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Sega Rally Review
Gwynne Dixon
17/09/2007
The original put a hole in our pockets, now TVG finds out what the remake has in store...
More avid TVG readers may already know how much we love the original Sega Rally. Not only did we empty our not particularly deep mid-90s pockets for the original arcade game, but we actually have two linked up Sega Rally consoles in the office here. The general consensus at TVG is that Tetsuya Mizuguchi's original game has aged incredibly well, still providing the addictive gameplay it did in 1995. It's hardly surprising, then, that we have anticipated the release of Sega Racing Studio's Sega Rally remake like a bear cub awaiting the return of its mother with a nice juicy salmon. This, however, is a double-edged sword: yes, we're prepared to sell organs to get hold of the game, but we also have very high expectations for SRS's debut title.
I can tell you all right now that we're not disappointed, and I can almost guarantee that you won't be either. SRS, a developer set up by Sega in 2005 specifically to make driving games, is a hub of recruited talent from throughout the games industry. Rockstar, Criterion, Rare and Codemasters are but a few striking examples of companies which various SRS employees have on their CVs. This experience and expertise really shines through in Sega Rally as rarely do you see a game which pays such respect, attention and homage to what it is either a sequel or remake of.
The references to Sega rallies of years gone by are omnipresent. Visually you'll see peculiar objects around the periphery of the tracks in the new Sega Rally. From fighter jets to hot air balloons, and elephants to birds fleeting from the track's surface, it all smacks of the visual touches in the original such as low flying helicopters and zebras. Not only that but the arcade feel to the title is everywhere, from the music and sound (including Game Over, Yeah!) to the fact that you're racing around a circuit against other cars, rather than a stage where you're racing against the clock (as people tend to in actual rallies without the Sega fiction).
Of course, SRS have also included the cars from the original Sega Rally. The Toyota Celica and Lancia Delta are both driveable. Additionally, once you've won enough events in the Masters championship, the Lancia Stratos is unlocked (which was featured on the Sega Saturn version of the original Sega Rally) and it's the same ravenous beast it always was. These classics sit alongside a range of contemporary rally cars as well as some other classics, and even less typical rally vehicles such as the H3 Hummer (uniquely customised by the SRS team).
But, nice as all of this is, it's only a bit of polish when it comes down to it. If the gameplay didn't feel like Sega Rally, then none of the above would matter one bit. Thankfully, this is not the case and SRS's game manages to fit the Sega Rally family mould perfectly, while bringing its own style and some more modern assets to the table.
This starts with the terrain. '95 Sega Rally featured a variety of different terrains that had significantly different effects on your speed, grip and drifting. This was arguably the most groundbreaking of its features and one of the reasons why it's still so replayable today. Where present day Sega Rally is concerned, SRS has clearly spent a lot of time ensuring that there is a wide a range of different terrains, but also that each one requires a different driving approach from the player.
In order to do this they have made the best usage of next generation surface deformation technology we've seen to date. One of the first next gen games to utilise this technology was the PS3's MotorStorm, where canyon racers would gradually deform the sandy race track's surface from one lap to the next, creating bumps and dips in the terrain where there were none at the race's start. SRS has truly mastered these new capabilities of the next gen machines, making the gradually deforming racing line of a track crucial to gameplay as it provides much needed grip for the insane drifts you'll be pulling off (more on that later).
The terrains differ widely from what is very literally an ice road (covered in snow at the beginning of the race and gradually deforming to reveal the ice), to the 'black river' circuit (named because the roads are so wet and slushy), muddy and water-filled jungle tracks as well as sandy beaches. While there are four different styles of track (Alpine, Tropical, Canyon and Arctic) [5 - Safari - thanks to an anonymous tipster], each individual circuit will usually have a range of terrains (e.g. a 'Tropical' track will have muddy, water covered track in one section, and sandy beaches in another). Knowing how religiously you have to keep to the deformed racing line from one terrain to the next is the key to success. While you can stray from the racing line on tarmac quite easily (picking up some extra grip from skidmarks when you can), you're going to be in big trouble on an ice terrain if you stray even slightly off the racing line of a corner as you'll loose both speed and the ability to turn.
Similarly to its predecessor, the terrains in SRS' Sega Rally go hand in hand with the drift. The drift mechanic might possibly be the hardest to master of any arcade game out there. Firstly, the game is fast. And when I say fast, I mean seat off your pants fast, which is interesting given that SRS has Criterion developers amongst its ranks (i.e. Burnout). You'll come tearing down a straight and your initial reaction is to let off the throttle/brake hard before letting the back-end step-out with a touch of oversteer before accelerating out of the corner. In Sega Rally, this will get you nowhere. The best way to take a corner is to let off a tiny bit of throttle, turn in sharply to the apex and then put your foot to the floor through the turn. The result is that you might forget to breathe over the course of one lap because it's so damn exhilarating. When you couple this with the surface deformation and variation of the terrains, mastering a lap in Sega Rally is more like a craft or fine art than it is a skill - it's rife with subtleties and nuances that can only be picked up with hours of play.
Speaking of the shades of Burnout in Sega Rally, it's also worth mentioning how incredibly fiendish the AI is. Not only are AI drivers incredibly quick (making the single player game very hard), they're also incredibly clever. Outside of Burnout, we've never experienced AI that's quite as aggressive as what we've encountered in Sega Rally. Cars will weave and move off racing lines to pass you, bang you up like it's a stock-car race and fiercely defend their position. On top of this, AI vehicles will also make believable mistakes that only add to the realism.
As far as game modes are concerned, there's enough to keep even the unemployed happy for quite a while. The single player 'Championship' game consists of three separate competitions: Premier (regular contemporary vehicles), Modified (predictably, modified contemporary cars) and Masters (the classic cars that we know and love). Within each championship type there are three different leagues (amateur, professional and expert) which each have three or four events of three races each. Once enough points are earned from these leagues, the championship final is unlocked which is a four race duel for the title. We estimate that even the best driving gamers will be at it for about 20 hours before all of the goodies (liveries, vehicles and tracks) are unlocked for the other game modes.
While we're on the Championship Mode, there was one niggling point that bugged us a bit about the next gen Sega Rally single player game. On the PSP version, you're given a breakdown of the three surfaces (road, loose surface and slippery surface) for the various circuits in a competition. You then make a decision on one of three tyre types (corresponding to the three surfaces) for that competition. Annoyingly, this cool feature has been left out of the next gen versions and you only have a choice of two tyre types (off-road and road). This means that you'll often choose the wrong tyre for a certain championship event, leaving you having to restart it halfway through.
Getting back to the main game modes. Multiplayer will keep gamers happy long after they've completed the single player. We're going to stick our necks out at this point and predict that Sega Rally will be a huge online hit. Six players will be able to battle it out over Xbox Live and PSN and the arcade style will make for a thoroughly addictive online experience akin to the multiplayer duels on the original arcade console. One welcome difference to the original, however, will be the lack of a catch-up/elastic band AI mechanic whereby trailing cars move faster than front runners. If you're not lucky enough to own a broadband connection then you can always go head-to-head in a two player split-screen race as well.
Other modes include 'Quick Race' and 'Time Attack', the latter of which is fairly self-explanatory but has some cool added features such as the ability to download ghosts from the world's fastest drivers and try and get your lap time onto a leaderboard.
As if all of that wasn't enough, SRS have also provided gamers with a veritable graphics feast in Sega Rally. The cars look stunning, as you'd expect, but what makes them look even better is the mud/snow/general dirt that accumulates on a car as a race progresses. You can actually see bits of mud flying up from the track and sticking to the vehicle. But wait, that's not all: drive through a water puddle and all of this dirt washes off in a stunningly realistic manner - it really is quite something to behold. Race track backgrounds and details aren't overly complex, but that's in no way a criticism as it's more in keeping with the arcade style that SRS are going for. On the other hand, when a jet flies low above your car on one of the canyon levels, it certainly looks very nice indeed (for the brief moment that it flashes past at least).
Finally, the sound is another beautiful detail. The soundtrack is a cheesy mix of arcade beats that are unmistakably SEGA. As far as sound effects are concerned, SRS have thought of every tiny little thing and integrated it perfectly. When you drive over some cobble-stones on one of the alpine tracks, for example, it's exactly like the light rumbling sound that you hear in your own car (only accelerated considerably, as you're driving about five times the speed that you'd normally traverse cobble-stones at). Other fine details include the crunching of snow under your tyres, the rattle of chain fences as you ricochet of them, the watery splashes of puddles... I could go on and on.
Aggressive opponents.
Fairly conventional championships.
Anonymous
Date Added:Mon 17th Mar 2008 19:41
Anonymous
Date Added:Sat 29th Sep 2007 20:39
Anonymous
Date Added:Sat 29th Sep 2007 12:25
Holme
Date Added:Thu 27th Sep 2007 11:02
Sega Boy
Date Added:Wed 19th Sep 2007 11:33
Anonymous
Date Added:Tue 18th Sep 2007 10:00
Anonymous
Date Added:Tue 18th Sep 2007 09:26
exceptional!
there was an error however in the review....there are five differnet tracks they missed out safari.