Recent reviews by Sir Dr. Pew Pew

I would like to recommend Hades, but I do not have much playtime because there is no way for me to change the resolution so the entire screen isn't blurry/fuzzy. I've attempted every trick I could that I've found on steam with no fix. For some odd reason the game selects the incorrect resolution and the game has no way to change it. I can't play for extended periods of time because it gives me a headache. Sadly too late to refund

So before I begin I will note that I am very experienced in sim racing despite only currently having 7.7hrs in raceroom, and have not had any experience with the online service of the game (the servers are usualy dead when I get on and also due to the fact that currently I can only run h pattern gearbox cars). But I will give my initial feedback on how I feel of the game.

My setup as follows I have a Thrustmaster TMX (found one locally after a year or two after breaking my Thustmaster Tx in a move. Total downgrade in my opinion but gets the job done) 350mm deep dish wheel (I have the old steering wheel with the wire that runs through back of the case so I have access to buttons still next to my setup), thrustmaster tpa 3 pedal system, Logitech g Driving force shifter with usb adapter, 16bit hall sensor usb handbrake I picked up from amazon, and a Oculus Rift S vr system.

My hours in sims as follows:
Assetto corsa: 1463hrs (Drifting, touge, racing, hillclimb)
Project Cars: 65.7hrs (hated it after I got a thrustmaster wheel and started playing Assetto Corsa)
Project cars 2: 85.8hrs (love hate relationship with physics and AI, but no longer drive. There is something that really holds this game back in the physics for me)
Dirt Rally: 40.2hrs (Wasn't really into rally at the time except for Pikes Peak)
Dirt rally 2.0: 22.8hrs (Been playing it a lot more recently because I started getting into Rally, but really disappointed they didn't bring back Pikes Peak)
Race room 7.7

The Review:

The Pros: Raceroom as of its current state on February 08, 2022 gets a lot of the things right that you don't really feel in Assetto Corsa on cheaper wheels. In Assetto you don't really get certain information from the car suspension or tires so you have to rely on visual information. Having vr extremely helps with in my opinion. If a kunos car starts to have the rear end slide out you have to guess how much you have to correct sometimes, which for a lot of drivers I've seen online either sends them into a spin or off the track if you don't know how to properly correct. Especially with snap oversteer). The cars in race room that I've driven (GTO classics, DTM 1992, Group 5, bmw m1 Procar, NSU TT Cup, Touring classics. All on the Nordschleife which is my hands down most driven circuit) all give excellent information on how its doing. Get on the power just a tad to much? The car lets you know. You're understeering in a corner? You can actually feel it. You're in the zone of slip angle? (unless you're versed in it) The car lets you know whether to hold your throttle or reduce slightly.

My absolute favorite thing are the ai. The ai are competent drivers! I hate the kunos ai. Even with Content Manager and the new ai you can select with it. Sometimes they just send it. Sometimes they slow down wayyy to much for a corner in Assetto Corsa. In raceroom the Adaptive ai, depending on how fast you adjust to cars on a base tune, can give an excellent racing experience. When you get a better understanding of the cars in Race Room (for me a short period of time) you can start cranking their level up to get more of a challenge.

One thing I see a lot of people ragging on Race Room for is the fact that you have to purchase a lot of the content despite the game being free. Having been around DCS for a while the way they do things are similar, but Race Rooms have a MUCH better pricing structure. In DCS you can buy a vehicle (plane or helicopter for instance) upwards of 80 USD. In race room you don't have to own every single car and track if you don't want to which I think a lot of people don't understand. You can buy a specific car and a specific livery (or all liveries for a few cents extra). For instance I only had a few dlc for Assetto corsa for years. I picked the rest of them up on sale just because, but I don't even drive most of the Kunos cars to begin with. I mostly got them so I could join any sever with any combo of Kunos cars. With Race Rooms base game being a free to play system it makes senese that you would have to buy extra content. The company has to make money some way to continue to make profit to keep paying their employees to continue to update the game and improve on it. If you had to buy every single car in a class I would be more understanding situation for their complaints. The way they currently have it I don't quite understand it since they only look at it from a consumer standpoint. But hey, that's just me.

In the current state of Race Room I can tell I'm going to drive it more since the death of the old ranked system Assetto Corsa used to have until they decided to shut down their services.

One huge thing Race room gets on point compared to Asseto Corsa is elevation changes on road surfaces. You can feel exactly what the suspension is doing when there is a slow or rapid elevation/camber change on the road surface.

The cons:

Ad's for racing rigs and such in your face when loading tracks. The cars are not so much in your face as everyone claims. They're in a list under your owned cars, but they're not really in your face. The game just say's hey you own these car classes, but not these.

This is a con for me being a only h pattern gearbox. Not very many servers with h pattern cars. Everyone wants to drive sequential shift cars. I miss and love gt2/gt3 class cars, but until the day I get a Simucube Direct Drive wheel or a sequential shifter I probably wont be driving these cars for a while.


One thing I can agree on is that that I wish you did get a few more cars with the base free game or at least more h pattern cars.

On the ranked server there is only two american server. I wish there were more servers and/or players on when I get on late at night, but that's due to my sleep schedule / work schedule.

A small con here. There are settings for you gas, break, and pedal system which delay when your pedals actually release. I was having issues with fast shifts at first till I fixed this.

On one instance of one specific car, I don't remember which it, it feels like the audio gets messed up and jumps around on where your rpm is for certain shifts, but that could be the previous cons result before fixing the issue.



This is the end of my current review. Some things are subject to change or be added as I play the game more and update the review

With Vr, a joystick, and rudder pedals ww2 dogfights from realistic to simulator become more of a dream. The immersion and intuitive ability to fly various aircraft become apparent. When you lose dogfights you know the exact moment you messed up (either not being aware enough, weren't paying attention to speed and either broke your wings or had wing stiffening straight into the ground, or maybe chose a wrong defensive maneuver and put yourself right in the hud of the enemy). But one thing is for certain: The more you fly, more knowledge you acquire, maneuvers you can perform/When to do them, and learning what styles of combat your plane is good for and how to use those strengths will turn any dogfight into a ballet to the death that can end with either bitter defeat, sweet succulent victory, or just barely escaping with your life in a bullet filled plane that's barely keeping itself in the air.

With several nations to choose from and few different vehicle types to (planes from early war to nearly modern, tanks in the same manor, ships, and helicopters) you can truly chose what you want to do. There are premium vehicles which can indeed give you an edge, but unlike other games with a premium system its not detrimental to game play. This game however is EXTREMELY grindy. Early tiers may feel quite fast, but higher tiers will sometimes feel like a extremely slow grind its something to bear in mind. I myself prefer planes mostly, but do dabble in ships and tanks occasionally. You'll also want to figure out what nation you want to main or certain planes you want to fly and what flight style you're good at or is most exciting to you. I mostly flew Russian bombers from the release of War Thunder to this year until I got a Hotas with throttle and rudder. Since then I've almost exclusively flown Japanese turn fighters and energy fighters, A few Russian fighters, and American fighters and interceptors. I've come to terms with the fact that I don't really like the bf-109's flight characteristics (though they are amazing planes), or British Spitfires (Despite the way they're depicted they really do have stability issues and will try to kill you if you're not gentle with the stick and require trimming to fly well)


There will be a learning curve coming from mouse and keyboard to joystick. On mouse and keyboard there is a flight instructor model that will keep you from flying your plane out of its limits when requirements are met at the cost of limiting the way you can fly your plane, and on joystick you can easily over pull the stick and cause your plane to start flipping and flat spinning all the way to the ground. Its ideal to learn how and when to use flaps ( some people are fine without it, but good pilot and amazing dogfight wins will come from learning when to use what flap mode when and how).


In closing since War Thunder has come out I have a decent number of hours in it, and if I would have had a hotas with throttle and rudders with track ir and or vr sooner I would probably have over a 1000 hours in it like a few other games I have. Maybe I don't burn myself out on this game like others because I don't care a bout jets. I have dcs for that. I pick a few planes that I really like and I stick to them.

If you have a love for ww2 aviation, this game just might be for you.

I haven't even played it yet, but despite having a compatible card during the previous testing I was unable to launch the game.

Specs for reference
Asrock X570M Pro4 matx motherboard
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor
Evga 980 Kingpin (Yes my graphics card is getting a bit older, but I'd rather wait for the gpu market to stabilize before updating. My card is holding up to current games fairly well)
32.0 GB of ram

Now the new issues arise. I'm currently using a 720p tv as a monitor for pc since my 4k tv running 1080 at 120hz broke in a move. I am disappointed to see that no full screen has been implemented, borderless windowed forces me into a higher resolution that is not native (1360x768 is native) and has the ui being cut off with no way to set the screen border. Windowed mode forces me to have a minimum resolution scale of 103%. I can't wait to see what other issues will arise when I do play the game. Can't say I recommend the game or not yet(will give a recommend for now), but these are issues that I think shouldn't exist in the first place.



Update: I am completely unable to play at native resolution The game either forces me into 1360x745 in windowed mode or 1360x807 borderless windowed instead of 1360x768

The field of vision is a bit odd, like your chins pointing at the sky constantly and you're looking almost as far down as your eyes can look while virtually wanting to naturally gaze into the sky to ponder the question of reality, existence, the Illuminati, your life decisions, and setting finally settling into existential dread before you realize you're about to attack the location the bounty is in while a team is already fighting it and you're trapped between two teams and you either get killed buy a guy donning a black coat or a fat redneck in overalls

10/10 would play again