Last week we took Project CARS to Paris Games Week for our biggest ever eSports tournament! We took over the ESL Arena in Paris’ Porte De Versaille Expo for an entire day of racing with some of Europe’s fastest Project CARS pro players.
Since the action was to be livestreamed by our partners at ESL we needed an awesome shoutcaster and Helene ‘Kijooki’ Cressot (one of France’s biggest steamers & competitive gamers) was just the person. We sat down with her at the show to find out more about her love of racing, and just what it takes to commentate for seven hours straight!
Since the action was to be livestreamed by our partners at ESL we needed an awesome shoutcaster and Helene ‘Kijooki’ Cressot (one of France’s biggest steamers & competitive gamers) was just the person. We sat down with her at the show to find out more about her love of racing, and just what it takes to commentate for seven hours straight!
 | How did you get into competitive gaming and then into shoutcasting? I’ve played racing games since I was a child, starting with games like Metropolis Street Racer, Project Gotham Racing and the Burnout series. My career really got started in 2011 when I got seriously into the multiplayer mode of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and started to win races against players from all around the world. ESL contacted me for its "Challenges vs The Public" event at Paris Games Week in 2013 and after the convention I kept on promoting racing games on Twitch, YouTube and social networks. You're well known in the Need for Speed community, but you've also been playing a lot of Project CARS as well. What do you look for in a racing game and what has it been like to play two very different racing games back-to-back? My most important criteria when playing a racing game are the gameplay and the game modes, so that there is enough variety and diversity in the game. However, in sim-racing my expectations are quite different. I will pay more attention to the championship system, accessibility, and how weather and damage effects the car handling. I also look for the available circuits and the car classes you are able to drive, like LMP1 or Formula A. My expectations are different for Need for Speed. I will look for the arcade gameplay and the fun you get out of racing in the streets and defying cops. My behaviour when racing does not change though. I try to play clean and fast on both kinds of games! |
What's your favourite thing about Project CARS?
Project CARS is about being able to race in the most realistic conditions and get the best out of the settings you choose for your car. When I play Project CARS, I enjoy racing on the most prestigious circuits in the world. I feel like being part of a championship in real life! The game is very realistic in many other ways too; the weather conditions, day/night cycle, the dynamic helmet view and so on. All of these make Project CARS a very entertaining game. I was really impressed by the graphics when I put my hands on the game for the first time. I also have very much respect for Slightly Mad Studios who listened and involved the racing community throughout the whole game development with WMD!
Project CARS is about being able to race in the most realistic conditions and get the best out of the settings you choose for your car. When I play Project CARS, I enjoy racing on the most prestigious circuits in the world. I feel like being part of a championship in real life! The game is very realistic in many other ways too; the weather conditions, day/night cycle, the dynamic helmet view and so on. All of these make Project CARS a very entertaining game. I was really impressed by the graphics when I put my hands on the game for the first time. I also have very much respect for Slightly Mad Studios who listened and involved the racing community throughout the whole game development with WMD!
  | What did you think of the Project CARS Paris Games Week event? I will remember this event for a very long time, that is for sure! Seeing players battling to win was very energizing and I was very honored to be given the opportunity to commentate on this event. I was very impressed when i arrived at the ESL Arena and saw the giant screens! I also appreciated that there were official rules which forced the drivers to play as cleanly as possible. When you play online at home, you can see players behaving in a very bad way and it can dissuade players from sticking to the lines. I also enjoyed meeting the players and Project CARS fans to discuss the game with them. It’s rare to be able to do this with a group of people who all come from different places. It was great to meet Joe from SMS too! It must have been hard work to commentate on seven hours of intense action! How do you prepare for such a big event and how do you make sure you're on top form all the way through? I drank a lot of herb tea and even covered my neck the day before! I also scripted some elements like my introductions. It was not easy to commentate alone in the morning, as you need to keep the audience connected to the event and entertained. It was nicer when I had a co-commentator in the afternoon to chat with. I tried not to talk much during the breaks too, which was difficult for me as I am a very talkative person! |
| What car do you drive in real life? I don’t own a car at the moment because I live right in the centre of Paris. I used to have a VW Golf VI, but let’s not talk too much about Volkswagen at the moment! My dream car is a Koenigsegg CCXR, but in Project CARS it's the RUF RGT8- GT3! I think it is a very good entry-level car for newcomers to pure sim-racing. You can practice a lot with it and then move to a faster class. I am curious to test the new Japanese cars too! What's the best thing about working in eSports and being a shoutcaster? The best thing is working with people who are as passionate as you are for eSports. I feel lucky to be part of it too, as eSports is getting bigger and bigger in the video game industry and what we do now is our legacy for the future generations of gamers. |  |
You can follow Helene online below and a huge thank you to everyone who took part in the action and everyone who came to watch live in the ESL Arena or at home on Twitch!
