A Rant On Rally Games

Even though I never watch rally, I think the game form is awesome. It's all about an exercise in driving with finesse in a battle between you and bloody rough terrain. It's about starting to recklessly push your car through tight lines in those last few corners in an attempt to get under that goal time. It's about watching replays where the camera pans up and you can see the track winding through mountains and trees off into the distance.

Well it used to be, anyway.

A new WRC game, a solid rally series from the last console generation, has appeared on PS3 and it tries to take the same road the old ones did, providing a graphical update, realistic damage and driving physics. It's a no-nonsense rally game, and I find that appealing. I've been playing the demo recently and after some disastrous first runs I'm starting to understand how the cars behaved and I'm shaving seconds off my lap times at a very satisfying rate.

It's kind of disappointing then to see the mixed reviews it's getting. I've been reading a couple, namely those available on Gamespy and Playstation Universe. They both seem heavy on the comparisons with DiRT 2; a game which is to rally sims what the modern Need For Speed games are to road racers. Colin McRae and WRC games were competitors back in the day but the former has long since gone off chasing more arcade and extreme games like Motorstorm and the previously mentioned NFS. The focus on stages is gone, replaced by a more jack-of-all-trades approach to general off-road races. What is up with the comparisons here? If I want a rally sim I would prefer it to focus on rally stages, not try too hard to seem like an extreme sports title with a douchebag aesthetic.

I mean, I even saw some complaint in one of the reviews about how WRC didn't have a "rewind" feature, and therefore could be frustrating. Meaning, they didn't like that when they crashed they couldn't turn back time and retry the corner. Seriously? I can see something like that being cool in an arcade racer, but even then wouldn't it detract so much spirit from the racing to essentially have a mulligan button?

I'm not saying some criticisms aren't unwarranted. For example, the graphics really aren't as good as DiRT 2. I'm just frustrated that there's such an emphasis on player hand-holding this generation. Sometimes I feel a bit disappointed in myself for falling so much out of gaming culture these last few years. Other days, I feel completely justified.