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szszp
Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 616
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 Posted: Tue Jul 27, 12:16 |
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Richard Burns Rally - PS2
As your granny will have said before she died, ‘Be careful – you might just get what you wish for.’ But as her bones rot away and get eaten by worms, it will be her enjoying the last laugh as you power up your PlayStation 2 and bung in a copy of Richard Burns Rally to while away a few hours.
As ardent rally fans, getting hold of the latest rally game is always a strange experience. From the sublime heights of the better Colin McRae games to the dire offerings in the WRC series, a sense of trepidation goes hand in hand with the anticipation associated with any new game. So what happens when you boot up Richard Burns?
We read a quote recently that was throw away in the extreme, which claimed that RBR is the rally equivalent to Sega’s Ferrari F355 Challenge. This is simply a truism – with both games asking the same very important questions about you – as the gamer and what hardcore simulations mean to the games industry in the wider sense.
RBR enforces the completion of its training mode, which, as regular dedicated gamers, we found slightly insulting. And for no other reason that we are smart-arsed punks who believe that whatever a game can throw at us, especially if it springs from a genre in which we feel comfortable, we can take in our stride during in-game play. The training mode, though comprehensive, useful and enjoyable, is dogged by slow load times and a rather poor interface and in all fairness, doesn’t do a great job of explaining how one must approach the game to achieve success. This is something that must be learned in-game and in-depth.
As you await the commencement of the first true rally stage, picking from one of three available licensed rally cars, it’s almost impossible to avoid a feeling of ego-driven determination. You’ll show this game! Sim? You’ve played loads of them – a Gran Turismo expert – even played a little Live for Speed. It stands for nothing.
You set off, you keep your speed down, you break early and you keep the car travelling forwards, avoiding sideways action as much as possible. And along you pootle, you reach the end of the stage, you scrape on to the leaderboard in tenth place and feel very much underwhelmed. And so on to the next stage. This time, you decide to put your thumb down and to begin with, all goes well. You fly along the straight and through the first mild corned with ease. Then, it’s time to brake. So you begin breaking, begin easing the car sideways, in order to catch the corner pre-apex, apply the power and take full advantage of the simulated four-wheel drive. And it all goes disastrously wrong. You see almost no reduction in speed, your wheels lock up like a 1989 Vauxhall Nova and you slam into trackside obstacles with massive force. A rethink is definitely required. You slow down again, get round a few corners in a rather scrappy way and try to fend of a bubbling feeling of frustration.
The game makes full use of the analogue buttons of the DualShock 2 though it feels more to trick you than help you. Rather than buffering the acceleration and braking as popularised in a million other games, this just lets you have the full whack on demand, a feature that does nothing other than to make you wheel spin and travel sideways, or lock your wheels and travel sideways, depending on whether you’re braking or accelerating. And it becomes rather annoying.
And this asks a very important question of you as the gamer: Are you willing to accept such a level of enforced discipline in your modern games? Richard Burns Rally will punish you every time you push your luck. At high speed, the car becomes unstable, to the point of being totally uncontrollable. A bump in the road at anything over 90 MPH results in the car swaying off to one side – the correcting of which, even with the deftest of touches, becomes a fishtail episode that results in a major crash – robbing the player of that excitement of the feeling of speed.
And it was this we found so hard to get to grips with. The whole point of rallying is to hammer a car at high speed along a road or other course. We are quite prepared (and conditioned) to the simple fact that speed must be sacrificed for cornering often in a driving game, though RBR fails to manage this balance, with relative success only on offer, in the early stages at least, to those willing to drive slowly.
The game places a heavy emphasis on certain techniques such as left-foot braking and handbrake turns – it tries to make you love the drift – the sideways slide for which rallying is famed across the world. Though Warthog has made the tracks, in the main, barely wider than the cars. Say on average, the track is 30% wider than the car. So when the car powerslides and is at a diagonal to the track, it spans it entirely, from one corner to the other. The result is that the margin for error is miniscule. If one wheel runs off course, it is snagged by a ditch on the inside, catapulting you up the embankment, or clips a tree stump or rock, resulting in impact and spin – again posing the question of whether or not you are prepared to accept such rigid discipline in a videogame…
Completing three or four rallies over the course of the game does not deliver a feeling of achievement akin to that enjoyed by players of Codemasters’ equivalent – simply because the completion of a rally, scraping through, can only be achieved by sacrificing speed and all but the slightest of powerslides. And therefore at the expense of any fun that may have been on offer. We would challenge Warthog to counter the argument that RBR would have been greatly improved, revolutionised almost, if the team has made the tracks significantly wider. This would have balanced the overbearing rigidity of handling the car with a margin for error and, more importantly, enjoyment.
Another bafflingly over the top aspect is the interface on offer to adjust the handling of your car. It is absolute rubbish – self-servingly complex and seemingly designed to make the user uncomfortable. You see, the majority of the modification to the set-up of the car is carried out by manipulating the differentials on the front and rear drive train. You are given a flat page of numbers that you can adjust, with no real indicator as to what may be achieved by your tinkering and it simply doesn’t work. Either the game was rushed towards the end (a piece of speculation strengthened by the various bugs found in the final released code) or a simple error of judgement was made.
So with the whinging out of the way, what do we have left to say? In our opinion, the PlayStation 2 version looks great, belying early criticism of the game from some quarters. Although much of the environment is hashed, it holds together really rather well, with a lot of cool incidental stuff, such as spectators, marshals and suicidal animals dotting the scenery – all pulling together to make for a game on which the development team clearly took pains to deliver to as high a standard as possible.
Richard Burns Rally is an amazing achievement. For a sim of this rigidity to come to market is astounding and represents a massive risk for publisher SCi. Although somewhat tragically, it has delivered way beyond expectations, sacrificing the fun of a sim/arcade racer crossbreed for a level of discipline accessible only to the most dedicated of hardcore gamers.
Cheers,
Stefan
https://spong.com |
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BulldogNZ
Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Tue Jul 27, 15:24 |
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MY 2 cents
What a game. Handling is absolutely spot on and the physics including damage / slides / pot holes / jumps are just right.
I have always said that there are no real rally simulators, Rally trophy wasn't that good in my mind, colin mcrae was a joke with its very 'random' physics engine. Rallisport Challenge 2 is a lot of fun and the sounds are top notch, but it's quite arcadey.
I have always said you can tell a good game / physics engine by it's replays. If you watch Colin Mcrae replays you can see the car pivoting on some random axis and generally flicking when it shouldnt be. Other games just don't look right in the replays, RBR does. I could sit there for hours watching the replays!
Enough of the positives, Because I could go on all night about it.
Things I have found in one nights gaming that I don't like....
-I think the car sounds could be better.
-XBOX version has some serious slow down issues on some stages, in general the front bumper view was much better to drive with as it sped up the game greatly.
-I couldn't drive in car view in the snow while it was snowing. I just couldn't see where the road was. I changed to bumper view.
-I found that on tarmac the physics were very unforgiving (not very progressive). Admitadly I haven't played with the setup yet so maybe softening it up will be better. |
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tocagames
Location: France
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 102
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BlueShaun
Joined: 15 Aug 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Fri Sep 03, 12:22 |
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mini review of PC version
Not really a review, but some conclusions from 1 days play
First of all, on my mobility radeon 9600, couldnt get it to run on the omega drivers based on catalyst 4.8s, had to rollback to the 4.7 based ones.
I wrongly blamed SP2.
Setup, great to get a DVD, but it used a lot of hdd space.
This is worthwhile, as the load times are brilliant (defrag your drives after 3 GB dump!)
Controller setup straightforward, but I had to select a key for the joined throttle/brake to clear it from the system, as it was giving 100% brake despite the throttle/brake being setup separately.
Graphics, 8/10, I dont find them bland at all, what I do find is that when you are going very quickly its hard to pick out the correct turns etc, but your doing up on 100mph sideways, this is normal I should expect.
Handling, what can I say, this is GPL on gravel!
Its very natural; I love the feeling of weight and inertia to the car.
Its possible to balance and turn the car with the pedals, I really enjoy change of directions in the car.
I think probably the cars have a little too much power, it may exaggerate a 300bhp rally car, but how long have manufacturers claimed 300bhp? I know about the restrictors and stock engine blocks, but surely they have pushed out 50bhp in the last 7 odd years.
Anyway, the setup options are immense, the diff maps are extensive, and all the usual setup options are in there.
There appears to be only 3 save setup slots per car which is disappointing.
The rally school is quite good, it explains all the techniques quite well, but some of them are a little pedantic, for example while teaching one technique you must stick exclusively to that technique, and not use a combination of what you have learned to date. Also there is one 50kmph drive-through of a stage which made me want to end my life, but overall the school is good.
The replays of your driving are enjoyable, I havent figured out if there are vcr like controls yet (the manual mentions nothing). The main problem is once saved a replay cannot be viewed again once you have left the particular event, only used as a ghost car, this is a major failing.
Overall, I really enjoyed my first day with the game, and I have renewed respect for those people driving in the videos!
FYI my best run through the school stage is a 1.19 so far.
Good luck, and enjoy the release
Shaun
EDIT: my mistake
replays are hidden within the player profile, rather than a replay option from the main menu.
I must say the manual is a disapointment.
i did omit however, the pacenote stacking/distance system is excellent, took me a while to get it setup right for me, as its easy to blame it for your own mistakes.
Good luck
Shaun |
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ElfjeTwaalfje
Joined: 05 Feb 2004
Posts: 18
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 19:41 |
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Mmmm, played for a few hours now and I am not that all impressed. A bit like DOOM3, lots of hype but in the end doom3 is a doom1 remake with new graphics.
As for the physics, I need to drive a bit more since all new sims need a bit of run-in time.
This should be a sim, right? Not a "game", right? So why are the stages so very very short (CMR type)? Rally championship 2000 stages where more than twice (triple) the length. So concentration fatigue kicked in. Very real.
And than the cockpit. Still a sim, not a game? Look at any *any* racing sim today on PC and you will see a *sim* cockpit, not a static bitmap. Kills a sim.
Menus are annouying. When you want to drive a exercise again you are put back many menus. I found other posts here complaining about menus so I will leave it to that (no mouse support in the menus, who have thought of that ...)
Graphics are fine and even playable at my Ti4600. There is one stupid gltch however that is luckely for me not due to my Ti or Nvidia: With AA on you see gridlines...and AA is tablestake these days.
Still installed: Live for Speed, NASCAR 2003, F1C99-02, RC2000.
Kicked: GP4 (GP3 ok), CMR2 & on (CMR1 ok), Rally Championship Extreme (also Warthog).
All in all sound like a platform port to me, regardless early press releases stating otherwise. |
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MarcoSWRT
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Sat Sep 04, 22:16 |
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in overall the game is very good, especially the physics. 
BUT, the sound could be much better und the pace-notes have to be much more accurate. when you compare the pace-notes in the WRC (by the way: rally japan this weekend), the pace-notes in the game are very poor...   |
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Cal
Location: London, UK
Joined: 04 May 2004
Posts: 30
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| Posted: Sun Sep 05, 09:40 |
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| Duggs wrote: |
| I am also a little concerned that the younger drivers out there will "miss the point" and give up too early, especially if they are trying to use a Pad, which I think is impossible in this sim if not for one reason only. |
Just the 'younger' players? I'm 41 and I almost gave up straight away on RBR! Having gotten used to the likes of CMR4 and even RSC2, I just wasn't prepared for RBR's steep, steep learning curve and realistic (if punishing) gameplay.
I'm glad I've stuck with RBR. Very glad. IMO, the best Rally game out there, especially for 'true' rally/driving game fans. Warthog have created a monster and you just know - if it can survive past this first edition - it will surely go on to great, great things. Could even become the 'MS Flight Simulator' of Rally games - the standard by which all others should be judged.
I haven't yet got the PC version, I'm still having fun with the XBox version.
Nice work, Warthog! I had my doubts at first, but brilliant gameplay, lush visuals and a compelling sense of reality within the 'game' have made me a true believer!
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It's not the winning - it's the taking 'em apart!
Alienware Aurora | AMD XP 3200+ | 1GB DDR Ram | Nvidia 5950FX 256MB | 120GB HD | WinXP Pro
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ZenithalRavage
Location: The Netherlands
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 37
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| Posted: Sun Sep 05, 17:44 |
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| I've been on the pc version for 2 days now, almost non-stop lol, I find it the best rally "game" I've ever played, very realistic. The most good and bad points have already been pointed out, but there is one thing that I just realised that make the replay's look very odd; the front wheels don't steer!??! |
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AdamYYZ
Location: Toronto
Joined: 03 Apr 2004
Posts: 50
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| Posted: Tue Sep 07, 15:18 |
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I had a chance to play it on a similar machine that a friend has and WOW! This game is great!
However, the pacenotes are going to take ALOT of getting used to. I have absolutely NO confidence in driving fast. At this point I dont even know the difference between some of the corners. I would have prefered the gear system instead for the corners. I mean, Colin McRae himself used them in his car in the WRC so I dont see it being arcadish at all. I also need to get used to how he calls distances. Its different than the other games ive played.
Other than the notes, I have nothing to complain about. I couldnt ask for anything more. Even though it isnt perfect, Im totaly satisfied. I mean, I used to think that a sim like this would never happen because of money. I hope they make a decent buck of this game and develop a sequel. Would be nice if they could make a new one every year like the CMR series. |
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Zcehan
Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Thu Sep 09, 10:36 |
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Ridiculously FUN!
This dam game..i find myself in awe. I keep playing it, gaining controll NOT of the game but of real-life techniques and my own selfcontroll when going 140+KPH on tarmac, laughing cos its so dam fun and almost impossibly hard - like in real life. And it just proves how good it is when i enjoy playin a game on the lowest graph-quality this much. Overall the best drivingsim ever together with Papyrus creations. |
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SherlockHolmes
Location: Guilford, CT
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 107
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| Posted: Thu Sep 09, 19:08 |
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I love this game more than I love Tuna fish sandwiches on white bread!!
NO!! I mean more than I love robots!!!!
I bet that robots would like it more than they like themselves- But they probably wouldn't be able to play it since robots can't drive cars, and they would just self destruct in sadness!
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"I'm turnin' you into poo!"
-Chris (to twinkie) on The Family Guy |
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aratahu
Location: Melbourne
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Mon Sep 13, 16:16 |
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My config is a Lian Li PC-65, Epox 8KNDA+, an AMD64 3200 w/512kb Cache [Newcastle] running at 240mhz fsb x 10 [currently on air but will move to water soon], 1GB of Geil 250mhz memory, 128mb PowerColor 9800PRO, Audigy2 ZS Platinum, Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 surround, Black Momo Racing Wheel. WinXP Pro SP2. 2x160GB 8MB SATA RAID1. Catalyst driver is the Doom3 beta of 4.9 - haven't gotten the final of it yet [will wait for 4.9.1 now that the new control center has been released].
I've got the feeling that Richard Burns likes the memory speed of the 64. I'm running max details @ 1280x1024. No FSAA, the game doesn't need it. I'm getting what appears to me as solid 60fps in game - totally fluid. I _do_ get the occasional little stutter every 5-10 minutes or so but this is not related to to RB, but rather my system as it happens in all my games [e.g. Race Driver 2 which is also 60fps at max details in same res] and is probably due to some service running in the background that I haven't identified properly yet.
Absolutely no stability problems whatsoever.
Game is wickedly awesome. Feeling of car is fantastic, sound is great with pops and crackles from all channels, realistic sounding engine. Graphics are incredibly lush and feel just like real country and forest roads. Feeling of speed is sensational. The realism just rocks. It is not as hard to control the car as I might have thought, but I have done sim racing [GPL, NR2003 etc] for a good while plus taken my fantastic 96kw Civic Hatch car  on the race track (Sandown in Melbourne, AU) on a high performance driving course. Plus a number of school and ride days on my motorbike. So the key is to approach this just as you would in real life; take it easy, use left foot braking, listen to the pace notes and try to get into a nice flow of events. Then when you get into the swing of things let your speed increase, slowly.
At the most realistic damage I quickly found the easy mode in the season mode just that - too easy. So I switched to pro which is the right challenge for me - I must admit to having my season cut short on quite a few occasions, but recently I've been improving and managed to finish the USA rally as #1 with a total time of 24:53:51, this after scoring 2 points in Japan That might have been a fluke so I'm sure that weeks of practice will improve consistency, which seems to be the most important thing in this game.
The way the season is handled with competitor times, points etc is great, I really like the flow behind it. Seeing that the others mess up too makes more real.
The intensity of the game is leagues above other rally titles. CMR04 is just lame in comparsion. I also seem to be able to follow the pace notes better in this title than CMR04 - the use of "easy", "flat" etc is just a bit more intuitive to me than the right 9 into left 2 notation when the going gets tough.
At the risk of overusing my superlatives, I believe that this sim is a triumphant achievement and that the developers are to be congratulated for creating a hard core simulation that so fun to play. It is indeed real driving. For those who stick through the rally school and have the patience to go slow and only increase the speed as their experience dictates, the result is a richly rewarding experience that leave all other rally titles in the dust.
I will end this on a bit of a rant: Shame on those reviewers who marks it down as being too realistic and difficult, saying it is painful etc; the CMR series has this base covered solidly already, the world doesn't need another such clone. I've seen some people say that normal people aren't supposed to be able to learn to drive like pros for real and that game developers shouldn't try do make things work like in real life but rather dumb things down to give players the illusion of being good drivers...
Well guess what, you are bloody wrong. Myself and countless other sim racers are perfect proof; my race driver instructor on Sandown was very impressed with my ability, an ability that has stemmed mostly from sim racing.
I should mention that it so happened that about two months ago I got into a surreal situation late at night where a carful of young people, most likely in a stolen vehicle and aggressively on drugs, decided that they wanted to force (ram) me off the road and do [insert deity of choice here] knows what to myself and my fiancé who was with me in my car. I was actually able to outdrive them in a high speed chase which involved keeping the pedal on the metal to avoid being hit and some aggressive cornering work that I would never ever be able to pull off without that training. I credit real sim racing - with the help of some real life courses - with possibly having saved my life. So there you go. |
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hoskins41
Location: Eastern Canada
Joined: 20 Mar 2004
Posts: 76
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 01:22 |
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im not impressed at all...............the textures of the tracks and vegetation are best ever (hands down). The physics are not bad i gotta admit that much but dam the cars look like crap.......just like i read in another post,all of the cars have a matte finish look to them which really does suck on so many levels. Now if this game had the car and reflective qualities of toca rd2 along with the stunning scenery,back drops and and kick ass physics which this game already has.........it would surely be a game to be unrivaled for years to come. im disappointed
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Mikko
Game Master
Location: Stockholm
Joined: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 884
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 03:37 |
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Topic cleaned a bit. Player Reviews Only Please .
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Reviewer of Rally Simulators.
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szszp
Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 616
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| Posted: Wed Sep 15, 11:32 |
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Got the DVD version today from sendit
cost me 56 CAN$ (incl. duty, taxes, shipping)
my specs
ATI 9700 pro 1280x1024x32 on DNA drivers 2.9.4.9
slight OC to core 335 / memory 320
xp 2500+ @ 1.84 ghz
black MOMO with FFB
1 gb ram
Audigy 2
all settings maxed out
no hiccups here other than the obvious wheels not steering f*ck up
this game molests. that is all I have to say.
Thank you SCI/Warthog |
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