E3 2013: Driveclub Hands-On Gameplay (PS4)

After interviewing Ben Gouldstone, Senior Designer at Evolution Studios about the free PS Plus Edition of Driveclub I got some hands on time with a 35% complete pre-alpha build of the game.

With such an early build there was only one playable track and a few cars including the gorgeous Pagani Huayra. The PS Eye and some of the social integration was working with some really awful pictures of people stuck to the bumpers of cars and popping up at the bottom of the screen during the on track face-offs and overdrives.

These challenges, which include drifting your car for the longest distance or reaching the highest speed all gain you fame when completed. The fame system seems to work like Kudos did in Bizarre Creations classic Project Gotham Racing games.

The cars were straightforward to drive making it easy to set decent and consistent lap times. The real skill was in making the cars drift around corners, something I found hard to do while keeping them under control.

I had a bit of trouble getting the arse of the car to shift sideways while the front end firmly gripped the road. Before I knew it I’d driven around the damn corner without drifting and failed the drifting face-off. Rats. More practice needed.

In the video below I talk you though a couple of laps of the Kinlock track in Scotland while at the same time showing how to fail almost all the face-offs and have a serious (almost fatal) altercation with a road sign. I blame my E3 Expo tiredness, oh and my terrible driving skills.

The other awesome news is that one of my favourite bands, Hybrid have produced some music for the game. You can hear one of their new tracks in the Driveclub E3 2013 trailer. Hopefully, there will be loads of new stuff from them to enjoy while racing.

Driveclub is a PlayStation 4 launch title when the console is released at the end of 2013.

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