Rally Fusion: Race of Champions Updated Preview

Activision will be trying its hand at the rally racing genre this year with its upcoming multiplatform release Rally Fusion. Developed by UK developer Climax Brighton, the game attempts to blend elements from technical rally racers such as the Colin McCrae games and elements from mainstream arcade-style racers. We recently had a chance to check out a build of the Xbox version of the game and were pretty pleased by what we saw.

While it will have slightly better graphics, the Xbox version of Rally Fusion will feature the same content as the PlayStation 2 version. You'll find three main modes to test your driving skills--race of champions, challenge, and quick race--each with its own unique array of gameplay types to choose from. The race of champions mode will challenge you to win two competitions: champion of champions and the nation's cup. Both of these competitions will feature intermediate, advanced, and professional levels of difficulty. The challenge mode presents you with a series of competitions that are separated into three levels of difficulty: class C, class B, and class A. As you make your way through the competitions, you'll end up playing through 10 challenges in total. The final game mode, quick race, is a bit different from the quick race options found in similar racing games. The quick race mode will feature 11 challenges that you can unlock, and while you'll still be able to hop into a race with just a few button presses, the mode will also let you unlock more cars and tracks.

While not much has changed in terms of the selection and scope of the gameplay modes since the last time we saw the game, Rally Fusion's presentation has been tightened up considerably. The game's graphics have been polished up quite a bit and show off the greater texture detail and overall polygon count in the Xbox version. The cars in the game look pretty slick, featuring high-poly models that are so detailed you can make out the stickers on them. The courses are equally fetching, using a generous helping of polygons to render the different environments and weather effects. The game's finer details, such as the particle effects, the dirt that accumulates on your cars over the course of a race, and the way damage is depicted on your car, have also been improved. The trackside detail has been beefed up as well--you'll now see the flash from spectators' cameras and little touches of eye candy like video screens that run a real-time broadcast of the race. Despite the game's intensive graphics, Rally Fusion's frame rate stays high and smooth, which definitely helps the racing experience. Another key aspect of the game's appeal is its Dolby 5.1 support. The car sounds are suitably muscular and reflect the state of the engines. You'll also be "treated" to commentary from your racing partner, who is light on the praise and heavy on the verbal abuse. We're still not sure what to think of the fact that we found ourselves telling the game to shut the hell up so we could drive when we were having a bad lap, but the voice work is certainly effective. The Xbox version also features faster loading times than the PlayStation 2 version, which helps make the pace of the game a bit faster as well.

While Rally Fusion has a solid selection of modes and good production values, the entire game, like most racers, hinges on its handling. The handling is still being tweaked and could be a little tighter, but overall the game plays well. The balance between realistic and arcade-style gameplay seems to be just about right, so racing is pretty fun without being too frustrating--as long as you can deal with the aforementioned verbal abuse.

Judging from what we've played so far, Rally Fusion seems to be fulfilling the promise we saw a few months back. The game looks good, and its gameplay is coming together well. Rally racing fans will want to keep an eye out for Rally Fusion when it ships for the Xbox this November.