Drive (Steam VR)

VR Shop Score – Silver Award

System: Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift & Windows MR
Price at Time Of Review: £14.49
Comfort Rating: Red
Genre: Racing
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: PG

Description: Sometimes racing sims are a little too…sim. Drive combines sim and arcade racing for beautiful and thrilling VR racing experiences. Put your foot to the floor and hang on as you battle challenging opponents across a range of tracks and racing types in search of glorious victory. Drive gives you realistic yet fun racing experiences without compromise. Built for VR it lets you feel the thrill of racing with beautiful car interiors and track environments and a deep feel of immersion.

2D driving games let you race at 300kph, Drive lets you experience it. From the moment you jump in the car, looking around the interior waiting for the start, you feel as though you’re out there on the track. When the light goes green, you’re off! The other cars roar to life and if you don’t push hard they’ll leave you behind. In the middle of the pack with cars inches from your doors jostling for places you feel every bump and turn. As much as you want the win so do your opponents. They will tap and nudge you for position and not give an inch or an undeserved position.

Review: The truth is we need more good quality racing games in VR and to be fair Drive is at least kind of fun to play! While it is a far cry from other racers like Cars it is still a good arcade-style VR racer. It even has enough content to justify the price with multiplayer mode on the way (I wouldn’t hold your breath) 5 vehicle types, 19 tracks and a selection of game modes to enjoy them with. But it does have to be said that it is far from perfect. It’s a shame there is no out-car view, only the driver’s seat and the graphics are at times very PS1 in style with several 2D elements. But I still have more fun than I thought I would do.

I get that it is not perfect, but you can get into this game if you are willing to get used to the janky controls. Besides £14.49 really isn’t a lot and for that, you do get a good few hours of content at least and it supports steering wheels (but doesn’t support motion controllers). If you go into this game expecting a serious racer with all the bells and whistles you will be disappointed, but if you go into it wanting a cheap racing game you can play in VR, you might find this game does the job.