Millions of Kudos, thousands of races, three broken friendships and one copy of Project Gotham Racing 2 later, I finally managed to bridge the gap to the “next big game” coming to Xbox Live. Since January, I have been hearing the hype surrounding this “mammoth of all rally-racers”. I bought into the hype myself, since I have played the original and found myself truly satisfied. Yep, Rallisport Challenge 2 kept all the great gameplay from the original installment and souped it up with full Xbox Live playability. So with all this hype from my friends over on PGR2, was this title worth the wait or worry?
Ever since I purchased Rallisport Challenge 2, I’ve been asked: “Is it better than Project Gotham 2?” And I would then say that it’s really like comparing apples and oranges because we are talking about two games based on two totally different racing styles. An arcade racing sim is not the same thing as a rally-racer no matter how hard you try to connect the dots. However, I can compare online playability, which is where Rallisport Challenge 2 quivers under the reign of PGR2. But first things first, I have to actually tell you about the game before pointing out its inconsistencies and triumphs.
The obvious difference between PGR2 and RS2 is the simple fact that Rallisport is all about rally racing. A game like this is usually packed with different driving physics, a more attuned damage system and off-road terrains that will boggle your car as well as your mind.
There are five different race modes sports like: Cross-over Challenge, Rally, Rallycross, Ice Racing and Hill Climb included in the game. Each one is slightly different and all have different elements/strategies that you must utilize in order to win races.
Let’s start off with the most obvious and probably most well-known race mode in the bunch. “Rally” involves racing against other live-cars to compete in some pretty rough off-road racing action, or beat each other on a mixed terrain environment. This is the mode in which you sport a co-pilot who will vocally convey driving directions based on upcoming turns, tunnels, bridges, crests and drops. This is pretty close to the experience I once got from the good ol’ Sega Rally Championship. “Hill Climb” takes a lot of these elements but adds another variable into the mix by focusing a lot on change in height of the track. You will constantly be going up or down hill to add even more challenge to your travels.
“Rallycross” consist of short tracks that will test you on closed circuit tracks. These tracks are more controlled, as they are not off-road, but don’t mistake them for being easy. Most tracks are less than 1 mile in length, but are often looped for up to three laps when playing in “Career Mode”.
A race mode that is either loved or loathed by players of this game is “Ice Racing”. It uses short tracks in comparison to “Rallycross”, but focuses on the control of your vehicle over a bed of ice that covers the racetrack. This is a challenging mode indeed. It is also not a mode in which you are trying to go for the top speed, but rather a balance between speed and control. And finally, “Crossover Challenge” takes a “figure 8” type track and allows racers to start on opposite sides of the track and will eventually crossover each other.
For the most part, each mode of play is enjoyable and challenging in its own way, but once you start a career, you will notice that difficulty is almost non-existent.
When starting a career, you will be presented with four modes of difficulty: “Amateur”, “Pro”, “Champion” and “Super Rally”, though Super Rally is non-playable until you complete the first three.
I started the game on “Amateur” in hopes that I would simply work my way up in the game and my skills would increase with the challenge. What I found was an extremely simple collection of 21 events ranging from the race modes mentioned above. I was winning races about 15-20 seconds ahead of the second place racer. I was more than good at this game, I was a natural.
It was then time to move on to the “Pro” difficulty mode. Please note that each mode has its own set of events to complete; they are not simply the same races with a higher difficulty. I had suspicions that Pro would be slightly harder than Amateur, and it was. (I was only beating the competitions by an average of 10 seconds.) I found this to be frustrating because without a challenging offline mode, the game suffers tremendously. Even though online capability is where most games excel, sometimes it’s nice to play one on one with the computer every now and then. I only hoped that the real challenge lay in Champion mode.
Playing through the races in Champion mode was really not much harder than its predecessors; I was still winning by about 5-10 seconds on each race. This was certainly not the type of “challenge” I was expecting. I am currently in “Super Rally” mode and find it to be an even match as far as my racing skills go. I am not exactly thrilled with playing close to 20 hours offline in order to find a fair match, not to mention that Super Rally contains the smallest amount of events in any difficulty. This, however, is not my only beef with the game.
The implementation of Xbox Live into a game can take a bad game and make it good, or take a good game and make it great. In the case of Rallisport Challenge 2, I found it to take a game that suffered from lack of replay value and X-Box Live gave it a second chance at gaming nirvana.
Playing online is usually where most of the fun is at, and this game is no exception. With up to sixteen players in a single room, you have a lot of competition to beat or get destroyed by. But here is where the nastiness of inconsiderate developing comes into play.
Voice chat is most arguably the best feature on Xbox Live. The ability to talk to other players in the room in which you are playing is a great way to start up conversations and just catch up on some relaxation, but when this right is taken away from you, the frustrated gamer in all of us comes out. For example, if I am in second place, I can only communicate with the driver in first or third. Dice Games intended to have you talk to only two people at a time to avoid confusion or congestion and to lessen bandwidth usage on the network (playing with 16 can get somewhat confusing). But what Dice didn’t take into consideration is the frustration of many gamers that will only be able to take to two other people while playing a four-player game. In my opinion, there is no reason why this should happen because talking to three people in a room of four is not a confusing activity. In fact, neither is eight. Heck, most games online support up to eight or sixteen players and will allow you to talk all at once and very rarely do you get tangled conversations.
Another quarrel that I’ve heard from many gamers is the usage of “wire-framed” cars when playing with more than four players online. This is basically a wire outline of your opponents when racing head-to-head online to avoid collisions around turns. It is a good idea in my opinion because some of these tracks are hard enough to navigate around in single-player, let alone with other drivers hitting into you. You can play up to 4 players without using wire-frames, but anything more than this, you will be forced to use this method of play. Some gamers online that I have talked to don’t like this feature, though I find it to be a smart idea simple because all races would turn from Rallycross to a demolition derby.
“XSN Sports” is also built into this game (online leagues in which you play against other people and are ranked). This comes with the same quirks about other games featured on this network like Links and NFL Fever; it’s a feature that is best used amongst friends or players that you always play. Joining a competition with strangers from the XSN website may result in a competition where half the people don’t bother to play, or simply are not available the same time that you are. But if done properly, XSN can add a lot to this game.
The game looks better than ever. The previous installment featured high-end visuals and this time around, things seem to be improved upon even further. Simply looking back at your car and watching the dust fly up in the air will keep you staring at the wrong part of the screen, causing you to crash. This game is a sight to be seen indeed; even the environments are colorful and vibrant. You can drive through a forest full of foliage, and then quickly drive through dynamic brush of tall grass and small trees, all that look gorgeous.
Sound as well has been nicely touched upon in this game. Custom soundtracks are a great feature on the Xbox and are used for good purpose in here. Though I would have liked a little more freedom in what music to listen to, rather than just select a single album to play in succession.
Controlling cars will vary on each individual game mode. I know that Ice Racing is never a favorite online because it’s not the fastest mode out there but it focuses more on control. Keeping your car stable is challenging to do, but hey, that’s why they call it Rallisport Challenge. Even the crashes are also extremely entertaining; it’s tough to press the “abort” button sometimes.
Looking back on this game as compared to the hype generated during the past few months, I can say that it came through on some of its promises, but didn’t deliver on others. It promised fun online gameplay and we got that, except for its somewhat bald quirks with the voice chatting. It also promised an extensive offline mode in which a good deal of challenge and “unlockables” are to be had. Part of this is true, there are over 200 items to unlock that are either cars or tracks, but the challenge simply isn’t there for virtually all of career mode.
All in all, Rallisport Challege 2 can be considered both a success and a failure. The perception you’ll have of this game will depend on what type of gamer you are. Those who are die-hard rally fans will eat this game up and will be playing this for months. But those that are like me and are not really racing fans will have fun with this title for about a month and have it get lost in the shuffle of new games. I had fun playing this and will be playing it for a while, but this game has nowhere near the amount of mass appeal that Project Gotham Racing 2 has. This game is a definite rental, but a purchase may not be wise for some gamers.
