iRacing Arcade is a fun arcade racer, but its multiplayer offerings disappoint
If you’re a serious racer who is into eSports, chances are you’ll be familiar with iRacing, the subscription-based online racing sim. Perhaps in a move to make the iRacing brand more recognisable, however, there’s now a game for those who feel the need the speed but aren’t into hardcore sims. Enter iRacing Arcade, a game that’s accessible to all ages and skill levels. And unlike iRacing, you don’t need a subscription to play it.
Available at a rather wallet-friendly price of just £20.99/$24.99, iRacing Arcade offers light-hearted racing action whether you like to play online or offline. Its career mode weans players in, initially giving them access to just a Fiat 500 which is guided around pretty much any course with ease – you might just have to ease off the accelerator when making your way around hairpins. But as you complete races, earn money and level up, things soon become a little more complicated.
Emphasis on the ‘little’, however, as iRacing Arcade never becomes something that you’ll struggle to get your head around, or that becomes particularly challenging. The most complex thing here is developing your own racing HQ, building and developing your own garage as well as other buildings that provide boosts that might help you achieve victory during races. You can even move these around a small plot of land to decide how they’re laid out, too. Just be careful not to accidentally demolish one of them like I did in my early hours with the game, as you don’t get your money back.
Outside of career mode, there’s also a free race mode where you can set up events to your heart’s content, using any of the vehicles and tracks available. The vehicles range from the aforementioned Fiat 500, to a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup and even a Formula GP car. Only when driving the fastest of them, however, will you need to start thinking about touching the brake. When it comes to courses, there are some colourful imaginations of real-world tracks here, such as Imola and Tsukuba Circuit, as well as some fictional tracks to mix things up.
Inexplicably, the online racing aspect of iRacing Arcade is what will likely disappoint the most. Put simply, there’s no matchmaking here. You can create a lobby and have others join it by entering a code, and that’s it. Needless to say, it’ll prove to be a major deterrent for many. Hopefully Original Fire Games and iRacing, the developers of iRacing Arcade, can add matchmaking in, pronto, otherwise I can imagine many quickly getting refunds.
There’s a somewhat enjoyable experience at the core of iRacing Arcade, even if it is a little shallow. But what many won’t be able to get over is the lack of content and features. It’s the absence of online matchmaking that’s the real crime here, though. If it was easy to get into a race with others, players could eke plenty of hours out of iRacing Arcade, throwing their cars into corners. But as it is, it’s left to the unambitious career mode to carry the package.
iRacing Arcade is available on PC now, and will land on consoles later in the year.
