MichaelHatton's Full Review: V-Rally 3 for PlayStation 2
Rally games are becoming a very popular mix to put onto consoles, from the first introductory Rally Cross to the latest Colin Mc’Rae Rally games, they all have the elemental edge which makes the sport such a spectator success. V-Rally 3 is the PlayStation 2’s newest Rally beast, and it doesn’t just come with good graphics.
We first saw V-Rally appear from Infogrammes in 1997, it was a mild success fighting of very little competition. However it was Colin Mc’Rae’s Rally game which really pitched Rally the sport as a latent but winning formula for a console game. V-Rally 3 just about is only Rally game to see light on PlayStation 2, while technically Gran Turismo 3 brought it out first. Technically though, V-Rally 3 is the first rally game to host the official cars, while it doesn’t feature the drivers, or courses by that either. However V-Rally is supposed to give something new, after all the console its on is more than 90 times more powerful. You can already expect top looking graphics, and much faster response times, plus an all new damage system. All relayed as soon as you play it.
The initial reaction from a gamer of the flashy two minute intro featuring A’s Nothing track, things seem great, the video sequencing is based around the actual game, so you can see for yourselves that the game is going to look good. Thinking that V-Rally is going to offer the all usual Rally offerings including a free car and free team selection, you would be totally wrong, as you see they have at least thought about a way of encouraging use of the Skoda and Seat cars. You see the new system in place actually limits you to what you can do, in that you are no longer in control of who you are to be racing, and bound to a strict league that you must compete in and breach in order to continue.
The idea of V-Rally 3 is to act as a real life amateur to the field of Rally. You are given your own office, full of record books, press newspaper cuttings, a desk, and yes, a computer. You are given a E-Mail account, being instructed to give in your vital statistics, such as name, origin and such. After this you're given access to your stuff in your office, you can do anything from select menus records and papers, you can access the net with an E-Mail account and read such bulletins from people like "V-Rally News", and even "EuroSport"; the latter is likely to change for US copies. In your account are a couple of offers from small-sized car manufacturers, these asking you for a trial in their car, if you pass their test you are offered a contract.
At first you aren’t given the best cars, you're likely to get offers from manufacturers like Fiat, Seat, Ford, MG and Volkswagen. The fact is, you have to earn reputation in order to succeed. Once you enter the main championship, which is a FWD (Front WD) class, you must compete against others in the championship, and get past the position your team gave you in the e-mail. The championship is made up as four countries with five courses for each. Granted the courses are often reverses, it makes for around 15 original courses to play with, add to that another two countries once you enter the 4WD class.
If you are successful in the FWD class, you are then put in the press coverage, in the record books, and are then offered by yet more manufacturers. Here though, they may be slightly faster cars, like Peugoet 206, which are slightly faster and reliable. After you manage to complete two to four championships above standard – the better you do the quicker you pass – you will enter the 4WD class. Here you'll get offers from bigger car manufacturers, like Toyota, Ford and Subaru. Still though, you're given the slower of the cars at first, perhaps the smaller types of car like the Xsara. However the change from FWD to 4WD is unreal, in fact you may feel the game has been put on speed, as these 4WD machines stream past corners and chicanes. Once on this level the games slow pacing and somehow floaty feel drops to a realistic level, it makes much difference, and adds to the lifespan. However, the control of these faster machines is in much need for more acute controlling.
The actual controls are quite simple, you can setup pre-configured setups, but the original one is fine. They use a weird R1-R2 to switch gears for some reason, the other two for a rescue move, and look back, of which I don’t know is here. The left analogue stick is used for steering, however, I still feel the right should be used from acceleration and braking, and option like this should be included. The analogue buttons for accelerating and braking seem to be set too high, the sensitivity has a massive range. These analogue buttons remember have over 256 pressure levels, and it seems V-Rally 3’s are set so you have to get past 250 to get max throttle, which is a bit of a thumb-hurter.
The actual progression from championship to championship, is extremely long and tiresome. It may take up to an hour to complete just one of them. The courses extent for a very long length of time, up to around 8 minutes some of them. With about all the countries you are given an order of courses as a single, double, double, which means there are one course, and then two sets of two. Where there are pitstops, and the obligatory save point in between them too. The cars will be damaged, if you take it slow, you’ll lose time. If you don’t know how rallies work, it’s the fastest to the finish line that wins. Basically you must keep an eye on caution, using your co-drivers instructions, while keeping an eye on the speed and type of corner icon. If you do mash you car, purposely or not, you are given 30 minutes of artificial time to repair your car, in this time you are able to repair about 5 parts of the car out of six. These areas may be, gear box, brakes, steering, suspension, engine, and body work. While bodywork may not seem crucial, you always need those headlights in the night races.
The actual damage to the cars is reality down to the crumple zone. That means that just about all the car is wreckable. It may come as a surprise to see the damage to the front of the car, despite a fine drive, at the end of the race. Such things as head lights, bumpers and wingmirrors can be knocked off, either by objects or rough tumbles. The body work, like hoods, and trunks, can be bent and buckled. The roof, a common place of zero damage can also be mangled, it may be surprising to see it ripple and bend as you go through jumps. Other things such as doors and windows can also be bent or broken. Basically the whole car has points that react to a number of conditions. You can also lose wheels, and break steering and suspension, or get a flat. Sometimes, the bumper will simply get knocked by some flying debris, and start to come of little by little as you race around, and then continue to drag along the floor, just like on TV. Other objects like brake lights will also be damageable, although to a deeper effect, the glass or plastic cover of the lights will shatter, and leave a sparking inside. What it really comes down to, is seeing your car in the replay mode and seeing what damage was done.
Back to the pitstops, here you can setup your car, tune it or tweak it. You can adjust most of the cars settings, from the tire pressure, to the throttle control, down to the ride height and into the gear ratios. With the settings you can make a substantial difference in the behaviour of the car, a little experimentation is worthwhile. Like how Ice-Tires work better on high pressure than low, or how having the throttle control on very sensitive so you cover the stopwatch man with dust at the start, make critical impact to your time.
Graphically V-Rally 3 mixes some great lighting with some great car detail. Whereas some environments look tatty and un-finished, others look spectacular. It comes to note when you race around an ugly Finland, and then be dazzled by a super looking England; where the Finland courses are rough and gritty the England ones are alit with sunset lighting and smooth roads and mud. Other countries like France and Sweden are also nice looking, the lighting is just about perfect for such a game. There are some great effects going on with shading, such as light penetrating leaves and gaps in trees and dotting a dark road. The actual quality of the landscapes varies from place to place, you may have a smooth and detailed Germany course, yet be put off by rough and dusty Africa. Then again some of the rouged textures and dirt make it look that bit meaner. They may have had trouble with the memory, granting bigger courses over graphical power, in that case, Eden Studio’s should have developed a workable On-The-Fly loading, where the data is streamed off the DVD-ROM and filled into RAM. This alternative is possible, considering the game has NO IN-GAME MUSIC at all. Frankly, trees made from two pictures crossed in the middle and planted at random locations, just seems old-school. On the whole the look of V-Rally 3 is fast and smooth, almost like an Arcade Sega Rally. There is a lot of detail, including the insides of the cars, and even the two drivers, and even people edging the sides of the course, fully animated.
The way the car reacts to things on the road is very impressive, how mud spatters at the sides, and how dust coats the windows like mild snow. However there are some crucial things amiss, like when a car runs through small puddles, we want splashes! Or how rain appears to pass through the car, just like the way 2D pictures represent little bushes at the side of the road. Come on, these sorts of things shouldn’t be associated with such a powerful game machine. And another thing, the FPS sometimes drops when in a far-view, at times it run into so much slow down, even on the simplest of places.
On the other side of graphics, sound plays the other important role in how a game is perceived. In V-Rally 3 sound is a very limited thing, you have the Co-Driver recordings, granted they all sound professionally done and come up at the right time, they could have easily seen in a set of music tracks to accompany the noise of an engine and a man who sounds as computerized as the game itself. The effects of the game all match well to the cars position on the road, in most cases rock will be at the side of the road, and so it makes sense to put in a rocky sound there, making the effects of the game quite impressive. Dust and such has a bit of a gritty texture and tends to be a short recording. Mud however, has no sound, no splashes, even though they appear over the car.
When this game produces such a unique method of play, that being labelled “V-Rally” mode, where you actually have to work to get that Mitsubishi Evo 6, it only makes the whole darned innovation a total waste when they offer the cars in the time trial, awaiting patientless gamers to waste a very decent game. If you ever complete it, there is a 2-player and 4-player mode, however these are run in a single race even just like the real thing, this doesn’t mean you can join a championship and fight between each other., or a split-screen battle. Sadly.
Conclusions
V-Rally 3 has quite essentially has a brilliant level of gameplay, you can see it in the way they have made ground on generic Rally sims by adding the V-Rally mode. We have here a fine game but some of it has problems, whether in the graphics or programming, its FPS seems to rise and drop at some times, mostly when you use the outside view. Gameplay wise, there is little to be cautious about, it plays very fast and is a challenge;, in total you can expect a whole month of fighting against the game, once you are done there are bonus courses to unlock adding to its smooth learning curve and rewarding prizes. 7/10
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Strap yourself in for the most intense and lifelike rally racing you ve ever experienced. Introducing V-Rally 3 the next evolution in the leading rall...More at Buy.com
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