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The best rally game

There were times when rally fans practically did not have rally games. In those times, Colin Mcrae Rally and Richard Burns Rally were almost the only high -quality representatives of the genre. But recently there have been a lot of both excellent and controversial rally games. For rally fans, this period can be called the “Golden Age”. Do you want hardcore – get Dirt Rally. Want to ride without difficulties – take a game from a WRC series. Each game has something good and I want to find the best rally game.

(Not) very important points.
1) I played some games for a long time and I will evaluate them from memory. I will try to minimize nostalgia.
2) Some games are very similar (for example, WRC and WRC 2 differ only in slightly improved graphics and several new tracks), so I will evaluate such games as a whole, but sometimes I will indicate differences.
3) each game will receive an assessment (from 1 to 5) according to various criteria.
4) some old games will be left without attention. I played them either for a very long time, or very little, or did not play at all. These are games such as Colin McRee Rally 2005, V-Rally 3, Rally Trophy, Euro Rally Championship and T.D. If you have something to say about these games, leave comments, it will be interesting to know your opinion.
5) Participants: Richard Burns Rally (hereinafter RBR), Series WRC (1-7), V-Rally 4, Sébastien LoEb Rally Evo (hereinafter SLR), Dirt (1-4), Dirt Rally (1-2), Xpand Rally.
6) only official games are considered taking into account DLC.

In any racing game, the car is an important part. Developers can shove dozens of cars of different eras and different manufacturers into the game. Cars can behave almost like real ones, but can be ironing on the road. Let’s find out what game gives us real emotions from driving, in which game we can ride on legendary cars, and which game protects our nerves and just gives us to relax.

Quantity and variety of machines.

RBR has a very scarce set of cars, about 6 pieces.

A WRC Games series has cars that were presented in a single season of the World Rally Championship. The usual Ford (Focus, Fiesta), Citroen (XSARA, C3, DS3), etc.

V-Rally 4 and the Dirt series have different legendary cars of each era in the garage. Here is the group B, and cars 60s, and modern.

The Dirt Rally and SLR series in my opinion have the most extensive fleet. In addition to many machines of different eras, these games have a unique transport that has not yet met anywhere before. For example, SLR has Peugeot Quasar.

The XPand Rally series has many different machines. But there is a huge minus – there is no license, so if the car is like a real machine, then the name is completely invented (for example, Mini Copper was renamed Tiny Hooper).

The more in the game of cars, the higher the rating of the game.

Physics and feeling from driving

Even if there are hundreds of cars in the game, there is little use from them, if all of them are controlled the same.

When I play RBR, you feel the lightness of cars. I remember that Lancer and Corolla were very light. However, how cars behave – do not convey words. Every stump is felt, cars behave differently on gravel, asphalt, in the rain. The driving school introduces us to different techniques: braking with the left foot, the principle of the pendulum, etc. All this will come in handy to us to show a great time on every car.

The WRC series is still an arcade, so almost all cars behave ± the same. But in WRC 3, due to the availability of cars of past years, it is still slightly felt that you are sitting behind the wheel of a monster from the 80s.

V-Rally 4 and Dirt have a fairly good balance between the arcade and the simulator.

SLR all the same closer to the simulator. Sometimes you go crazy on some Lancia Strats when you pass the hairpins of the San Remo rally or special stages on the Monte-Carlo rally.

Dirt Rally has almost the same excellent madness as in RBR – you feel the car, how it passes, how the car behaves in a jump, etc.

The Xpand Rally series is maximum-casino.uk/ more related to Arcade. Sometimes the car is strangely entered, sharply slows down when he was being departed from the highway.

The better the physicist in the game, the higher the assessment of the game.

Damage to the machines

Rally is such a motorsport, where speed is not always the main thing. It is sometimes more important to save the car and get to the finish line by earned precious glasses.

Let’s start with RBR and Dirt Rally – here you can just destroy the car. Seriously, I was very surprised when I had an engine for the first time in RBR. Both games just make the player sweat in every dangerous moment. A little distracted – flew out and crashed. The suspension breaks, the transmission stops working, you can’t use the rear gear, caught a puncture, etc. A small pebble or small tree may be enough. This is especially noticeable in RBR in realistic complexity.

Good damage is noticeable in SLR and WRC (5-7). At least sometimes in a WRC car it jumps funny from the wall, but still the machine begins to be entered from damage to the left / right side, slowly gaining speed. Sometimes you can break electronics and the connection with the navigator will disappear.

The better the damage in the game, the higher the rating of the game.

View from the cabin and outside

The best view for such an accurate discipline as rally is the view from the cabin or hood. So you react faster to danger, more emotions from the rain. However, often the view from the cabin is too dark and the track is very poorly visible from it. Outside, the view, on the contrary, allows you to see what the springboard will be, to see how the car is close to a cliff, etc. Oddly enough, but every species can in its own way to affect the control of the car.

Dirt Rally has the best species from the cab (you can configure the height of the seat, not so dark, clearly visible the track, cool spray, dirt), and the view from the outside (if you turn, the car reacts well).

There are cases when the view from the outside generally spoils all the impressions of driving. In some games of the WRC series (5-7), a ride with a view of 3 faces is felt as if you were jerking a car with ropes and it reacts to your actions with some delay. All this is subjective, but the fact remains: in order to achieve good results, you need to choose the form with which you will better feel the car.
The more species in the game and the better they are implemented, the higher the assessment of the game.

The more beautiful, diverse, technical tracks, the more emotions the racer receives. Developers can use laser scanning of real tracks, generate their own routes, make short or very long routes. The following is important: a good rally game should have such routes on which I want to ride again and again.

Type of construction of tracks

Everything is simple here. You can make each specialist unique. You can make ligaments like a-b, b-s, a-s. The next method is similar to the previous one, but first you can make a large location with many roads, and only then for each specialized wiper to change directions. One of the most exotic, controversial, complex techniques is the generation of tracks.

Let’s look at the examples from my most beloved and ending with controversial techniques.

1) unique tracks.
They are well represented in games such as RBR, SLR, WRC 5, Dirt 1. Each country has several tracks, each route has its own unique route and may have a unique landscape. For me this is the best option. Riding along different tracks is always more pleasant and such trips are not bored so quickly. You can learn the tracks and pass them faster.
WRC 6 also has unique tracks, but some came straight from WRC 5.
WRC 7 also has unique tracks, but some came straight from WRC 5 \ 6.

2) a large location with a bunch of interchanges.
Good example: Xpand Rally, V-Rally 4. For example, in the game there is a Kenya map with different students (village, mountain, etc.). There are many roads on the map. Each special facilities may differ from the previous one by either 100%or 10%, it all depends on how the developer (Xpand Rally) or the generator (V-Rally 4) will pave the route.
Pros of this approach: designers can make a beautiful location, scatter many unique objects on it. You will be pleased to drive it from all sides. We can say that this is such an Openvorld from the world of rally.
In V-Rally 4, designers have worked better with cards than the Poles in Xpand Rally.

3) ligaments like a-b, b-s, a-s (or Y-shaped tracks). These are still beautiful tracks, but we very often drive through the same places. It all depends on the designers. If they try to make the track beautiful, diverse, long, then it can bring you pleasure for a very long time (Dirt Rally). If they do not try with the beauty of the tracks, then we get bored very quickly (WRC 1, 2).
Games WRC 3, 4, 7 have special stages of this kind. Dirt 2, 3 also use this technique.

4) the generator of the tracks. Sounds excellent. Childhood dream. Millions of different tracks in one game. But in fact, it is difficult and probably at the moment impossible to make a good generator. The system itself should build a route, use a set of different blocks. But I met such a generator only in Dirt 4. At first you ride and rejoice, but then you notice the same turns, the same forks. Reaches the absurd: sometimes the track has a length of 9 km, but the feeling that you are driving 3 times the same highway, it just has a length of 3 km.

The game will be highly appreciated if the above techniques for building tracks are correctly used in it. By literacy we mean the following:
– if they make unique tracks, then they try to make each special -stitch less like the rest;
– If a location is made, then there should be many different zones on the locations.
-If you make Y-shaped tracks, then we must try to diversify the track as much as possible so that it does not get bored too quickly.

The number of tracks

Everything is simple, the more tracks, the better. For example, WRC 5 with all DLC has 78 tracks. We do not take into account the variety and beauty of the tracks. We do not take into account the number of locations. We also take into account that games with track generations or with a huge location with a bunch of interchanges get an advantage.

The number of locations

Everything is simple, the more locations, the better. It’s so nice to ride different countries. For example, the games of the WRC series have 13 countries. DIRT series games (main or Rally) have about 4-6 countries. We do not take into account the variety and beauty of locations.

Diversity, complexity, beauty of tracks

A very important criterion, since there is nothing better than drive along a variety of tracks. This includes everything: the length, design, landscapes, the technicality of the tracks, the variety of surfaces, bumps, pits, many studs and straight sections, similarities with real routes, attention to details, etc.

RBR has beautiful, unique, narrow, high -speed, slow tracks, on some roads there are bumps. To ride them is a pleasure. Winter Finland you rarely meet. England and the United States are very high. Japan is full of vegetation. Animals run across the road. Operators stand on the edges of the tracks.

The Wrc Games series knew unsuccessful and successful moments. The first parts are very faded, they were not saved by a huge number of countries. Almost all the tracks were flat and wide, there were almost no jumps in Finland. A little delighted Jordan from WRC 2.
In the WRC 3 and WRC 4, the situation was noticeably corrected, but basically the special stages turned into one large route, divided into sections.
A huge leap came to WRC 5, where the developers made all the tracks unique. Somewhere it turned out wonderful (Mexico, Argentina), but they could not cope with Finland again. WRC 6, 7 is slightly worse than the fifth part, since they took some routes from the last part. Wrc 7 and Epic Stages do not save, which are inherently gluing smaller tracks of a particular country.

V-Rally 4 is good for its design countries. For example, in Kenya, many routes were laid, which pass along the swamps, along the slope of the mountain, etc. The tracks are narrow and wide. There is Russia in the person of Siberia. 2 locations in the United States (sequoia and canyons) look great.

The Dirt series after 1 part went along the simple path and makes the tracks on the principle of A-B, A-C. The tracks are not complicated. In the first part, it was better.
DIRT 4 with its generation introduces too quickly in longing, as there is a feeling that you are going along the same highway.

SLR has very technical routes. The developers scanned real routes with a laser. For example, in Italy there are special stages with a very large number of turns. There are excellent springboard in Finland. The landscapes are colorful. But there are not enough puddles on the roads (it is noticeable if you compare the Sweet Lamba from Slr and Dirt Rally).

Dirt Rally has all the advantages from RBR and SLR: complex routes, cool Finland. But still the manner of building tracks makes itself felt and at some point it becomes boring.

Xpand Rally looks like V-Rally 4, but its design is worse. The tracks almost do not have springboards. But some special stages (Ireland or Italy from the Xpand Rally Extreme) are quite narrow and technical.

Important little things

Consider everything that somehow affects the sensations from the game.

It would seem that developers from Codemasters have the most beautiful rally games, but SLR developers also made a beautiful picture. The games of the WRC series progresses from year to year, but it is clear that the budget has not very large. We make a discount for the year the game (for example, RBR came out at the beginning of the zero).