Yes, but no...

So I've put a bit more time into Assetto Corsa, you know for science and all that and I have good and somewhat bad things to say.

Firstly the good, the very very good. I have raced and I have run many cars on many tracks and I'm happy (indeed relieved) to be with the mainstream in saying that the game is a great driving sim.

I'll even comment that once I got into some of the faster/older cars that the gear box seemed to work better. Not least as I turned off the auto-clutch malarkey. Which incidentally fixed it for the paddle shifters too.
And the video below is me in something Lotus and old, around something that's Monza and old, with full clutch and gearbox, and of course factory abs (none) etc - basically as it should be.

Behold:

Was it as terrifying as it looks. No not really, but sitting on my couch helped. And am I the next Fangio? - no, I'd have been very very much one those grainy black and white fireball videos long before making this lap count.

Of the experience though, the satisfaction of pounding out laps in this car on this track is nearly worth the investment by itself. I can't wait to do the same to some of the other tracks to be honest!

But what of the bad news?

Well, there's no private lobbies. So a league night of racing is kinda out. It's worse - I took the time as I wound up my night (read waited for the ultra on-sale pod racer to download!) to watch some live streaming of the racing. 

Enjoyable as it was to watch what turned out to be a very good racer qualifying 2 seconds up on the competition at Spa, I shared his frustration at being punted so very wide at turn 1, and then subsequently share in just about everyone's drama trying to make it up through the field. Fair to say that without a private lobby and/or the ability to exit a numpty racing online in this game is going to be a lottery at best. 

So not really bad news, but I wouldn't be buying this as a social game any time soon. But I would be buying it as an all round excellent racing game. Watch this space.