User Rating: 9.7 | RalliSport Challenge 2 XBOX
The Xbox is without a doubt, the console for racing fans. Project Gotham Racing 1 & 2 were huge hits; Colin McRae 4, Moto GP 1 & 2, Sega GT 2002, along with all the multiplatform racing games were all great. However, not the most popular, but the best of them all was Rallisport Challenge. Now, Dice has created possibly the most enjoyable racing game on any platform yet in Rallisport Challenge 2. Rallisport Challenge 2 is an arcade racing game at Heart. Every aspect of the game is exaggerated, but not to the extent that it is ridiculous. The handling is very controllable, even though your car is sliding around like crazy. Each car handles differently, and has its appropriate statistics for speed, acceleration, handling, and durability. You cannot improve the statistics by adding on any parts; however you can tune your car so it runs its best. There is also an incredible amount of tuning options for an arcade racer. You can tune the stiffness, spring length, and damper of the suspension. You can tune the brake stiffness, balance, power ratio, and the toe in/out in both the front and rear. You can also switch tire types, your gearbox, the steering, and gear ratio. Then, you can choose whether you want your co-driver to tell you basic turns (sharp, medium), or advanced where he tells you the amount of degrees of the turn. It will take you a long time to figure out what does what, but simulation gaming fans will easily know how to make their car the best for the track. There are 5 modes in Rallisport Challenge 2: Time Attack, Single Race, Multiplayer, Career, and Xbox Live. Time Attack is where you race by yourself to try and improve your skills on certain tracks. If you want to race against a few computer opponents on a certain track you can try out Single Race. If you and your buddies want to face off in split screen or system link you want to try out Multiplayer. One of the things they have added in Rallisport Challenge 2 is pace notes for each person, so you can actually know what kind of turn awaits you if you do not know the track. However, in multiplayer split screen mode none of the longer versions of tracks are playable. The system link option actually lets you connect up to 16 Xbox’s at a time. This mode also supports the voice communicator. But they only set it up so 1 person per Xbox could play a system link game; there is no split screen on system link. So if you have 2 Xbox’s and 2 TV’s setup, only 2 people can race against each other, instead of 8 like most system link games. Career mode when playing offline is where it’s at in Rallisport Challenge 2. There are 4 different difficulties in Career mode: Amateur, Pro, Champion, and Super Rally. Amateur and Pro will seem very easy to anyone who’s played any type of racing game before. You will be beating their times by minutes sometimes on each race. However, it is worth going through all of these modes because some of the cars can only be unlocked by beating these difficulty levels. Champion mode is severely harder than Pro and is where you will unlock some of the best cars in the game. Super Rally is actually locked until you beat Champion career, and is very difficult. The career mode is a bracket like setup. Each event has anywhere from 2-4 races in it, and if you win the event by having the best overall time through all the tracks you receive 20 points. Once you get enough points, or complete certain events, more events become available to race in. At the end of each career difficulty you will be given a license. The types of races in the events will include Rallycross, Rally, Crossover, Hill Climb, and Ice Racing. If you can resist the temptation to go online when you first play this game, you should, and complete the career mode simply so you can compete with the better cars they will have. There are a total of 238 “unlocks” in this game. Over 90 tracks, over 40 cars, and 4 different skins for each car are unlockable. You don’t even have to win the events to unlock the cars either; you just have to complete them. Which isn’t challenging at all, but this game is really geared toward online play, and the faster you can unlock the better cars, the faster you can compete with everyone online. The Xbox Live online Multiplayer part of this game is what we’ll be playing for months to come. First of all, you are always signed into Xbox Live; however you can only set records while racing in an Xbox Live race, with a car that is designed for that track. This is unlike other online racing games such as Project Gotham Racing 2 where you could set records in your career mode if you were connected to Xbox Live. The scoreboards have a time based scoring system. It doesn’t matter how many 1st place or 2nd place finishes you have, it is all based upon your best time on that track. So don’t be afraid of going online if you aren’t good at the game yet because it might affect your ranking, you can always improve upon your times later. This is without a doubt the best racing game out there for Xbox Live, if not the entire online racing genre. The races are 1-16 players, however when more than 4 players are playing, everyone is automatically set to being a ghost. So when you are racing, there are no collisions, and you only see wire frames of your opponents. This is great because no matter what kind of connection everyone has there will be no lag problems. The worst that can happen is you will have wire frames jumping around, and that doesn’t effect you at all. It really doesn’t take anything away from the multiplayer aspect, and if you really do feel like smashing cars around there are plenty of only 4 player races available. To top it all off, this is an XSN sports game. Which means you can create online leagues, tournaments, and seasons to compete in. Rallisport Challenge 2 is definitely the most impressive looking racing game on any platform. The tracks themselves are a thing of beauty. Each terrain has its own special effect when driven upon that makes you appreciate how far along games have come graphically. Such as when driving upon the muddy tracks in Great Britain, there are puddles spread all over the track that give it an ultra realistic look. The tarmac areas of Great Britain have trees all around the track, so of course there are leaves all over the place, and as you drive, you kick up the leaves that were on the ground. The car modeling is awesome, some of the best looking cars out there. However, in this game, the cars are always at the mercy of the track they are driving on. One of the coolest features in Rallisport Challenge 2 is that you can start out with a show room quality car at the beginning of the race, and at the end it will look like it should be in a wrecking yard. During the race you will accumulate several coats of mud, dirt, dust, or snow on your car, which just adds to how messed up your car will look when combined with the cool damage effects. The damage effects are astounding; almost every part of your car can break, and/or fall off completely. The windows can bust out, the spoiler can fall off, and the bumpers will fall halfway off and just hang there waiting for you to hit something else so they can fall off too. If you are going fast enough, and hit something that makes you flip over several times you will see one of the coolest things ever in a racing game. Your car will be rolling and the doors will open, parts of your car will start falling off, a tire or 2 might break off, and your windows will bust. In fact, this is so awesome to see, you will find that even during a race you will sit there and watch it happen, even though you know you should probably press the white button to get your car back on the track as quick as possible. You will also learn quickly that you have to be very careful when racing at night not to hit anything, because when your headlights go out it is very difficult to see. In spite of all the cool damage effects, only the headlights being damaged and a tire or 2 falling off will actually effect the race itself. The environments around the tracks are breathtaking. The textures on the trees which sway back and forth in the wind, the brush around the track, the grass, the bridges, the tunnels, and the beautiful backgrounds are all done incredibly well. One of the best looking environments is in Argentina where there is actually a lake to your left on one of the tracks, then when climbing the hill you see a waterfall that gets closer and closer, then you pass right by it over a bridge. It’s too bad that most of the time you are going to fast to admire the beauty of the environment that you are racing in. A great racing game always has excellent sound, and Rallisport Challenge 2 is definitely a great racing game. Most importantly, almost every car sounds noticeably different. The diverse braking, suspension, and sliding sounds depend on which terrain you are driving on. Rallisport Challenge 2 does a great job in making every usual in-car sound, realistically match the terrain, and situation you are in. Such as if you are drifting in the sand you can hear the sand kick up around you as your tires spin rapidly trying to gain traction. However, if you can’t gain traction in time and happen to smash into a tree, you will hear the awesome damage sound effects. Windshields busting out, tires falling off and bouncing down the road, and the oh so great thud from going 150mph to 0 when hitting a wall straight on are some of the many damage sound effects heard in this game. All of these impressive sound effects of course, sound incredibly better if you can take advantage of the in game Dolby Digital that Rallisport Challenge 2 supports. The soundtrack included in the Rallisport Challenge 2 fits the game rather well. In fact, this might be one of the first racing games that includes the custom soundtrack option, which you might not want to take advantage of. But then again, who doesn’t want to listen to Tupac while driving in a Toyota Pikes Peak Tacoma down a Mountain in Montegranito Argentina at 170mph? Although, you might want to turn down the music in this game because you will want to hear your co-driver, who’s accent is now region based so you can better understand him. When you put together a great career mode, intense online multiplayer, breathtaking graphics, incredible sound, and a fantastic mix of realistic and arcade gameplay you get Rallisport Challenge 2. An incredible racing game with an inconceivable amount of replay value. Anyone who enjoys racing games at all owes it to themselves to pick up this game, you won’t regret it.
