Before we actually write our impressions of SEGA Rally, let us begin with a little history lesson of the franchise the representative gave us. The original SEGA Rally dates from 1995 and was released as an arcade machine with two chairs and dito steering wheels. The graphics were on a very high level in their time and the first game of the franchise is still an overwhelming success, even today. In fact: its the most SEGAs most profitable arcade game yet! Theres even a cabinet in the United Kingdom that swallowed more than 750 000 British pounds, or more than a million euros, which is no mere feat! Later, the game was also ported to the PC and the Saturn, but wasnt nearly as succesful.
SEGA Rally 2 arrived a few years later in the arcades and the Dreamcast, reviving the series with somewhat deeper gameplay and more options. This game would eventually turn into one of the most beloved game on SEGAs visionary 6th generation console. After a few ports of this iteration, this series would be covered in silence for another few years, until the PS2 received SEGA Rally: The Anniversary Edition in 2006. It became the worst game in the series by far, which is mostly the case with compilation games, but that aside
Yet SEGA wasnt satisfied with such a blame on one of their treasured franchises and they wish to correct that mistake with a next-gen SEGA Rally for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC at the end of the year. The game will for your information carry the suffice Revo in Amerika, because its supposed to go hand-in-hand with a revolutionizing entree for the series. Which is necessary in this case, considering they developed this game from the ground up for Western gamers, hoping it will make a comeback in said part of the global hemisphere.
The introductory part of the presentation in Amsterdam contained comparisons between the old and new SEGA Rally, especially concerning graphical details. For instance: the first SEGA Rally had environments consisting out of 20 000 triangles. Pretty weak in this day and age, but you mustnt forget that in its time (already 12 years ago) these were pretty impressive. Next-gen consoles wont be easily intimidated by this and plans to provide us with levels built out of 20 million triangles! Furthermore, this new SEGA Rally will include cars with 65 000 polygons each, which should provide us plenty of eye candy. All of this should normally run on a constant 60 frames per second and at 1080p; my hat off to SEGA should they attain this goal in the retail version. We couldnt actually get any confirmation though whether or not the Xbox 360-version will support the same resolution, but we were assured both versions will look exactly alike in every way.
Lets follow up with some words about the studio behind the latest iteration of the ever so famous series shall we? SEGA Rally Studio was founded in April 2005 and is located in Solihul, in the rainy West Midlands of the United Kingdom to be precise. Currently, they have about 50 members and most of them (if not all) are ex-employees from other well-known studios. Codemasters, Criterion, Rare and Rockstar North for example. The main purpose of this development company is to offer us next-gen racing games from old and new IPs and they take their job seriously. Mark Fisher, whom gave us the presentation, assured us that the basement of SEGA Racing Studio is literally filled with arcade cabinets, so that they can look for inspiration at all times if they dont have an idea where to go next for a while. Perhaps well give some false hope to die-hard fans with our next comment, but what the hell: when asked by other members of the press whether or not the next project of this company will be Daytona USA, we were met with a maybe. Mark Fisher also replied with a who knows!, when asked if therell ever be an arcade version of this new SEGA Rally.
Now, the most important of racing games are of course the cars themselves. There will be more than 30 cars available in the latest SEGA, each with four different car classes: 4WD, 2WD, Classic and Bonus. Classic practically speaks for itself: there will be a few vehicles from the previous games. We dont know which ones will reappear, as the subject was hardly discussed. Its also possible by the way that these classic cars will be potentially unlockable, just like the Bonus Cars. We know very little of these as well, but it wouldnt surprise us if they have a lot of extra power under the hood, considering the fact that the sense of speed was already satisfying. Each car will also provide you three different pre-sets, depending on what kind of ground they have to race on. Typical Paris-Dakar vehicles will obviously come in hand in the desert, while other cars will be more suitable for ice tracks, wet surfaces or just plain asphalt. You wont be able to manually configure these pre-sets however, which was the case in previous installments.
The biggest feature SEGA Racing Studio loves to boast about in this game, are the environments and this for many reasons. For starters: they paid a lot attention to the level designs so that the environments look gorgeous. We only got to take a gander at one sadly, but it was especially for an older January build already rather impressive. Said jungle level had some features that other environments could lack, namely large draw distances and big sections of forest. Its only natural that you wont find much bystanders in the rainforest, unless you take a bunch of mosquitos into consideration. But nevertheless, there will be more spectators in fitting locations.
The second reason why environments are so important, is because of the Track Deformation, which will undoubtedly be the most discussed topic whenever SEGA Rally is mentioned. Whats the idea behind this feature? Imagine driving through a sandy track with the ocassional water puddle or two. After a few laps, the entire surface will be changed so drastically, that no round will ever be the same. Creating muddy tire tracks, grinding the top layer, expanding the puddles et al will be possible during the entire race.
Maybe its for the best to explain what we saw with a clear example. At the beginning of the jungle level, you start with a hard surface where the tire tracks are hardly visible. When you advance however, the structure of the surface will become less tight and a couple of mud puddles will originate as a result. Drive through these muddy parts of the track and you will create deep tire tracks that not only improve your traction, but also entirely change of the outlook of the racing track. Because of this, your car will visibly bounce up and down and will also covered with a hefty amount of mud, something you can actually see on your vehicle. A nice little detail is that you can remove the mud by driving through puddles of water, which in their turn act as a carwash, instantly cleansing your car. In other words: the Track Deformation will have a noticeable influence on the gameplay, unlike Motorstorm, where it mainly served as a fancy graphical effect. We agree with such statements from Mark Fisher in any case, now that weve seen SEGA Rally with our own eyes.
There will be other important physics to the gameplay besides the Track Deformation. The weight of your car for instance will help decide the road holding (as well as how badly the track will change) and there will be a handful of graphical effects to admire. In the code that they demonstrated were plentiful minor details, such as kickback of sand, mud and water all of them were a Work-in-Progress by the by but we noticed theyre also a part of the gameplay. The unlucky racer thats way in the back, will possibly have to think in advance when he will pass one of his opponents, thanks to an obstructed view. These kind of physics will expand in the final version, with fluttering leaves of breakable wooden fences. Or to quote Mark Fisher: even the side parts of the main course will be submitted to Track Deformation, including grass. Not only that, but it seems that the (in theory) impressive weather simulation of Project Gotham Racing 4 also had an impact on the developers, due to the fact different weather conditions were promised. When it rains, the course will be filled with mud in no time, which will naturally give an advantage to off-road vehicles. This change in weather wont happen in real time mind you: it will only differ per track. Dont expect any extreme physics calculations either, seen in Forza Motorsport 2.
You might be wondering: sooner or later well have to discuss the actual gameplay, next to the graphical splendor and possible influences to the replay value of the game and dont you worry: well get to it in a minute. The SEGA Rally franchise, right from the beginning, has been known for its intense playing style and this will be retained in the next-gen sequel. Wholly different to the point-to-point racing of the older games, is the new approach of SEGA Rally Revo. Here youll have to approach your opponents very closely and sometimes even give them a strategical nudge in the back to increase your position to eventually defend the first place during three laps, all at blazing speeds. This kind of gameplay reminds of us the term arcadey, but they want to avoid that as much as possible by creating this very complete game with a ton of unlockables and extras. Mark Fisher also gave us the very reason why they didnt choose for the old-fashioned way in this next-gen edition: SEGA only used the aforementioned checkpoint system due to technical reasons.
The company also tries to make the game feel more 'realistic' in a way by introducing solid graphics and the Track Deformation, but they dont want to bring in the bad sides of realism to the gameplay either, like being slowed down because of damage. At the same time, the representative mentioned Hollywood damage to further describe their damage models. Your cars wont be made of plastic as they will be visibly damaged eventually, but there wont be any consequences to the performance of your car. We have no idea whether or not theyll go as far Rallisport Challenge 2 though, where seperate parts were yanked from your vehicle as you tumbled off a cliff. Its also possible you will be spun out by your opponents through a gentle tap at the rear bumper during a turn, but this is something the creators would like to avoid as much as possible. They dont want to frustrate the player, to the extent he hits the reset button as soon as hes behind the other racers. This doesnt mean each race will be void of suspense, because this is where some slight rubberband A.I. will kick in. Said intelligence is kind of excessive in games like Burnout or Motorstorm, but SEGA Racing Studio wants their A.I. to be reasonable so that the players wont end up being irritated. In other words: they want to make sure a race will only be decided at the finish line, instead of continuously bothering you through the opposition. This kind of attitude should give the game a higher replay value.
Another important element in any racing game, are the camera positions. SEGA Rally Revo will have four of those: two of which will be first-person and the other two third-person. The first two cameras are located on the bumper and the hood of your car, while the third-person views will either show you a close-up of your car, or will be removed further than normal for maximum viewability. Sadly, the most wanted cockpit view is missing, something which will disappoint a couple of racing fans. This seems to be intentional though, so that SEGA doesnt collide with the (sort of) arcadey gameplay. Which in its turn, isnt a beloved expression for Mark Fisher.
When we think of arcadey gameplay, we dont necessarily think about a multitude of modes. These kind of games are supposedly all about instant accessibility after all, with a hefty dose of instant fun. This is something SEGA tries to blend in the latest installment, coupled with deeper gameplay. We only got to see one single player mode though, namely Championship; a new 10-Year Career Mode à la SEGA Rally 2 or a tour-de-force mode on the other hand, are very unlikely. Anywho, in Championship you compete in this large tournament on a couple of circuits against six other competitors in the retail version - We only saw 5 A.I. drivers in the January build. Theres also a more accentuated focus on fun with more than one player: there will online functions no matter what, as well as split-screen multiplayer. It isnt clear at the moment how much players will be supported, but were hoping theyll go as far The Club by including 4-player split-screen. SEGA is also planning ghost downloads so that you can visibly compete against the best of times, next to online leaderboards and naturally online play itself.
There isnt much to say about the music right about now, knowing that we only saw one track. SEGA did inform us that they are currently experimenting with the music, so that the soundtrack fits with the track and the competitive side of the game. Old familiar tunes wont return (as well as the commentator), but theyre trying to keep the same tone so that those who love The Sound of SEGA Rally will instantly remember these. Other than that, theres very little to express about the remaining audio: the engines sound well and small details are very noticable. The mud for example lets off this juicy, squishing sound whenever you drive on it.
Finally, potential extras were discussed that may or may not be a part of the game. As expected, they werent willing to inform us about downloadable content, but Mark Fisher did provide us small hints concerning actual unlockables. Sonic will appear somewhere in the game and there will also be a couple of familiar moments from previous games returning as cameos (such as the helicopter). SEGA is also considering the inclusion of the original SEGA Rally, but theyre still on the edge about this because of the recently released Anniversary Edition. Which, as we all know, didnt do too well.
In a period where racing games are slowly returning in a glorious fashion after a disappointing 2006, it is very important for SEGA Rally to differeniate itself from other games to draw sufficient attention. Figures, with local competition (sort of) from Forza Motorsport 2, Project Gotham Racing 4, FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage and Colin McRae: DIRT, let alone the games on other platforms. But SEGA Rally actually succeeds to do just that from the looks of it, by delivering a feeling that we dont see in any other similar next-gen racer. Not even in DIRT or Motorstorm, by far their biggest rivals. Are you craving for semi-realistic steering, then youre looking up the wrong bush and youd better for Codemasters game. Are you actually looking for a game similar to Rallisport Challenge 2 to fill the void DICE left, then without a doubt SEGA Rally is a game to look forward to. Add advanced Track Deformations and pretty graphics, and we realised at the end of the presentation that SEGA Rally could turn into an excellent debut for SEGA Racing Studio. If they can work things as promised, that is.
Expect SEGA Rally Revo in your store, starting from the fourth quarter of this year. The game itself is currently 80% complete
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