Crucially, Autosport’s career structure and nuanced vehicle handling combine to alleviate any potential frustration for players weaned on effortless victories. The career is split into five disciplines: Touring, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner and Street. Taking part in an event will earn you XP in that particular discipline’s strand, and larger Grid tournaments become available once you’ve reached a certain level in all five.
XP is earned in several ways: Team Targets ask for a minimum finishing position in the Team Championships (but you’ll only lose XP, not progress, if you miss this); Team Bonuses offer secondary objectives such as a finishing position in the Drivers’ Championship or finishing ahead of a particular driver; Sponsor Objectives offer smaller amounts of XP for, say, driving above 120mph for three minutes in total or improving on your previous lap time during a race; and finally Discipline Rewards award you for your finishing position, beating your rival, posting the fastest lap and any bonus earned from racing without driving aids or limiting yourself to an in-car view.

The
return of the in-car view will please players who take their racing
games seriously. Violent camera movements makes the game feel alarmingly
fast, too.
That boisterous AI does throw up some of its own problems, however. While opponents are noticeably less aggressive in open-wheeled races compared with touring and street events, they don’t always concede in the same way a human driver might, sticking to their chosen route even though you legitimately out-braked them into a corner. It’s less of a problem once the pack has spread out a little, but in a game that asks so much of you it can be frustrating to have your skilful manoeuvre met with apparent obliviousness – especially when some Sponsor Objectives ask you to complete a race with no collisions. Adjust for this, though, and the sense of speed and danger more than makes up for the occasional duff AI decision.
It is ironic, then, that for all Codemasters’ attempts to make the player feel like a race driver by building up a fiction around them, it is Autosport’s barebones, abstract interpretation of a driving career that proves its most successful.
Share with your frends
Download