ArturroGT
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 14
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 Posted: Sun Oct 24, 00:21 |
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Howdy,
Got the full XR version while I was doing business in poland and back in germany Ive got the german one.
I have drunk a lot of beer today already, so it was easyer to force myself to write an topic ( Im an lasy one.. ) ..
I will try to make an quick review of this game in hope to push our wodka drinking friends back in poland to patch this baby..
Lets rock on then: 
The games concept is good as we all know, and a lot of us players have been waiting for an good modable racing game with multiplayer option to hit the market.
So here is Xpand Rally - an racing game working on an modified FPShooter engine, that is suposed to offer a lot of superb features - if you didnt get them yet - check the info out @:
https://www.xpandrally.com/en/show.php?002
Good points about XR :
- superb graphics
- good sound
- modability
- funny damage model+ drivers healt option
- multiplayer option
- nice looking replays with tons of view and special effect options
- replay to avi mode
- arcade and sim mode
- car tuning + optical car tuning
- nice GUI / Interface
- a lot of cars
- nice trackdesign
Bad points about XR:
- game has slowdowns on an highend system ( more about that in the cmr05/rbr/xr minitest at the end of this way to long thread )
- multiplayer does not work
- force feedback is crapy and often stops to work during races
- the arcade mode works almost fine, but the sim mode still need some more tweeking - the car behaviour is farr from an sim... there is too less feedback about the road/angle of the car , the car feels like it would weight to much ( the weight shift during cornering is to heavy , while braking to light ) , the handbrake seams to be made out of rubber, and the whole turning behaviour is a bit drunk.. or is it just me  .. noppe there is way to less grip.. the drift is to hard to hold with almost no reaction to the whellspin/torque..
- there are a lot of cars.. but actualy the diference is tiny.. there should be more diferent car types , and a bit more RWD ones.. and most important thing - there still is a bit of work to do in terms of car handling diferences within the fwd / rwd / 4wd groups.
- the game is modable - but the tools are way farr away from beeing easy to use,
- the GT like tuning options are nice, but need more body parts and bonuses ...or call it funky items + the tuning parts should do a bit more diference in the behaviour of the car - there is an diference if you install some parts already .. but its to small.. still needs balancing
- it seams like there is no after sales marketing at techlad - the official forums are quiet, no info about the problems/no answer to the threads, no news of an upcoming or planed patch, just some news about how good this game is 
I would give XR an score of : 70 % for the curent version of the game.
But.. if there will be an patch ( what I personaly hope , especialy with the fact that the game still didint hit all the target marktes ) XR has the potential to deliver an superb game.
If the techland crew focuses all their powers, + already earned cash from the superb poland release into an big piece of tuning , total quality management and patching - Xpand Rally might get 85 to 90 % someday...
The game has a lot of potential ...
Minitest:
An game junky as I am - I have the bad hobby to test all important releases in every game genre, but my heart belongs to MMORPGs and Racing Sims.
I have compared Colin Mcrae Rally 2005 , Mr. burns Rally *g* .. *hicks* .. I mean richard burns rally and xpand rally lately.
I did run the tests on two systems :
1. amd barton 2,5 mhz / 1gb ram @ 333mhz / gf5900 ultra 256mb ddr2 ram
2. amd xp 64 3,6 / 1bg ram @ 400 mhz / gf 6800 gt ultra 256 mb ddr3 ram
All systems where fresh instaled ( win xp ) had 1 HDD (100gb WD 8 mb cache) , and used an logitech momo racing wheel as input .
ahm resolution .. 1024x768
to make it short...
on the first sytem ( 1 ) all games did have slowdowns :
- XR was almost unplayable with often long slowdowns in both high and low graphic settings , some tracks where immposible to finish with high settings, and hard to finish with low settings even with a lot of warka strong beer..
- cmr05 had major slowdowns with high setting wich actualy did ruin the fun, but where handable. In low settings the game run ok with some short slowdowns.
- RBR - short slowdowns with both settings..
I have all the fps writen somewhere, might post them in another thread some day ..too tired now.. fighting not to fall asleep..
on the second system ( 2 ) wich actualy is overclocked ( cpu+ram10 % / gfx 20% ) but runs under 55°C cpu / 60°C gfx - the situation is diferent..
now on such a system wich represents almost the top of the line, every well programed game should run smoothly..
well cmr 05 and rbr do...both have almost no noticable slowdowns with high settings..
but XR has slowdowns.. bad ones.. short ones and some nasty longer ones..
especialy if the terain moves more then 180° and if.. well .. somtimes you just drive straight.. watch the funny animals running around and swoop.. you are frozen.. why ? well I dont know why.. I hope techland calls their partner nvidia , and asks for help - or they just give their engine coders no food till the game runs perfectly..
There is A LOT of potential in this game - with an big patch, and some better modding sottware/gui/intefaces we might have an superb platform for a lot of
crazy modifications.
ah... and I WANT MY MULTIPLAYER TO WORK PLS !!
As BHmotorsorts is listed as an partner on the game cover there is hope someone from techland reads this here.. and pushes himself for an nice statement
take it e-z all and keep on drifting
@rturro the drunk guy
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