Being a free-to-play game loaded to the brim with microtransactions, ACR actually gives the player many things unlocked from the start, something with many other PC FTP Racers don’t allow. First off, I didn’t find any tracks that were locked, and from day one I got to experience everything the game had to offer.
 
ACR_AI_Graphic1
 
The second is a single player experience that goes beyond time trials. Typically in the FTP PC racers I have played (and I have played a LOT), the focus is on multiplayer with a few options to race against the clock by yourself if you don’t like other people. In ACR, what’s often a premium feature (single player racing against AI opponents) comes standard.
 
Christoph Vietzke, Executive Producer of Auto Club Revolution says: “We are eager to enhance the single-player experience of Auto Club Revolution, to give players the features they want. Introducing premium content like AI to the game means that Auto Club Revolution continues to define what is possible within the free-to-play model.”
 
For someone who despises the entire concept of online multiplayer (*raises hand*), this is huge. This is easily a huge reason to choose this game over the many others on the market. The first available mode will be “AI Quick Race,” which should be rather self explanatory. Upcoming updates will include:
 
• New Showroom design: New look Showroom with design and colouring to match the new home page. New Showroom supports additional features such as Pre Order and Stock.
 
• Updated car-to-car penalty system: If a user receives 3 aggressive driving penalties they will be removed from the game. An Aggressive Driving Penalty “decays” after 2 minutes, eventually resetting back to 0, meaning users can accumulate more than 3, but will be removed from the game if 3 are awarded before they have decayed.
 
• Updated game pause menu: Pause menu will now also include HUD, assist and Audio options and have a new visual style.
 
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• Practice Analysis: Players who race in Practice Mode will be able to see a series of stats about the practice session while the game is paused while in the race. This includes items such as fastest laps, average lap time and average speed.
 
• New Practice mode results screen: An updated results screen is seen after a Practice race is completed which includes your leaderboard position plus the user above and below you for the car and track combination selected.
 
• Update to the assist menu: Options have been simplified to make them more consistent with other menus. Players will now only be able to select a global assist setting which will affect all cars rather than being able to set assists per car.