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You can't usually tell much about a developer from where they set out their stall, though it's certainly tempting to try. Polyphony's old offices used to overlook Tokyo's Route 246, a stretch of public road the Sony-owned developer would go on to immortalise in its Gran Turismo games, while Turn 10 operates within the watchful gaze of Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington. The location of Assetto Corsa developer Kunos, though, feels like a much more pointed statement of intent: within earshot of the sinewy Autodromo Vallelunga Piero Taruffi some 20 miles south of Rome, it's a place that's drenched in an endearingly Italian brand of octane.So it's hardly surprising when a lot of that bleeds into its work. Assetto Corsa's a very Latin breed of racing game, where flamboyance is met with a certain style - two traits that are in short supply when it comes to PC driving sims. It's not exactly hard to find a decent driving game on the PC right now, but the problem is they're all very serious. There's the slightly stuffy façade of iRacing, beyond which lies competitive racing above and beyond anything else in the genre. It takes dedication to extract that side of it, though, its MMO-like subscription met by an MMO-like demand for hours upon hours of rigid practice.
ISI's rFactor 2 is no more accessible, although its rewards come elsewhere: the developer's focus on making a professional grade simulator fit for purpose at factories and race teams across the globe leaves little room for players looking for simple weekend kicks, although it's a perfect foundation upon which the dedicated community has patchily crafted a broad church of motorsport disciplines.
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