|
Published
by Microsoft Game Studios
Developed by Digital Illusions
Released - 21st May 2004
Price : £39.99
Out
of the initial round of driving games that were released
for the Xbox our personal favourite was RalliSport Challenge.
In our opinion it just pipped Project Gotham Racing although
both were excellent games. Last November we had the sequel
to Project Gotham Racing which was simply amazing and fully
deserving of the 9.5/10 score we gave the game. In fact
during the first two years of it's life span the Xbox has
amassed an impressive collection of racing titles and Digital
Illusions have certainly had their work cut out in attempting
to create another special title. Now it's time to look at
RalliSport Challenge 2 and see what improvements Digital
Illusions have made to what was already an excellent game.
Rather
than simply fine tune the original game Digital Illusions
have completely changed the format to make it more accessible
and more enjoyable. If you played the original RalliSport
Challenge you'll recall how various race modes were locked
and you couldn't access them unless you had scored the required
number of points in the unlocked races. RalliSport Challenge
2 takes a different approach and you can access all the
various types of races from the beginning. The various modes
are Time Attack, Single Race, Career, Multiplayer (1-4 on
one Xbox or System link) and Xbox Live. As we've just said
it's all a lot more accessible and nowhere is this more
obvious than in Career mode. There are four different career
modes, Amateur, Pro, Champion and Super Rally. You can jump
into the Pro career mode if you want but initially you can't
enter the Champion or Super Rally careers. The way the career
mode works is that you'll see a network of the various races
that you can participate in. You are free to choose the
races you want but at key points in the network you'll have
a race that requires you to have amassed a certain number
of points before you can progress. Each race will earn you
points depending on what position you attain with 20 points
for a win and only 1 point for coming in a dismal sixteenth.
This new method feels a lot less frustrating and allows
you to choose, to a certain degree, the race types you prefer.
RalliSport
Challenge 2 again offers Rally, Hill Climb, Rallycross and
Ice Racing. This time though a new type of race has been
included, the Cross-over Challenge which is almost identical
to the special stages that you get in the Colin McRae Rally
games. Basically it's a two car race on a circuit that crosses
over so that you'll race on both sides of the circuit in
order to complete a lap. The circuits are not simple loops
though and they twist and turn like crazy and will put your
driving skills to the test. In the previous paragraph we
mentioned how you get points based on your performance and
that method of getting points is different depending on
the race type. For Hill Climb and Rally races it's the usual
point-to-point routine and your overall position after all
the stages have been raced will determine how many points
you earn. For Ice Racing and Rallycross you'll initially
complete a qualifying lap and then be placed into one of
four groups of four. This qualifying lap is crucial though
because it will determine the maximum points you can attain
during the final race. For instance if you finish third
in qualifying you'll be placed in group A. In group A you
can earn 20 points for coming first and 13 points for coming
last. If you end up in group B though it's impossible to
earn more than 12 points even if you win your group race,
so as you can see qualifying is all important. The Cross-over
Challenge races are similar except that after the single
lap qualifying session you'll be placed into 8 groups of
two. Assuming you finish first or second in qualifying you'll
go into group A and you'll be guaranteed at least 17 points
even if you lose so again achieving a hot lap in qualifying
is paramount. The Career mode offers a staggering 238 unlockable
items such as cars, car skins and circuits, which is impressive.
The only fault you could pick with the Career mode is that
the Amateur and Pro modes are too easy and that a challenge
isn't really offered until you get to Champion mode.
Most
racing/rally fans like to tinker with the car's setup and
RalliSport Challenge allows you to do this. The setup options
are broken down into three categories, basic, advanced and
suspension. Basic allows you to choose your tyre type (most
circuits/stages are made up of two types of terrain such
as mud, snow, ice, gravel, tarmac etc, and you're shown
what surfaces make up your forthcoming circuit stage, and
the ratio, so you can make an informed choice of the tyre
type you need). You'll also be able to choose manual gears
if you don't want the default option of automatic gears.
You can also alter the steering sensitivity and gear ratios.
The advanced options allow you to alter brake stiffness,
brake balance, power ratios and the toe in/out wheel settings
for both front and rear wheels. As you might expect the
suspension options allow you to tweak the various aspects
of the suspension. Of course you can completely ignore the
setup options if you wish as the default options are usually
sufficient but those racing experts among you will want
to tweak every ounce of performance out of the car and these
options allow you to do so.
RalliSport
Challenge 2 has full support for both Xbox Live and XSN
Sports. Digital Illusions have enabled you to race online
without the annoying aspect of someone colliding with you.
With collisions disabled your opponents will have wire frame
car models that you can simply driver through. Whether collision
detection is on or not affects the amount of cars that you
can have in a race. If collisions are enabled then the limit
is four cars whereas if collisions are disabled then you
can have sixteen cars in a race. The usual Quick match,
Optimatch and Create race options have been included and
you'll earn points depending on your performance. You can
even set lap times and enter them onto the Xbox Live scoreboards
to see how you compare with everyone else. The XSN network
support will allow you to create a tournament, season or
team season for you and your friends. You can choose the
number of participants, the type of rally you want to drive
in (so you could just choose ice races if you wish), the
type of cars you want to drive (whether they be vintage
or Group B cars for instance) and choose however many rounds
you want the competition to have. It's fair to say that
RalliSport Challenge should be one of the most popular XSN
Sports games to date.
RalliSport
Challenge was a great looking rally title when it was released
in 2002 but RalliSport Challenge 2 represents a big improvement
from the original. Throughout the game you'll be driving
over mud, gravel, snow, ice, dirt etc., and you'll also
have to contend with rain soaked races too. Races occur
at different times of the day and in one race you'll be
driving in the darkness whilst another will have brilliant
sunshine streaming through the forest trees. No matter what
the racing conditions though it all looks fantastic and
far more realistic than the first game. There's just a far
more organic look about the game this time around, which
is hard to put into words but it looks beautiful. If you
need an example of how much better the graphics are in RalliSport
Challenge 2 you only need to have a lap round the ridiculously
muddy Hydro Lane rallycross circuit. You'll see mud, which
has to be the most detailed mud ever seen in a game, fly
all around and it will ultimately cake your immaculately
looking car. Damage modeling also looks superb, as do all
the car models (there are over 40 different cars this time
around compared with the 29 that were in the first game),
and it's very impressive to see that the game maintains
a rock solid 60 frames per second even during a hectic pile-up.
RalliSport
Challenge 2, like virtually all driving games, doesn't offer
any problems for deaf gamers. Some races, such as the Ice
Racing and Cross-over Challenges, have an announcer at the
beginning of the race and these are not subtitled but the
countdown to the beginning of the race is shown visually.
The rally stages have verbal pace notes from your co-driver
and these are not subtitled but the usual visual direction
icons are shown and these are adequate. The Xbox Live side
of the game doesn't allow for text chat but as we've said
before this is a current problem with the Xbox Live system
for deaf gamers and isn't specific to RalliSport Challenge
2.
Project
Gotham Racing 2 amazed a lot of gamers when it was released
late last year and RalliSport Challenge 2 is sure to do
the same when it's released in Europe on the 21st May. It's
an absolutely fantastic game although there are some areas
where improvements could have been made. Although the cars
visually damage convincingly, it's very rare indeed that
any of the damage will impair your driving. Still it handles
wonderfully and is simply as good as any other driving game
on the Xbox. The Career mode is much better this time around
and while Amateur and Pro careers are a bit too easy, they
offer complete novices an easy entry into the game. RalliSport
Challenge 2 might still be an arcade driving experience
but it's an excellent one and one that every Xbox owning
racing fan simply must buy.
Overall
Game Rating: 9.4/10
A superb sequel and one of the most enjoyable driving games
on any platform to date.
Deaf
Gamers comment:
No real problems for deaf gamers.
|
