After many laps in various modes we completed our review of the long awaited RS3. Many of you guys will have doubts or questions about Ubisoft's latest racing simulation and we hope that this review will give you a better insight in this game.

GENERAL

Racing Simulation 3 is the follow-up of F1 Racing Championship, but this time without the FIA license. It makes 3rd party updates much easier and Ubisoft and supporting websites don't have to be affraid anymore of any legal action. Until F1RC, Ubisoft always patched their F1 simulations and I expect them the same to do with RS3 once again. In the game you will find fantasy names for drivers,teams and even names of racetracks. At this very moment (even before RS3 will be officially released) we (and some specialists) are working on editing and updating RS3. We'll keep you updated ofcours.

Installing RS3 is as easy as installing F1RC. It only takes less time as RS3 requires only 393 Mb of your HD. The whole structure of RS3, in regards to file names etc, is exactly the same as F1RC.

GRAPHICS

Graphics are beautiful, a bit better than F1RC. Cockpits are still simple (the way they should be), but more modern to look at.
Because of the whole FIA license issue, car shapes have been altered into CART like shapes. Also, every building that is characteristic for a race-track has been removed or changed into something it's not. For example, some houses at the Spa track just dissapeared, the big stand at the Malysian track suddenly lacks its famous roof.

Track textures have been changed and give you a better impression of speed. Using the cockpit view, you will actually see the front suspension and disc brakes. It makes it more realistic. Pitstops are still animated and look the same as in F1RC. The menus have the same lay-out as in F1RC, but look a bit more modern through the use of other colours.

TRACKS

RS3 offers 16 tracks. Names of the countries hosting the tracks have been altered for reasons mentioned above: New Zealand is Albert Park Australia, Morocco is Barcelona Spain and so on and so on. New is the Indianapolis track. A track which we wanted to drive on for a long time. Monza has been changed with the new fist chicane and also the pit entrances of Silverstone and Suzuka are modified.

I can hear you count 16 tracks in F1RC plus 1 new Indy track makes 17, which track had to make room for Indianapolis? Well, I suspect that Ubisoft thought Monaco to be so characteristic for Formula One that they got rid of the entire track. It never was one of my favourites (to say the least) but F1 without Monaco is just incomplete IMHO. But we are working on a solution. There is room for two more tracks in the track menu.

SOUND

The menu sounds are exactly the same as in F1RC. Radio messages also didn't change, the same dull pit radio mentions that your front wing has broken. After having heard EA's 2002 engines I expected Ubisoft to change their engine sound dramatically, but unfortunately it looks like F1RC's original sound just has been tweaked. Personally I don't dislike it that much, but I always used Hudson's sound pack for F1RC.

I tried replacing the original sound file by Hudson's sound, but it didn't work as you'll get thrown back to your desktop. Also Hudson's pitvoices for F1RC don't work anymore. But I'm sure these sounds will be edited pretty soon. I experienced an annoying "clicking" sound on both my computers. At first I thought it had something to do with shifting up and down the gears, but it appeared that the clicking remained, even when not shifting at all. Setting back the car's volume to 70% got rid of that problem.

CAR PHYSICS

Driving physics can be compared with F1RC. Cars tend to be a bit more oversteered. Although you can load F1RC's setups, the car will respond a bit differently. In F1RC you could easily drive around a track with default setups, in RS3 you will loose the back end of your car a lot faster.We all got the impression that the cars accelerated a bit slower. Most guys that experienced driving physics of RS3 sofar really liked the physics.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Perhaps the most worrying part for some guys, as many of you drive a lot of offline races. (Visit Relay some time and join us in an exciting online community). The AI has improved a lot in RS3, but still isn't what it should have been. Instead of slamming your back end all the time and causing massive pile-ups, AI cars in RS3 are way more careful. I even have to say too careful! If they drive ahead of you, they are reasonably fast. As soon as you have passed them, you can slow down as they hesitate to pass you. Agressive racing is totally strange to them. When you are about to be lapped, you receive a blue flag, but you can still see them hesitating a lot causing traffic jams. In one of our testing sessions, we parked our car at the side of the track with the nose heading in the wrong way, causing a yellow flag situation. The AI cars actually stopped, hesitated for a few seconds before driving by very very slowly.