E3 2002: Rally Fusion: Race of Champions preshow report

Activision will be brining a new rally racing game to the GameCube, the PlayStation 2, and the Xbox called Rally Fusion: Race of Champions, which uses the Race of Champions license. That may seem like a relatively unimportant fact at first, but the Race of Champions license actually enables the team to incorporate an extensive damage model in the game for all of the cars. Bumpers get smashed, doors fly open, windshields crack, and number of other car parts will see a fair amount of damage over the course of race.

The game itself offers a few different modes to select from such as driving challenge, rally cross, and circuit race. The driving challenge mode offers an obstacle course where you can learn different driving techniques. In addition to the damage model, the game features unique codriver commentary where the codriver will actually make comments based on how well or poorly you're driving. In addition, he'll give advice if you didn't perform well on a turn or if you should be going slower in certain portions of the track.

The game will have 20 licensed cars and around 20 tracks. Both the cars and the tracks look good even in the early build of the game that we saw, and there are plenty of special effects such as fireworks, realistic-looking wet tarmac, and more. We'll have more coverage on Race of Champions from the E3 show floor.