You'd be correct to think about "what happened here" - why are we suddenly back at "A"? Well; there's a story behind that. I rather enjoy driving cars, and with the recent increase in the price of fuel; well; everywhere - I haven't had opportunities (or frankly the time) to drive around my local, favourite bits of road.
The other thing that is at risk as a result of doing that is well; my life.
I think I'm saying "well" a bit too much, and I should just cut to the chase (is that a racing pun?) (I don't know).
Recently, with the release of Gran Turismo 7, I purchased a Logitech G29 steering wheel, pedals, and shifter. That game is a hot mess, and a disaster which I've written about. I don't wish to repeat my verbal diarrhoea about that game here...
So instead, onto Assetto Corsa. It's a racing simulation game with a very poor interface. By This, I mean that the interface where you select what you want to do doesn't scale to a 4K resolution on PC very well.
That all becomes very inconsequential when it comes to the part where you are actually required to race.
I made a mistake the first time I tried to play Assetto Corsa. I thought I could get away with selecting a very powerful car, and tearing around a track at my desire, and it would be fun.
It was not fun. The first car I tried was the Nismo Tuned Nissan GT-R, and I am pretty sure I hit an embankment so hard the vehicle continued off into orbit.
My second experience was a bit more measured, and I finally got to see where the real meat of Assetto Corsa exists. The career.
You start the game with a Abarth 500, something a bit more reasonable and balanced than the absurd, galloping beasts that underpin the Nismo GT-R, and are thrown into a time trial. After a few laps, I got bronze. Not so bad.
Then - and this is when it really hit me... driving on a race track is HARD. With the competition completely level, and a stop-start at the grid - every single corner, every single braking move, and every part of your steering must be precise and controlled in order to gain every possible advantage off your opponent.
The car feels real, the sound lets you know when to back off the throttle; and the steering force feedback through my Logitech G29 wheel is fantastic. Were it not for the low-ish graphical quality, I could be convinced that I was driving an actual car.
I found it easier to drive with ABS and Traction Control / Stability control turned off, and that is when my lap times started to improve. Even on Average Mode, I was finding myself 10-15 seconds behind the leader of the race, which means that there's much more improvement available to me, and a lot of that is finding the next level of skill to make myself a better racer.
This is where Assetto Corsa refuses to hold your hand. The braking lines and racing lines represented are very conservative, and if you follow these, you'll find yourself ... very; very; far off the pace.
You need to be aggressive and relentless in your attack of the corners. A useful piece of information is displayed each time you attempt to restart a race, a plot of your throttle, braking, steering, and speed outputs, overlaid with your last attempt.
This linear representation of your performance lets you see where you can push harder on any given lap or position on the track, and where you might be able to extract additional speed.
It is a satisfying amount of data, easy to interpret, but as this is indeed a proper simulation, you must know somewhat about driving to get the best possible performance.
For instance; when driving in manual mode; using a shifter and a clutch (how else would you play) the game accurately engages and disengages the clutch from the drivetrain; leading to the ability to use your clutch like a "steering booster" to go through corners faster - provided you remember to brake; get your foot off the throttle, and shift back into the correct gear on the way out of the corner.
While that might be called "riding the clutch" in the real world, and something you shouldn't do - In the world of this racing game where clutches are free... it makes sense to use every single advantage you can muster to defeat your competition.
I still haven't won a race or even moved out of last place after my initial 80 minutes of gameplay - and that is okay. I can immediately tell that this is a hardcore simulator, designed to keep people busy for hundreds, if not thousands of hours.
I thought at first that this could be me, and now, after finding a guide on the Steam Community for the game, that I probably won't ever get to this level of understanding, it won't stop me from enjoying the chase of a good lap time and an odd win here and there... if I ever get out of last place.
If you've got any tips for hardcore driving simulators, I'd love to hear them!