Six disciplines, over 40 cars, and tons and tons of good, old fashioned filth all come together to make a great game.
Barring the celebrity power behind this game we shall look first at the graphics. This game looks great. The tracks and surrounding environments are incredible, highly detailed, and the Rallycross races are speckled with enthusiastic spectators. The cars look incredible and dirty up quite nicely, even leaving splattered windshields with clear paths cut by the wiper blades. This leads to a slight inaccuracy. The blades leave their path of clean even when they’re not there to do it. This is a lead-in to another graphical high point. The car’s destruction looks spectacular. The vehicles break apart nicely, shattering glass, and little superfluous bits of plastic and metal cascade around the wreck. However, this hardcore attention to detail doesn’t come free. This game’s frame-rate gets hurt. Occasionally during large, multi-car events the frame rate starts chugging. It gets particularly bad when during events like Raid or the Corr 4 truck series when everyone starts “beatin’ and bangin’” the frame-rate goes south, really hard and really fast. Even things like the solo rally runs or crossover events can stutter quite a bit. This can cause major problems because in the world of Rallycross split second timing can mean the difference between 1st place and a “DNF”.
The game consists of a mish mash of 6 different racing series. This spread covers the world of dirt based racing quite well. It has everything from the Rallycross series to the Lucas Oil buggies and Corr 4 truck series. Each of the vehicle types for these racing disciplines has it’s own unique handling characteristics. The larger vehicles have major suspension travel which leads to mushy handling with rocking back and forth and easy roll-overs for which you have to be cautious. The rally cars are very quick, tight handling cars with exceptional handling and great response. All of this lends a nice splash of color and personality to the game.
The handling physics by themselves are noteworthy at the least. Depending on your chosen difficulty level the game displays more and more sim-based handling characteristics. At higher difficulty levels the damage to your suspension and steering systems becomes more evident, playing havoc with your ability to keep it on the road. Even the physics themselves get more and more sim-based as you amp up the difficulty. This all helps to lend another unique touch to this game that makes it enjoyable.
The career menu interface is straightforward, very simple, and (at times) almost ingenious. The structure is simple; a tiered pyramid, 11 rows high, each race worth points, these points unlock new races, and the more you score, the more you unlock. There’s no obnoxious class selection menu, no odd maps of the world which you have to peruse, just a straight forward racer with a lot to enjoy. They do even more to simplify the career interface. When you enter a race, regardless of racing discipline, You are taken to the difficulty selection (no loading screen) and then to the car selection menu (also no loading). If you have to buy a new car it is right there to be selected and purchased. There are no loading screens until you’ve chosen to start the race. This all helps to streamline the BS that has become almost commonplace in most modern day racing games.
I don’t have any real reason to mess around with the online stuff so I didn’t. However, if you’re connected when you start playing the game will automatically upload your race times to the global database of race times. It’s a nice feature. That’s the extent of my online experience with this game.
All in all this is another undeniably solid from the Rallycross lunatics over at Codemasters and, regardless of framerate, it is truly gorgeous. However, what will truly keep you coming back is that when all the glitz and glamour fall off this game, like so many pieces of bodywork from your mutilated rally car, this game is truly enjoyable. The simple career interface options and the ease of use, coupled with spectacular physics and multiple racing disciplines, make this game something not only for Rallycross fans but for anyone looking for a truly solid racer they can use to while away a few hours.