| | First Encounter
I can remember a time when I spent my nights answering customer service e-mail on the graveyard shift. We had no open cafeteria to eat in, no nearby open restaurants, and there were only 12 of us spread out over an open bay floor that was fit to hold 300 people. What we did have, though, was an Xbox in the break room and a copy of RalliSport Challenge. RalliSport was the extent of our game library, but it was all we needed. Many a night, it was the cause of my coming back late from break or lunch, as I trained on and on, learning the courses and building the skills I would need to handily embarrass my colleagues.
I no longer have that job, but I still carry the fond memories of those nights with RalliSport Challenge. You can imagine, then, how I greeted the offer to view an early build of RalliSport Challenge 2 with glazed and wanting eyes and suffered the odd inability to work my mouth and tongue into any intelligible words. And, so I sat, giddy like the proverbial schoolgirl, and watched the opening sequence. My fingers trembled on the left and right triggers (that’s gas and brake to you silly people who didn’t play the original), and then it was off to the races, literally.
If you liked the first one, wait 'til you see this ...
It’s rare that a racing game like RalliSport has been able to grab and hold my unwavering attention for as long as it has. RalliSport Challenge 2 had a lot to live up to in my eyes. In that light, it pleases me to no end to say thatRalliSport Challenge 2 doesn’t live up to expectations; it shatters them, and then laughs about how easy it was.
My first test for RalliSport Challenge 2 was to hop into the “Instant Action” option at the opening menu. I was greeted with a sporty little sedan on a short winding “circular” course that was more man-made than the typical point-A-to-point-B rally tracks that dominated the original. The variation was nice, and I realized that its “man-made” nature allowed me to experience a host of different environments in a short time. I shot through asphalt, skidded around sandy hairpin corners, plowed through mud, and safely flew through soft and crumbly dirt. I say soft and crumbly because the graphics looked so freakin’ astounding, that I could actually differentiate between soft crumbly dirt and hard compact dirt. 
Even the dirt you kick up is ultra-realistic.
Speaking of the eye-popping, but sometimes elusive, art of polygonal mastery, it would appear that the folks behind RalliSport Challenge 2 are upping the ante to achieve a higher state of graphical nirvana this time around. The damage modeling, in particular, seems exponentially better than before. When I saw my rear bumper rip free of its housing on the left hand side and then watched it buffet wildly in the wind, it made me smile. Seeing the whole bumper tear free after fishtailing into the side of a tree was that much better. That’s just scratching the surface (pun intended) of the different kinds of damage modeling available in the game. Here’s a laundry list of structural ailments my poor car withstood. - Headlights and brake-lights shattered.
- Back and front bumper ripped off.
- Spoiler crushed and trunk unhinged.
- Driver-side door broken off.
- Passenger-side door flopping in the wind.
- Rear window smashed to smithereens.
- Front and rear passenger- and driver-side windows shattered.
- Front window “spider web” cracked from one side to the other.
- And, the hood … well, it’s gone, and I don’t know where to yet.
Oooo, that's gonna cause some damage.
That’s just after one race! I can only wonder what damage I haven’t seen yet. Of course, this also reminds me why I’ll never be a professional rally driver. I already feel bad about what I did to the poor car, and this is just a video game. I can only imagine the wrath of the sponsor upon seeing the mangled carcass of its beloved car.
Although there is little that can yet be revealed definitively about the feature set in RalliSport Challenge 2, I can say that the career mode is looking quite deep, there are more licensed cars than you can shake a stick shift at, and the developers are adding a little multiplayer feature that should spice things up. What’s it called? Oh, yes, Xbox Live! I thought that might whet your racing appetite!
Look for more coverage on RalliSport Challenge 2 as it nears release. By Alex McLain |
