There was a time when rally fans had virtually no rally games. In those distant times, Colin McRae Rally and Richard Burns Rally were almost the only high-quality representatives of the genre. But lately there have been a lot of great and controversial rally games released. For rally fans, this period can be called the “golden age”. If you want hardcore, get Dirt Rally. If you want to ride without complications, take a game from the WRC series. Every game has something good and I want to find the best rally game.
(Not) very important points.
1) I played some games a long time ago and will evaluate them from memory. I’ll try to keep nostalgia to a minimum.
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 one whole, but sometimes I will point out the differences.
3) Each game will receive a score (from 1 to 5) according to different criteria.
4) Some old games will be ignored. I either played them a long time ago, or very little, or didn’t play them at all. These are games such as Colin McRae Rally 2005, V-Rally 3, Rally Trophy, Euro Rally Championship, etc.d. If you have something to say about these games, leave a comment, it will be interesting to know your opinion.
5) Participants: Richard Burns Rally (hereinafter RBR), WRC series (1-7), V-Rally 4, Sébastien Loeb Rally EVO (hereinafter SLR), Dirt (1-4), Dirt Rally (1-2), Xpand rally.
6) Only official games including DLC are considered.
In any racing game, cars are an important part. Developers can cram dozens of cars from different eras and different manufacturers into the game. Cars can behave almost like real ones, or they can be irons on the road. Let’s find out which game gives us real driving emotions, which game allows us to drive legendary cars, and which game saves our nerves and just lets us relax.
Number and variety of cars.
RBR has a very meager selection of cars, about 6 of them.
The WRC series features cars that were featured in a particular 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 from each era in the garage. There are Group B, cars from the 60s, and modern ones.
The Dirt Rally and SLR series, in my opinion, have the largest fleet of vehicles. In addition to many cars from different eras, these games have unique vehicles that have never been seen anywhere before. For example SLR has Peugeot Quasar.
The Xpand rally series has many different cars. But there is a huge minus – there is no license, so even if the car looks like a real car, the name is completely fictitious (for example, mini copper was renamed tiny hooper).
The more cars in the game, the higher the game’s score.
Even if there are hundreds of cars in the game, they are of little use if they all control the same way.
When I play RBR, I feel the lightness of the machines. I remember that Lancer and Corolla were very light. However, how the cars behave is beyond words. You can feel every bump, cars behave differently on gravel, asphalt, and in the rain. The driving school introduces us to various techniques: braking with the left foot, the pendulum principle, etc. All this will be useful to us to show excellent times on each car.
The WRC series is still an arcade, so almost all cars behave the same. But in WRC 3, due to the presence of cars from previous years, it still slightly feels like you are sitting behind the wheel of a monster from the 80s.
V-Rally 4 and Dirt have a pretty good balance between arcade and simulator.
SLR is still closer to the simulator. Sometimes you go crazy in a Lancia Stratos when you go through the hairpins of the Sanremo Rally or the special stages of the Monte Carlo Rally.
Dirt Rally has almost the same excellent madness as RBR – you feel the car, how it goes through turns, how the car behaves in a jump, etc.
The Xpand rally series is more arcade-style. https://mindepositcasino.co.uk/slots/ Sometimes the car skids strangely and brakes sharply when leaving the highway.
The better the game’s physics, the higher the game’s score.
Machine damage
Rally is a motorsport where speed is not always the main thing. Sometimes it is more important to save the car and get to the finish line, earning precious points.
Let’s start with RBR and Dirt Rally – here you can simply destroy the car. Seriously, I was very surprised when my engine caught fire for the first time in RBR. Both games simply make the player sweat at every dangerous moment. Got a little distracted – flew out and crashed. The suspension breaks, the transmission stops working, you can’t use reverse gear, you get a puncture, etc. A small pebble or a small tree may be enough. This is especially noticeable in RBR on realistic difficulty.
Good damage visible in SLR and WRC (5-7). Although sometimes in WRC the car bounces funny off the wall, the car still starts to skid to the left/right due to damage and slowly picks up speed. Sometimes you can break the electronics and lose contact with the navigator.
The better the damage in the game, the higher the game’s score.
View from the cabin and outside
The best view for such a precise discipline as rallying is considered to be the view from the cockpit or from the hood. So you react faster to dangers, more emotions from the rain. However, often the view from the cockpit is too dark and it is very difficult to see the track. The view from the outside, on the contrary, allows you to see what will happen behind the jump, see how close the car is to a cliff, etc. Oddly enough, each type can have its own influence on the driving experience.
Dirt Rally has the best views both from the cockpit (you can adjust the seat height, it’s not so dark, you can clearly see the track, cool splashes, dirt) and the view from the outside (if you turn, the car reacts well to it).
There are cases when the view from the outside spoils the entire driving experience. In some games of the WRC series (5-7), driving with a 3rd person view feels as if you are pulling the car with strings 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 type with which you will feel the car better.
The more species there are in the game and the better they are implemented, the higher the game’s rating.
The more beautiful, varied, technical tracks, the more emotions the driver gets. Developers can use laser scanning of real tracks, generate their own tracks, make short or very long routes. The important thing is this: a good rally game should have tracks that you want to drive on again and again.
Route construction type
Everything is simple here. You can make each special stage unique. You can make connections like A-B, B-C, A-C. The next method is similar to the previous one, but first you can make a large location with many roads, and only then change directions for each special section. One of the most exotic, controversial, and complex techniques is route generation.
Let’s look at examples, ranging from my favorites to controversial techniques.
1) Unique tracks.
They are well represented in games such as RBR, SLR, WRC 5, Dirt 1. Each country has multiple trails, each trail has its own unique route and may have unique scenery. For me this is the best option. Driving on different routes is always more pleasant and such trips don’t get boring so quickly. You can learn the routes and drive them faster.
WRC 6 also has unique tracks, but some come straight from WRC 5.
WRC 7 also has unique tracks, but some came straight from WRC 5\6.
2) Large location with a lot of interchanges.
Good examples: Xpand rally, V-rally 4. For example, the game has a map of Kenya with different areas (village, mountain, etc.). There are many roads on the map. Each special stage can differ from the previous one either by 100% or 10%, it all depends on how the developer (Xpand rally) or generator (V-Rally 4) lays out the route.
The advantages of this approach: designers can make a beautiful location and scatter many unique objects on it. You will be pleased to drive through it from all sides. We can say that this is such an open world from the world of rally.
In V-rally 4, the designers did a better job with maps than the Poles did in Xpand rally.
3) Connections of type A-B, B-C, A-C (or Y-shaped routes). These are still beautiful trails, but we drive through the same places very often. It all depends on the designers. If they try to make the track beautiful, varied, and long, then it can bring you pleasure for a very long time (Dirt rally). If they don’t try to improve the beauty of the tracks, then we will get bored very quickly (WRC 1, 2).
WRC games 3, 4, 7 have special stages of this kind. Dirt 2, 3 also use this technique.
4) Route generator. Sounds great. Childhood dream. Millions of different tracks in one game. But in reality, it’s difficult and probably impossible at the moment to make a good generator. The system itself must build the route using a set of different blocks. But I only saw such a generator in Dirt 4. At first you ride and are happy, but then you notice the same turns, the same forks. It gets to the point of absurdity: sometimes the route is 9 km long, but it feels like you are driving the same route 3 times, it’s just 3 km long.
The game will be highly appreciated if it correctly uses the above-described methods of constructing tracks. By literacy we mean the following:
— if they make unique tracks, then they try to make each special stage less similar to the others;
— if they are making a location, then the location should have many different zones.
— if you are making Y-shaped tracks, then you need to try to diversify the track as much as possible so that it doesn’t get boring too quickly.
Number of tracks
It’s 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 trails. We do not take into account the number of locations. We also take into account that games with route generation or a huge location with a bunch of interchanges get an advantage.
Number of locations
It’s simple, the more locations the better. It’s so nice to travel to different countries. For example, the WRC series games have 13 countries. Games in the Dirt series (main or rally) have approximately 4-6 countries. We do not take into account the diversity and beauty of locations.
Diversity, complexity, beauty of trails
A very important criterion, since there is nothing better than racing on a variety of tracks. This includes everything: length, design, landscapes, technicality of the tracks, variety of surfaces, bumps, holes, many hairpins and straight sections, similarity to real tracks, attention to detail, etc.
RBR has beautiful, unique, narrow, fast, slow tracks, some roads have potholes. It’s a pleasure to drive them. You don’t often see Finland in winter. England and the USA are very fast. Japan is full of vegetation. Animals run across the road. Operators stand along the edges of the tracks.
The WRC series has had its fair share of good and bad 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. Jordan from WRC 2 made me a little happy.
In WRC 3 and WRC 4 the situation was noticeably improved, but basically the special stages turned into one large track, divided into sections.
A huge leap came in WRC 5, where the developers made all the tracks unique. Somewhere it turned out great (Mexico, Argentina), but they failed again in Finland. WRC 6, 7 is a little worse than the fifth part, since they took some tracks from the previous part. WRC 7 and epic stages, which are essentially a gluing together of smaller tracks of a particular country, do not save.
V-rally 4 is good for its country design. For example, in Kenya they have laid out many routes that go through swamps, along the side of a mountain, etc. The tracks are narrow and wide. There is also Russia represented by Siberia. 2 locations in the USA (Sequoia Park and Canyons) look great.
The Dirt series after part 1 took a simple path and makes tracks according to the a-b, a-c principle. The trails are not difficult. It was better in the first part.
Dirt 4 with its generation makes you bored too quickly, as you get the feeling that you are driving along the same track.
SLR has very technical trails. The developers scanned real tracks with a laser. For example, in Italy there are special stages with a very large number of turns. Finland has great ski jumps. The landscapes are colorful. But there are not enough puddles on the roads (noticeably if you compare the Sweet Lamb track from SLR and Dirt Rally).
Dirt Rally has all the advantages of RBR and SLR: difficult tracks, cool Finland. But still, the manner of constructing the routes makes itself felt and at some point it becomes boring.
Xpand rally is similar to V-rally 4, but its design is worse. The tracks have almost no jumps. But some special stages (Ireland or Italy from Xpand rally extreme) are quite narrow and technical.
Important little things
Let’s consider everything that in one way or another affects the feeling of the game.
It would seem that the developers from Codemasters have the most beautiful rally games, but the SLR developers also made a beautiful picture. Games in the WRC series are progressing from year to year, but it is clear that the team’s budget is not very large. We make a discount on the year the game was released (for example, RBR was released in the early 2000s).