An example of this artistry is the seconds before resumes after un-pausing the game, giving drivers enough time to brace for that hairpin corner they were fast approaching. Another is the functioning odometer nestled in the speedometer. The more miles you drive in a car the more skins for that vehicle you can unlock. Just don't try to see if the dial gradually rotates or clicks into place. I tried, and it doesn't. While the race loads you can even tinker with all of the games options, from your car's set-up to the loudness of your co-driver's instructions.

One area where RC2 displays an uncustomary weakness is in the sound department. The actual effects aren't too shabby, with the obligatory tortured dolphin noises and crashes and thunks. The engines all sound very reedy: although they do get better as the car's power improves even the top end motors sound more like a recording of a swarm of angry bee's coming off a helium high - originally captured on what is now a scratched vinyl LP then re-mastered onto a C90 cassette purchased in 1986 - than you would hope for. There's no effect for gravel smacking into the underside of the car, and the only environmental sound comes from the occasional waterfall. The soundtrack is even poorer, with all the tracks sounding like they were done on a cheap version of Cubase, circa 1997 version. Some of the tunes themselves are rather good, with a large influence of Ministry being plainly audible. There are some dancier numbers as well, but the poor quality of the instruments is a real shame.

The meat and veg of the game lies in the Career mode. There are three that you can pick from at the start; Amateur, Pro and Champion. The first two are stupid easy, and the third, while it does become a challenge, isn't going to keep you for all that long. The final SuperRally career is a good challenge, but I estimate a competent player could get their way through all the career modes in, oooh, let's say 15-20 hours. Now if you like your rally games rock hard this may disappoint you, but as far as I was concerned I was having too much fun driving around the wide variety of almost uniformly splendid tracks to give too much of a damn whether I was creaming the opposition. I breezed through the Amateur career, without losing a race, in a few hours. This meant I had a bunch of new cars and tracks to play with, a roster increased even more once the Pro career was under my belt. Nailing the Champion career will unlock the very best vehicles, and you will really want these for the part of RC2 that really is the shiznit.

But before we get to Live mention must be given to the net-free multiplayer options. Like Live, you can race with up to 16 players through system-link, an experience I have yet to enjoy, but one I am looking forward to once my other owning friends can get their hands on the game. The split-screen mode allows four people to race, and while there is definitely some slowdown and a loss of visual quality with four racers on the one screen my friends and I paid no attention to these and concentrated on having a fun time. With just two players things look and run perfectly, so as far as localised multiplayer gaming goes RC2 has it all sown up.

Comments

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  1. a vehicle Unregistered 5 years ago

    this is an awesome game

  2. MiM Unregistered 5 years ago

    well the game looks great, but in other hand is to arcade for me, i still prefer the colin mcrae rallhy :-)

  3. Badger Unregistered 5 years ago

    Have to agree with MiM, tis a good game, looks loverly, plays well as a pick up and go but is more of an arcade race sim than a rally sim. Will stick woth CM 04 too.