Burning oil, pounding bumpers, the desperate attempt to stay on the road—driving hasn’t been this insane since I tested for my learner’s permit. Yes, RalliSport Challenge 2 has come to Xbox Live. And, as RalliSport Challenge proves, it’s not always about finishing with the best time—sometimes it’s just about finishing.
In RalliSport Challenge 2, you pilot your way around a number of haphazard courses, from the icy lanes of Canada to the burning Australian outback. There are no pampered racetracks here, no pit crew to hold your hand. RalliSport is all about driving conditions taken to the extreme. Courses take you up steep mountain passes, over burning desert sands, through blinding fog and snowstorms—and all on “roads” that barely deserve the name. Expect to see more mud, sand, and gravel than blacktop, and say goodbye to anything resembling lane markers or road signs. You’re driving RalliSport–style now, which takes not only racing finesse, but also cajones the size of deployed airbags. Fortunately you have an onboard co-driver who helps by calling out the turns—no doubt, when he’s not cowering below the dash, praying for his life.
In RalliSport Challenge 2, there’s no way you’ll survive with one foot pressed to the floorboard. Driving at top speed might work on the straightaways (a rare sight on these courses), but it’s impossible to corner without serious brake work and heavy, heavy banking. In fact, a large part of RalliSport Challenge 2comes from playing fast and loose with the whole concept of traction. It’s a constant gamble, trying to slide through the turns to make the best time. Play it well, and you’re butter. Play it poorly, and you’ll have fun spinning your wheels at the bottom of some ditch. There’s even an emergency brake if you want to really press your luck.
As an Xbox Live title, though, only half the danger comes from the coursework itself. You’re also up against your fellow XboxLive opponents—up to four players total in a race. And they’re all itching to bump you into rude spins and send you crashing through barriers or off bridges. You don’t just win this kind of event, you survive it. RalliSport Challenge 2 goes out of its way to provide you with a furious wake of wrecked, ditched, and damaged cars, a style that perfectly complements the trash talk you’ll hear during Xbox Live play. When the race heats up, it will be an actual gamer laughing at you as he jacks you to the side of the road.
At least that’s the way most of my races went. RalliSport Challenge 2 is a harsh mistress—the kind that’s into leather and chains—and she does not look kindly on weakness. It’s definitely one tough game to master, especially for drivers like me who always check their blind spots and feel like daredevils when driving five miles per hour over the posted limit. But when you get destroyed, at least your humiliation will be rendered in exquisite detail. The game’s beautiful mountain vistas are best viewed while pitching over the side of a cliff, and the time you spend recovering from ice-racing hazards will give you a chance to appreciate the beauty of new-fallen snow. Even in the face of defeat I can enjoy the sight of my broken driver-side door sliding into the ravine … slowly followed by my front bumper. Windows shatter, sparks fly, and doors and hatches pop loose and thud along for the rest of ride. I haven’t visited this much damage on a car since my last rental.
Just don’t forget about the actual race! RalliSport Challenge 2 comes with all the perks of an Xbox Live title. Going up against your fellow Xbox Live players means racing the best of all competitors on the worst of all roads. Yet cross the line ahead of the pack, and that’ll be your name up in lights and gracing the upper echelons of the leader boards—bragging rights that are damn hard to come by. Look for me on the leader boards as well—down in the RalliSport ditches, though, struggling somewhere along the bottom.
