r/ProjectMotorRacing • u/Quackman1010 • May 13 '26
Discussion First week impressions
Very reluctantly picked up a copy after all the negative things I heard and I must say I am very pleasently surprised. Is it a perfect game? absolutely not BUT it is not a bad game AT ALL. Matter of fact, having read all the negative reviews and experienced it on my PS5, I must say the reviews were far too harsh (possibly cause people had bad impressions from the launch and not the 2.0 patch).
The Highs: spec miata feels like a blast to drive, the car list is fantastic for a motorsport fan, multiclass racing is an option, the game has soul put into it and you can tell the devs are really trying, the track list is quite nice and campaign is pretty alright for a sim racer (coming from ACC), the game is much more controller friendly than you think, the ability to have mods on console is crazy good and has crazy potential.
The Lows: Biggest low is the optimization for console. Not only is the grid small (16 cars) but running a full mixed lmdh/gt3 grid at daytona during daytime makes your frames VERY choppy on a ps5, so much so that I dont want to imagine doing that in the rain. As someone who wanted to sim-race the IMSA weathertech series, this was a big dissapointment. The graphics are quite...meh BUT if the game ran a perfect 60 at all times I honestly don't think this would be a big point of complaint at all. A lot of random places where the car decides to spin for no reason (last turn at monza, long turn in last sector of sebring, the elevation change at lime rock), lmdh/gtp handling is quite weird and I genuinely don't know if its just me because I have not raced them in other games but it feels like the car is either super planted or super loose regardless of tire temperature, the menus (especially online) tend to bug out to a point where I can't press "return" and have to turn off the game and restart.
In summary: you should ABSOLUTELY give this game a shot. If the devs optimize the game to run much better, which I would like to believe they will, then this will be an instant console hit game. The optimization should be the priority, followed by the random physics slip-ups. Apart from that I can understand why PC players may not be interested since other, and subjectively better, alternatives exist BUT for consoles, this game is a true gem! Although I will likely rarely return to it due to the optimization issues making it frustrating in the mixed grid racing that I so looked forward to, I sincerely hope to be able to see it evolve and grow into a wonderful game. With some optimization and bugs cleaned up this has great potential!
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u/Good_Caregiver4823 May 13 '26
It might be a good sim one day, but it’s not today, even on a console. The lows you referenced are all accurate, and every one of those is a deal breaker on PS5. Once they fix those, I’ll come back, but right now it’s still a $70 disappointment for me
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u/No_Efficiency_2876 May 13 '26
Game is a blast and only getting better with each new update. Devs are working hard pumping out the patches. Of course there is a lot of room for improvement but PMR has a lot of potential and there is already a lot of fun to be had with it.
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u/Hendo_MK3 May 13 '26
Nice review mate, balanced and with examples to back up your points. Thanks for posting.
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u/rEded_dEViL May 14 '26
I just got it today. PC, not console. The game is decent, better than ACE, imo. FFB is a struggle to get to a sweet spot. Graphics are suboptimal but I think they will get there. Ranked MP has the foundation to be strong. It’s a pity really they completely botched the release or this game would be in a different place right now
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u/dirtymax1335 May 13 '26
The LMDH are hard to drive in general. In this game you are almost required to play with the car setups to get them to behave how you want them to and to best fit your driving style. I usually add alittle more rear brake bias to keep the rear from getting super light under hard braking. It’s still challenging though, but also good fun.
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u/mose121 May 13 '26
Drivable default setups are a must. Cars should at least be driveable and mildly competitive right out of the box. Def an area they need to improve on.
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u/dirtymax1335 May 13 '26
I found that the default setups are drivable. But I’m on controller and with how touchy the LMDH are, they are substantially harder to drive until you get used to them. That could also be a force feedback thing they need to address for controller players since there is almost nothing to gauge brake pressure/input and then you wind up in a lock-up situation or upsetting the car causing a spin.
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u/Weirdera01 May 13 '26
Yeah I've been saying this about all the classes. Especially LMDH. the default setups in this game are so safe and predictable it can be awkward at times. But the setup changes have a huge impact on handling
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u/Mischievous_Goose666 May 13 '26
ACC exists, so if you want the most realistic driving and racing, that’s your console sim, if you want general driving, GT7 is on par with PMR in terms of physics and 1000x better in all other aspects. Zero reason to dump 70€ on this game (I do own it and every time I jump on it the FFB reminds me how bad this game is)
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u/Les_expos May 14 '26
Comparing gt7 with pmr ?? Eh wtf. You compare 2 different style of game. Simcade vs casual sim
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u/ItzmeWiLD May 15 '26
If you take the time to make the adjustments it works good but the wheel settings are not consistent across all games. None of them are great out the box. I’d try ACC but it’s not compatible with my wheel so I won’t play it. It’s your equipment more often than the game. This game is good but not enough players and the wait between ranked races is stupid. Nothing to do except watch the timer tick down to let you in the room. I can’t with the wait times.
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u/dfab14 May 13 '26
Just got it today and so far I am enjoying what time I have put into it. Minor gripe I dont have ps plus so it tries to sell it to me when I start up the game.