Second Dive: iRacing Arcade

Welcome to a Second Dive, a second look at a game that was previously given a Full Game Teardown. More time behind the wheel will reveal new experiences and impressions that couldn't take hold in the first playthrough, and doing so with refreshed eyes. These pieces will be done usually after a major expansion or if the game is seen as being in a more complete state than launch but no real timeline.

But when it's time for that second dive, the adventure will be worth it.

This second dive is for iRacing Arcade, having gotten a console release and further content additions over the summer.

Fifteen months into this journey with Powerhouse Takahashi and there has been paths traveled that fade in and out of view as the days and months come by. If I hadn't gotten this hobby blog off the ground, I have a belief that some of those journeys, games, and adventures that I have been on would simply not have happened. I would have not taken the initiative and kept in my shell, though there's only so far I can go splitting time with two jobs and trying to look after myself.

That first real out of my shell moment came early in December last year when I made the trip to the Vancouver Games Expo as a focal point in a larger trip to the mainland. In the months prior I was interested in going, but didn't have that internal motivation to fully make that leap. But in getting my feet underneath me with this blog, and the added celebration of ten years of ownership of my Legacy Blitzen, I had pushed myself over the edge to go and see what Vancouver's gaming community truly had in store.

A path that started at the Roundhouse Community Centre is seemingly coming to and end in it's own way. On the floor of the Roundhouse was one racing game, iRacing Arcade from Original Fire Games. A game created as a licensing deal with iRacing would successfully launch on PC early this year before seeing a console release over summer coming with the additions of split-screen multiplayer and a few new cars and tracks being added as well. But that is the end of Original Fire Game's journey with their most recent title, as one of the developer's founders Carolina Mastretta announced that the planned transfer of the game's caretaking to iRacing themselves had been completed and that they were taking a break before moving onto the next adventure. When you've been doing this concurrently for so long as such a small group, there's nothing wrong with pumping the brakes on the grind that is programming in the capitalist world.

That path for me is similarly coming to an end, or at least to a pause as well. It's came to pass that I won't be able to attend the Vancouver Games Expo coming up in December, but there still is a console release of iRacing Arcade to play and see how I feel after months away and some new content in store. You don't always get to wrap things up with a bow on top, but it is nice when you get the chance. Let's get back on track.

iRacing Arcade is about providing a much needed structure and body to the well defined bones that was the racing in Circuit Superstars. The twelve week season system with championships littered throughout lifted directly from iRacing is how we get from point a to point b. In between weeks is the chance to use the money earned in those races to build out your team's facilities which provide boosts that are key in your success in the higher difficulties. It's a clean, crisp structure that got an added boost in the early game with the arrival of a Caterham Super 7 in the spring, and then the addition of two classic open wheelers, a cab-over big rig truck and a Mercedes 190E DTM coming with the console release. That old school DTM car the first content addition within iRacing as a part of their new license with the DTM was a pleasant surprise, and maybe a sign of things to come.

It is a joy to see the roster of cars in iRacing Arcade expand beyond what can be seen as the straight and narrow within road racing, but they come available at a awkward time during the campaign. The quartet of new cars added with the console release aren't up to the task in counteracting the stalling momentum that happens in the latter half of the campaign. Cars like the IMSA GTP and the Cosworth GP become available and represent the pinnacle of their sides of the road racing coin, but they're just more series for you to do and they come quick after unlocking the LMP2 and Porsche 911 Cup cars. At the same time there isn't an additional primary objective you're progressing towards like an equivalent to a iRacing World Championship; it is just that season structure with a bonus standalone event functioning as week 13 is all there is. There needed to be some way to tie a season or group of seasons together to provide a bigger payoff, like the team and driver rankings from Race Driver GRID providing the basis of who moves on to the World Championship. It just needs some sort of late game challenge to be building up towards.

Much of the challenge remains in the on-track product which hasn't changed since launch, but that's because it doesn't need to with how good it was already. Alien difficulty as the highest difficulty level is worthy of the title given to the drivers with out of this world pace in the realistic racing game space, and sometimes it does take exploiting those power-ups to keep up or get ahead. A fun strategy is always to exploit the Friendly Steward power-up and find the most obvious place you can find to pass half the field. Don't want to be involved at the typical first lap melee at the recently added Monza? Just cut the Rettifilo, get away with it, and then do it again until you burn through the charges.

A real treat in coming back for a second playthrough was having my first encounter with Monza be on the Combined layout, the classic grand prix layout that used the oval as the last part of the lap. It does introduce it's own challenges, as you pit for service after the main lap but before the oval. For longer races it does require quick math to understand what fuel numbers are needed to making it to the pit lane, and then to the finish line after passing the pit lane. Being able to make that stick is often all the difference, even as sometimes the computer opponents will be too aggressive with their fuel calculation and run out on the final lap.

I find great satisfaction racing to a fuel number in the endurance championships and trying to push these cars an extra lap or two beyond what you rationally should be doing. The fuel use in the driving model responds super well to lifting and coasting into corners, as well as the extreme use cases of partial throttle on the straights. A particular IMSA Endurance race at Magny-Cours saw me take a pit stop on the third lap of a twenty-four lap race after use of the Glass Rocket boost resulted in my car being near destroyed from a few collisions. The fuel estimate had me close to making it on just two more stops and undoing all the damage, but it required a massive fuel save to make it stick. It would be running partial throttle, buoyed by the power bonus from Glass Rocket, that left me with way more fuel to make the two stop strategy to the end stick and get back on strategy. The fact that iRacing Arcade can do that and long run race craft can matter in such a package is truly a marvel.

Much of the question now remains what happens next with iRacing Arcade with it's stewardship having been transferred from the one competitor in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final to the other. There remains work to be done; with there being a lack of quick matches and true public lobbies in the online multiplayer and the game begging for a release on Nintendo Switch. Being able to save your favorite colors is quality of life improvement for livery creation, and the console release getting split screen multiplayer is a huge plus.

But what does the team out of Massachusetts do in terms of further content additions, if anything at all? For a game that can be seen as a soft introduction to the world of iRacing it is a bit of a surprise that it's biggest cash cow, GT3 racing, isn't a part of iRacing Arcade for as much as I bemoan the category.

That is the path that they find themselves on, one well defined by those who treaded it before them but needs to be taken care of all the same. This may be the end of the path for me and for it's original caretakers at Original Fire Games, but it hopefully won't be for a game that still remains a treat to drive and race but just needs that little bit more of it's fantastic evergreen conveyance.

Special thanks to Nathaniel Knight from Sandbox Strategies for providing a download code to iRacing Arcade on console, I remain forever grateful for these opportunities.