The Run encapsulates the diversity of the American landscape very well in its ten distinct stages. Thanks to the Frostbite 2 engine (famously debuting recently with Battlefield 3), these locations are wonderfully realised and complimented by beautiful lighting effects that bounce off the tarmac and wide range of cars at your disposal. Sadly, Black Box also included features of the Frostbite 2 engine which are less welcome, like the quick-time events seen in Batllefield 3. The moments when these occur feel completely unnecessary, but thankfully they are few and far between.

Jack, with the help of his friend Sam, must get from 500th place to 1st before Jack reaches New York. The plot doesn’t develop much beyond the basic premise. Instead of providing a deep and engaging story, we are simply given a shallow narrative and expected to sympathise with Jack’s plight.

All we know is that Jack is a cocky bastard who spunks money he doesn’t have, making him a douchebag protagonist who is hard to identify with. Rival racers are introduced at different points in The Run, but all we are told about them is a page of text during the excessively long loading screens. Luckily, there aren’t many lengthy cut-scenes that waste time on the pointless plot, leaving you to get on with driving.

Driving in The Run can be equally thrilling and frustrating. The cars are responsive and can be thrown around the track with slick drifts and tight turns. The stages keep things varied and fun, ranging from highway drag-like races, to corner-intensive mountain time-trials. Not only will you have to try and beat your rivals or the clock, but, being a race along public roads, you will also have to move through a hell of a lot of traffic. The different cars and car-types handle differently, but throughout the campaign you will only have the opportunity to drive a handful of the overall roster, which is a shame.

For every neat idea in-principle there is in The Run, there are always one or two bizarre ones that hold the game back. Certain physics are locked until you earn enough XP. For example, drafting is unlocked at level 7, meaning you can’t use your opponents slipstream for the opening few levels.

To switch cars in-game, players have to drive into the garages littered throughout the levels. But, if you are in the middle of a race and want to change car, you will have to fall behind in the race in order to do so. This is terrible and makes changing cars in the latter stages of the game practically impossible, when the opponents are much faster. It would have been simpler to have the option to switch cars before each race, as certain cars are designed for certain tracks. Muscle cars are good for highway races and sports cars are better for city tracks.

There are also some cheap tactics employed by the AI which make the game infuriating. While rubber-banding isn’t a major issue, it gets worse the further you progress in The Run. What’s more annoying is when opponents magically get back into the race after a massive crash. If an opponent crashes into traffic, gets caught by police, or spins out, you will only be able to gain a few seconds on them before the AI resets the cars back onto the roads.

Naturally, you aren’t paid the same courtesy. There will be many times when you will be punished for The Run’s shortcomings. Although there is a rewind system, you are only given five per race, and these can either be used manually or triggered automatically when you crash or veer too far off-course. The problem is that far too often these rewinds will be automatically triggered at times when they shouldn’t.

Sometimes you can veer far off-track without a rewind being triggered. In other cases, you barely have to have all four wheels off-road for the game to kick you back to the last checkpoint. The worst thing is a lot of the time you won’t even be in any trouble and even get back on course, but the rewind will have already been triggered. There are also guided orange arrows which lock off certain roads and guide you along the track. Brushing these arrows will also cause an automatic rewind.

The online mode is fun and well put together, but the significant lack of modes makes it hard to stick with. All players can do is compete in races and the superfluous XP system is not implemented well enough to hook players further. Because of the tacked-on feel of the XP system, it feels like a cheap attempt to hook players in the way games like Call of Duty and Battlefield do. While these shooters offer enticing rewards at each level-up, The Run merely offers new display icons and backgrounds. New cars are few and far between – my first was around level 5 – and you have to earn a lot of XP between each level, making it a chore.

The Challenge Series adds longevity to the 3-4 hour campaign, and is arguably more fun than The Run itself. By removing the narrative and giving players loads of cars to race in a variety of fun challenges, this is where The Run is best.

A lot of ideas implemented in The Run seem great in principle, but poor execution holds it back from being a stellar title. In the time since Black Box last released an NFS game, there have been some fine additions to the series and sadly, not enough inspiration has been taken from these entries.

There are some incredible set pieces within The Run. Helicopter chases, neck and neck races, huge crashes and tunnel chases are all there, and all rewarding. The problem is that they are rooted in shoddy gameplay mechanics. This game is fun for a weekend, making it an ideal game for a rental but at £40, it’s hard to recommend. If you are looking for an excellent Need For Speed arcade racer, you’re probably better off looking at Hot Pursuit.

Need For Speed: The Run is out now on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii. Or… Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is half the price.

With that in mind I handed it to my brother, Marcus and his 6-year old son, Flynn to see what they thought of it.

Flynn’s Review:

There are loads and loads of levels that need unlocking and you play spy games, battle games and racing games. You can choose from lots of different cars like Finn McMissile, Francesco, Mater, Holly and more.

In the races I was quite good and in the battle races you got to shoot bullets. The one with the ramp is a really good one but that’s not a battle race.

Finn McMissile could jump in one of the spy games and he had a turbo engine and fire came out the back and made you go super fast.

I think Cars 2 is awesome, fantastic and brill.

Marcus’s Review:

Flynn was so eager to play this game that he managed to damage the slider button which opens the UMD on his PSP. So there I was at 7:30am on a Saturday morning surfing the net trying to find out how to fix it. Luckily it was a fairly simple fix and we were soon able to get the door open and insert the disc. Once we’d gone through the software update process Flynn was finally able to start playing.

He’s an avid Cars fan so was really pleased with it and loved being able to play as Finn McMissile and also as Francesco, his two favourite characters from Cars 2. He got so engrossed in it that it was difficult to get a review out of him, which says a lot in itself.

One week on and he’s still playing. Reviewing it as an adult you’d comment on the relatively simple graphics and the strange grandstand camera view you seem to be stuck with. The gameplay is fairly basic too but then this game isn’t aimed at adults.

It successfully couples the premise of car racing with the notion of developing spy car skills, although you can still play some more straightforward races. You also win badges for attaining different skills, unlocking levels and characters from the film along the way.

Try to imagine Austin Powers aimed at kids in the guise of an anthropomorphic cartoon car honing their spy skills and you’ve about got it.

Summary:

It’s kept Flynn interested and it is still in the PSP a week later. What more could you ask for?

CARS 2 is out now on PSP, Wii, DS, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

San Francisco

When I first got the game I had to compare the maps in-game against the real world of San Francisco. Now, of course it would be unrealistic to expect Ubisoft to have mapped the whole of San Francisco, even more so to expect a modern console to handle that size of a map. So instead we have a simplified version retaining most of the impressive landmarks as well as the main landscape headlines like Marin and Oakland. Needless to say, I spent quite a long time racing around doing things like seeing how fast I could really power slide down Lombard Street without wrecking the car.

Crashing cars

The game does have some pretty nail biting moments where I was praying that I’d make it in the time allocated. At one stage my heart rate was at god knows how many BPM having just torn through central San Francisco trying to deliver a mysterious person to a specific location only to get ambushed on the way. It was fantastically satisfying hitting over 150mph into oncoming traffic while trying to lose the police, and then straight down as I slammed into a wall just before the end. You really cannot just hold the accelerator and expect to make it. You have to route plan, drive like crazy and have a bit of luck.

I’ll be honest here, racing is fun, but my favourite missions involved getting to crash vehicles at high speeds. It really works, taking heavy vehicles from on traffic and slamming them into a car without worrying about a timer (mostly). These and the other stunt missions like sideward drifting trying to destroy signs for a gig were probably my favourites in the game.

The mad bomber side missions are fun but frustrating at the same times. You’ll have trucks driving down the street with bombs underneath them. Your job is to slide under and hold the car in position for a time to defuse it. The amount of times the car was too high or too small to pull it off had me swearing. This one quest took me quite a few times and was almost enough for me to quit. Shortly after this a police chase in action went past me so I thought “Hey, what happens if I shift into one of those?”. Next thing I knew I’d triggered a mission where I had to take down the car I had seen fly past me. It might be a small feature, but I feel that it’s pretty cool and I still jump into them if I see them flying past.

During the game it seemed when the AI was driving the bad guys they had were seriously aggressive and could drive like Michael Schumacher on a kamikaze run. Then when I needed them to drive a car, the AI screwed it up, drove slowly or just plain crashed it. Nit-picking maybe, I did eventually get past these problems but at the time I hated it.

Top Gear

I really liked the sheer variety of cars available, over 100 are available for you to purchase. These are not random artificial cars; these are video game interpretations of the real world versions. Now, I’ve not driven an AMC Pacer, so I can’t comment for the actual feel of most of the cars in game vs real life, but based on the statistics the game gives them they do perform like you would expect.

You’ll also really need to get the hang of drifting, as the game is very keen to fishtail the car with the slightest provocation. Normally this was on a corner for me and straight into a brick wall (although it’s also possible that my driving is terrible!). The moral of this story, tap the accelerator in corners, don’t just hold it!

Insert Cut Scene

Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that the cut scenes used to detail the story are pretty good. but what I found very impressive was the faces of the characters involved. The detail and animation of the characters was very good. I’ve only seen the like on a few titles. This set a high standard for the in game graphics which, in general, were above average. The cars really did look like their real-world counterparts. For most of the game there was little to no drop out on the frame rate, but once I had 10+ police cars chasing me, the game started to stutter when flying over intersections at speeds in excess of 100mph.

Racing Others

Multi-player, normally the bane of my life, turned out to be enjoyable even though I lost pretty badly. The game features a large selection of online modes which do feature somewhere in the main game helping get you ready for competing online. The one I struggled with the most was trailblazer. Basically you have to remain behind a computer driven car, gathering points for being in its trail. This leads to a lot of shifting, and jostling between the players which I found a lot harder than just crashing into things.

The game also features local multi-player through split-screen display. You can race in co-op mode, featuring three specific races, or again you can do competitive mode featuring a selection similar to the online version.

In Summary

Driver: San Francisco a great addition to the Driver series. The story line is a little crazy, but presented very well, clearly meant to be light-hearted by taking hints from mainstream films and TV shows.

If you are a fan of driving games, I would definitely recommend getting Driver: San Francisco at retail price. Casual players will also enjoy it as the difficult is not unreasonable. You don’t need to be a racing pro to finish it. The game has plenty of content, and with multi-player it leads to a great replay value. There’s also the Film Director mode which I’ve yet to use, allowing you to create your own chase movies and upload them on the internet to share. I’m sure this will lead to many a funny moment on Facebook.

I’ve a hard time thinking of anything really negative about the game. Yes I swore at it, yes it had me sitting at the edge of my seat and if you’d asked me this during some of the missions I would have a very different answer. All in all, Driver San Francisco is a very slick and enjoyable gaming experience.

Driver: San Francisco is out now on PS3 and Xbox 360 for around £35.

The Noise is all-pervasive. The Noise cannot be escaped. The Noise is generated by the engines of 12 or so bikes and quad bikes nipping around the screen at any given time. The Noise is difficult to describe. It’s roughly equivalent to a bee fucking a hairdryer, and then the hairdryer fucking your ear. The Top Tip for this week is as thus:

On the Options Screen in MX vs ATV Alive, go to “Engine Volume” and turn it to “0%”. Enjoy your non-bleeding ears!

Yes. Also, there is a game hidden somewhere within The Noise, I realised, after managing to turn it off and cleaning the blood off the carpet. Mostly the game involves nipping around dirt tracks on overpowered motorcycles (or quad bikes, which are basically the same except you fall off them a bit less) against some other riders. This you know already. You can tell this from looking at the pictures. What you want to know is, is it any good? And what’s it doing that’s different from everything else?

Progression. You will beg for it.

You know how other racing games have that boring old “every time you beat a track, you get a new one” approach to level design? Yeah, MX vs ATV Alive doesn’t. It uses a fairly arduous XP system complete with rider skills and bike upgrades. At the start of the game you have two large tracks, two short tracks, and two free ride areas to mess around in. You get some more once you hit level 10. Two hours in, I’d just hit level three. That’s not enough progression, even in a game that’s sort of fun to begin with. And MX vs ATV Alive isn’t all that fun to begin with.

Because for all we shout down gimmicks, it’s nice to have them sometimes. This game doesn’t have them at all – it’s straight, by-the-numbers, fairly physically accurate racing. You have to come in first by driving really well. You can’t, say, lamp another contestant. Or drive really dangerously and earn a turbo boost. Or slow down time to take a corner. Instead you just, well, you have to drive really well.

Racing. You cannot control it.

Driving really well is hard. Even on Rookie mode, I found myself struggling to win races using the two-stick control method (left stick controls the handlebars, right stick controls the rider’s position on the bike) which must be satisfying if you can get it right. I couldn’t.

The game has thoughtfully realised that you fall off a bunch, and gives you a “wreck-avoidance” sequence of buttons to push every time you’re about to teeter off and crash into a flowerbed – or a Quick-Time Event by any other name. Of all the innovations to put in a racing game, THQ, Quick-Time Events are not the one to pick.

At level three, by the way, they give you a skill that makes the Quick-Time Events last a little longer so you don’t fall off your bike as much. Gee guys, that would have been really handy two levels ago when I was just starting out. Right now it seems a bit useless.

Tat. Plenty of it.

What else does the game do? Oh, a bunch of officially-licensed crap that you can stick on your bike and all the riders actually exist (I assume, they could just make up the names for all I know) which is great if you really like Motocross and want to create the perfect bike you could never afford or even qualify to ride. But if you really like Motocross you’ve probably already bought the game because it’s been out for the best part of a month.

The music is pretty good too, I guess, but it’s definitely not worth £30. That low price point is worth mentioning, too, as we come to the end of this review – THQ have released it with less content for less money, hoping that it’ll make the rest of the cash up in microtransactions. It’s a noble aim, but there’s just not enough stuff here to warrant even that low price, especially considering how slow progress through the game can be.

Buying. Should you do it?

No. Well. If you want the closest thing you can get to Motocross dress-up, then yes. You can certainly create bikes with lots of branded stuff on them and drive them around courses. But is it a fun game in and of itself? Definitely not.

MX vs ATV Alive is available now on Xbox 360 and PS3.

The pilot assist feature works well and it’s pretty unintrusive. It’s like a passive autopilot that gently nudges you away from the track walls. It won’t save you every time, but for people new to WipEout it makes the game much more accessible, which is a good thing. Also the other great thing about WipEout HD is that I don’t have to use the SIXAXIS controls at all. I still fly using the good old d-pad.

So what’s not so good. Well, I know lots of people really love the new look to the zone tracks, but I’m that impressed. To be honest I was never that big a fan of zone tracks. I much prefer the challenge of perfecting a time trial or the all out mayhem of the races. With the zone tracks it’s all at little, well, boring. In particular the new zone “look” actually makes it harder to play (maybe that’s the point?). When your zipping around at rapier speed the whole environment is eye blindingly red, which makes it an absolute arse to see where your going. Not fun.

The other aspect of WipEout HD that is a little bit of a let down is the tracks available. There is only 8 and 6 are from Wipeout Pure and 2 from Wipeout Pulse. Being a big WipEout fan I have played these tracks to death, so I would have welcomed some new ones. However, new tracks are supposedly planned for future DLC, at a cost obviously.

In Summary:

It looks amazing (especially on a HDTV), plays brilliantly and you can finally blow people up online. Buy it.

Screenshots:

WipEout HD is available now for £13.99 on the Playstation 3 from the PSN store

Age rating:

3+ (PEGI)

What is it?

Futuristic racing game, with lots of lovely weapons.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £22.99

Yep, every penny.

Why?

Like anything in life, practice makes perfect. So given that Wipeout Pulse is the 8th incarnation of the futuristic racing series does the same analogy hold true? I’m pleased to say it does. Everything that was good about Wipeout Pure has been built upon in Pulse with the following additions:

• More tracks – 12 new ones
• More teams – 12 teams in total
• New Mag-strip track surface – Tracks can now have loops and super sharp turns.
• New weapons – Repulsor, shurikens and cannon
• Team loyalty system
• Adjustable AI difficulty
• Custom soundtracks
• Custom ship skin creator – via wipeout-game.com
• New tournament structure
• Photo mode – Take your own pretty pictures, as I did for this review
• On-line racing

Yep, on-line racing is there for the first time. Now I get my butt kicked on-line as well as off line and I can see just how slow my times are via the wipeout-game.com site Yay, I think. It is a welcome, if slightly overdue addition to the series.

The adjustable AI (easy, normal and hard) opens up a lot more of the game to most people. In the previous games, increasing the difficulty by increasing the speed resulted in few people actually completing all the tournaments. Now, at least, the Wipeout tourist setting (aka easy) allows you to experience the whole game. However, it doesn’t prepare you for the harsh reality of on-line racing though. For that set the difficulty to hard. Well, technically you need an evil setting (aka human) to be fully prepared.

It’s not all sugar and spice and all things nice in Pulse. To my mind the balance of time trials to races during tournaments is a bit off. There are simply too many time trials and not enough races. I like races, time trials are just boring. Also enough with the Zone races. I know this was quite a cool addition to Pure but Studio Liverpool had gone a bit OTT with the number of Zone races you have to complete. Tons of them, again with the boring.

It seems Sony have decided to start squeezing every last drop of coin out of Wipeout. How? Well, the previously free downloadable content for Pure now costs money in Pulse. These expansion packs vary in price from £1.99 to £3.49 (4 have been announced – Mirage and Icaras are available now). It’s another case of micro transaction infestation.

Finally, it’s a Wipeout game without any CoLD SToRAGE music. Bad, bad, bad. At least I can now create a customised soundtrack (something also available in Wipeout HD) with lots of my own CoLD SToRAGE tracks, so it’s not all lost in a savage pit of mire.

In summary: The best Wipeout game so far on any system.

Screenshots:

Wipeout Pulse is available now on PSP

What is it?

Arcade style rally racing.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £39.99

Yes.

Why?

I almost need to review Sega Rally twice. Once with the standard 360 controller and once with the set-up that Sega provided us when we visited them in August. Why? Well, playing Sega Rally whilst sitting in a Sparco racing seat, with force-feedback steering wheel (and pedals) I was in driving heaven. It’s perfect. You can feel every bump as your car drives over all the track deformations and as it power slides around another lovely corner.

Unsurprisingly, without the steering wheel you do feel a little bit more disconnected from your car. The 360 controller is never going to recreate force-feed back, so its really a minor gripe in the scheme of things. But now I’ve tasted Sega Rally force-feedback style I want more. Lots more. Now if only I could persuade Sega to lend me all the kit….

Anyway Sega Rally is really fun to play. All the cars handle well and look beautiful. Mmm, car pr0n. There are plenty of tracks spread over a variety of different environments to test all your driving skills. There are 5 other AI cars in each race to fight with, and Gran Turismo style driving (i.e. dive down the inside at each corner) proves surprisingly effective. So they aren’t too hard to beat, but will put up challenge if you don’t drive well. In particular there are a couple of Alpine tracks that look absolutely stunning whilst your driving, something I never really experienced with DIRT (Sega Rally’s closest competitor).

Whilst on the subject of DIRT they are quite different games. Yes, they are both “rally” games, but Sega Rally is all about the arcade experience with its quick pick-up and play ideology. Where as DIRT is a more nuts and blots rally game, with damage, accurate stages and 1 car vs the track gameplay.

As far as multiplayer is concerned, I thoroughly enjoyed racing against other people via Xbox Live. The arcade style game play works really well for those quick 3 lap races with up 5 other people at once. It’s also very easy to find available races, something that I found much harder to do in DIRT. As all the cars are nicely balanced in terms of power and handling it really is a test of driver skill and not machinery.

In summary:

It’s a fun, pick up and play arcade racer. What more could you want?

Screenshots:

Sega Rally is out now on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP.

The Sega customer relations people gave us lots of info – some of it propaganda and some of it plain truth. We’ve filtered out most of the propaganda for you. Here’s what you need to know:

1. It feels like the original arcade game:
   The designers have preserved its fast, close-racing experience – all through the race you’re convinced that if you cut the next corner a liiiiittle bit closer you’ll be in the lead. They’ve also kept the HUD style close to the original arcade design, with the addition of a map. In terms of graphics, the artists seem to have signed up to the Blue Skies Campaign. Yay for happy games! This has not gone unnoticed by the organisers at UK Resistance.
2. It’s a casual rally:
   Colin McRae’s DiRT prides itself on being an accurate recreation of rally driving, right down to letting you adjust your car’s limited slip diffs. Sega Rally… doesn’t. They’ve kept the arcade version’s track notes that warn you of approaching hazards but there is nothing on the level of real-life pacenotes. This is a pure high-adrenaline racing game designed to let you thrash your friends in a quick 5-minute challenge after a night out. Or be thrashed, but that would never happen to you, right?
3. The ‘surface deformation’ is a pretty good feature:
   Sega were very proud of the fact that when you skid through the muddy parts of the track, your wheels will churn up the track surface. These tyre troughs will persist through the whole race, potentially destroying the traditional racing line. You can really feel the difference in the track on laps two and three, through the magic of force feedback. (Or not, if you’re stuck with a sixaxis controller). This brings the game much closer to the spirit of rally racing, forcing you to negotiate unexpected lumps and bumps. MotorStorm tried to do the same thing but, as we have noticed ourselves, track marks would disappear and reappear for no obvious reason. Gouges stay where they’re supposed to in this version of Sega Rally.
4. The race cameras are all useful:
   There are four in-race camera views: Two rear views, one bumper cam and one on the bonnet. Certain touring-car games which shall remained unnamed seem to think that filling half the screen with a dashboard is a good idea. No, it’s a big waste of time when your opponent has a full-screen view. Say “No!” to pointless camera angles.
5. All the locations play differently:
   We raced in three different locations (Tropical, Canyon and Alpine) with (probably) Safari and two others making up the six that will be available. Each location has its own particular feel to the track surface and there are several tracks in each location. Those in the alpine region were snowy and had noticably less grip, the dry canyon track was good for newbies, the tropical one is wet and muddy – all is pretty much as you would expect.

6. None of the cars will be stupidly overpowered:
   I hear that when you play Virtua Tennis 3 online, everyone is using Duke or King because those two unlockable characters are so much more powerful than the rest. We were assured that this will not happen in Sega Rally as the cars are carefully balanced. This doesn’t mean that all the cars will be the same, although to be honest, we didn’t really notice any major handling differences between the cars during our short session.
7. There is no car damage:
   This was a highly-unfashionable decision, judging by most recent racing games, but I think it was reasonable. Contending with the churned-up track is probably enough challenge without having to drive with broken front suspension as well. For any mud-lovers reading, if you drive through lots of muddy areas, your car will get progressively muddier and, get this… feature at least three different shades of caked mud!! Um… yeah. Okay. You can sort of wash it off in the puddles, too. They made it happen right there before our eyes.
8. Sixaxis tilt control will (probably) be used:
   We didn’t play with it but were told that it is in there, for now. No confirmation on whether it be in the final version. If it’s anything like in MotorStorm, I wouldn’t miss it – far too unnatural-feeling to be any good. On the other hand, some people like to drive like that so we’re mentioning it anyway.
9. You can turn off the track info:
   As we said in point 2, there are simplified, arcade-friendly pacenotes in the form of a verbal warning with associated orange HUD icons. Some people may find these distracting. If you don’t like things flashing onto your screen then have no fear. They are easily removable through the options.
10. The AI is adaptive:
    No matter how good or how bad your driving is, Sega Rally will modify the AI to give you a decent challenge. Allegedly. It still needs tweaking as, according to the marketing team, none of the bloggers last week finished higher than third place. Only two came close and one of those was TheFluffyFist, rally-driver extraordinaire. He won a jacket and everything. He’s wearing the jacket prototype in the photo below and has done a remarkably good job of hiding all the giant SEGA logos. We didn’t get to take the giant trophy home. They told us that they’d have his name engraved on it at some point, not that he’ll ever get to see it or show anyone. Uhh.. back to the point, the marketing team assured us that the AI is still in development and will be much better in the finished version.

As much fun as the game was, there are some additional things we should mention. Firstly, it’s named Sega Rally on this side of the Atlantic and Sega Rally Revo in the US.

Next, the track surface deformation is a good feature but is crippled by the current maximum race length of only four laps. In such a short race, you don’t really get to appreciate how the changes to the track’s surface will affect your lap times. This lap limit may change between now and the game’s impending release. We certainly hope it does.

Downloadable content will be available but has not yet been finalised. The current thinking from the development team is that if things are built, they should be in the game, not held back for later release or sale. No horse-armour from Solihull’s Sega Racing Studio.

There will be offline and online multiplayer support. Unfortunately, we forgot to ask if “offline multiplayer” means “split-screen multiplayer” or “bring your console and TV to a mate’s house multiplayer”. I really hope it’s the former. You can have up five online opponents or two-to-four split-screen offline multiplayer competitions.

Finally, we did play the game in Sega’s London offices. They provided dedicated racing pods complete with a huge flat-panel screens, Sparco racing seats, foot pedals, gearsticks and force-feedback Logitech steering wheels. All games seem better when you’re two feet from a 28-inch screen. We’re probably completely biased, but we don’t care. It was a really fun game. With any luck, it’s just as fun with a normal console controller.

Sega Rally will be released in the UK on 28th September on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP. Oh, and mobile but I’ll be extremely surprised if that bears any resemblance to the version we played. Thanks go to the Sega Rally team for inviting us.

Related Links

Other bloggers who visited Sega:

• Simon from Zath – He was at our session!
• Ben from Binary Joy
• NekoFever.com
• Mark at British Gaming Blog
• James Woodcock’s blog

SEGA

• SEGA Rally’s YouTube site
• Sega Rally Official Website
• Sega Rally Blog

Edit: It definitely does support offline split-screen multiplayer.

Age rating: 12+ (PEGI)

What is it?

It’s a rally game. Think Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo but with lots of mud (and car damage).

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £39.99 from play.com

Yep.

Why?

Car damage and speed, the 2 essential elements in any decent rally game. Fortunately Colin McRae’s DiRT has tons and tons of speed and shed loads of car damage. When I was belting down the 3rd stage of the Rally of Wales in my Lancia Delta S4 at some hideous speed, it really felt like seat of the pants stuff. Then I screwed my entry to one of the corners and whoops-a-daisy, the car performs a perfect barrel role in mid air. Back on all 4 wheels, minus 1 door – which I wasn’t using anyway – I managed to finish the stage.

I love the way this game looks. All the tracks ooze fantastic levels of detail. Mud, snow and dust laden environments are all nicely rendered. Each area littered with so many pesky road side obstacles with which to destroy your car. You also get this real feeling of being on the just on the edge as you are hurtling down each stage, with the scenery crowding round your car. The Australian stages feel especially claustrophobic with lots of trees and bush lying in wait for you to meander slightly off line. Your car’s really buggered when you do, I can tell you. I’ve lots of experience buggering up my car, me.

However, there are some rubbish bits. Firstly, the menu music is crap. I turned off it off pretty darn quickly as the same track was repeated again and again. Eventually it just got to me as it will you. Secondly, what’s with the stupid American commentator and co-driver (no Nicky Grist, rubbish)? For the first few races you don’t mind and just try to ignore him (your co-drive unfortunately you have to listen to). But then you begin to realise that he has about 5 recorded banal statements to chirp at you after finishing a race. Annoying. And the truck/Big rig races. Why? They are slow and boring. Total waste of time and effort and they just don’t feel like they should part of this game.

One question I’d like answered is what happened to Colin McRae then? Why are his dulcet Scottish tones missing from this game? It’s named after him, but he’s nowhere to be seen unlike the previous 4 releases. Did Codemasters just shove a wodge of cash Colin’s way for the use of his name in his absence? The only reference to Colin I could find was in the endgame credits under the “special thanks to” section.

In summary:

The best rally game on any of the next-gen consoles, for the moment anyway.

Screenshots:

Update 16th Sep 07: Tragically Colin McRae was killed last night in a helicopter crash near his home in Scotland. His son and 2 family friends were also killed in the crash. Our thoughts are with the families affected by this great loss.

Off-road driving game. Think WRC but with more vehicles.

Is it fun?

Yes, but frequently irritating as hell.

Is it worth the money? £39.99

Yes.

Why?

I have some mixed feeling about this game. At times it makes me feel like “I am a driving God”. Seconds later it turns round and exacts its revenge for my skillful driving by shattering my race position, all because the lady loves milk tray. Sorry, I meant to say, all because I just hit a tiny rock or grazed another competitor’s vehicle resulting in my vehicle hurtling to its doom. Or I get repeatedly splatted by large trucks which all drive like they are auditioning for Duel. Bye, bye race win. Hello last place.

Take last night for example. After 2 perfect laps (if I do say so myself), I’m approaching the final corner of the race in 1st place and then *BAMM* taken out from behind by one of the most evilly-AI-scripted suicidal opponents ever. Cue the pretty (annoying) slow-mo crash sequence and by the time I’m back in the race I’m in 10th place. Race over. Great. I don’t mind losing, but when it happens like this, courtesy of some quiet blatant cheating by the game then I’m not a happy bunny.

If you can deal with the evil AI, which to be honest, is equally bad in all the Mario Kart games anyway, then a pretty accomplished and downright fun game emerges. The Motorstorm experience is very close-quarter racing, resulting total carnage when the big-rigs catch you. Each of the 8 tracks are enormous, with multiple routes. Even better, each route has a major effect on your vehicle – muddy valleys work well with mud pluggers and high-speed roads favour the cars. All this is brought to life by some truly beautiful graphics.

In summary: Motorstorm looks amazing but has a tendency to slow down during big, multi-vehicle crashes [So, hardly at all... haha! - Weefz] It also has mostly crap in-game music and evil, evil opponent AI. But it’s still outrageous fun. Will annoy and amaze in equal doses.

Screenshots:

Buy it today! (Affiliate link)

Buy from Play.com