Need for Speed: V-Rally 2

A quick word of warning - if you're looking for the latest in rally simulation, then turn away now. But if you're looking for fast, non-demanding and high convenience entertainment, then this could be your game. This is the racing game for those of you who like to keep one finger firmly on the accelerate button.

When you see the game specs, V-Rally 2 looks very impressive. It features stages from 12 countries from around the world, stretching the globe from Finland to Argentina to New Zealand. It lets you drive 26 cars, including 1.6litre and 2litre F2 kit-cars and all of the 1999 WRC models (so if you want to try your hand with the championship-winning Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, or the lumbering Skoda Octavia, then now you can). It boasts 80 different stages. It has a track editor that lets you create your own (which you can then upload onto the V-Rally Online service). It even adopts a Rally Masters approach in that it offers looped circuits and special stages, and lets you compete against other cars at the same time if you want to. On paper, this seems like one hell of a rally game.

As you may have figured by now, it isn't, but that's not to say that it's entirely without merit. V-Rally 2 features the most amazing frame rate of any racing game I've ever seen, including*** Rally Masters*** - the feeling of speed you get from this title is almost frightening. In contrast, the graphics themselves are not particularly special. Whilst there's plenty of variety to the scenery, and each country has its own distinct theme, the last year has seen the standard for rally game graphics raised very high. In addition the in-game resolution is restricted to 640x480 which makes it all look very pixelated, and in this day and age of high powered 3D accelerators, this is plain unacceptable. But the speed at which it all moves is could almost have been enough to compensate for these shortcomings, if only there was something solid beneath the surface.

Sadly the actual gameplay is very simple, and this is reflected in the way the controls work. Playing this with a steering wheel is impossible, as the game seems to treat all steering input as either full-left or full-right, with very little in between. This was not a game for my Microsoft Force Feedback Steering Wheel, where my initial attempts to steer the sodding car resulted in plenty of pointless shuddering force feedback, and more importantly, violent sideways swerving for the best part of a mile before I simply gave up. You can tell this was originally a console game, as it is designed primarily with the joypad in mind (oh, and you can't use a mouse on the menus - another hallmark), although it works just as well with a keyboard. Furthermore, in what strikes me as a major retrograde step back to the days of Europress's Network Q RAC Rally, using the brake button is an option rather than a necessity. Most of the stages are comfortably flat, and in the few where you'll come across hairpins, you'll find that ramming the banks or invisible barriers on the outside of the turn will often get you through just as quickly.

Still, this is a game aimed at giving you a quick rush rather than any long term satisfaction, and to this end the design is fairly streamlined. Your mad antics are accompanied by a suitably hard rock soundtrack which will either put you in the mood or drive you nuts. Crashes result in your car being instantly put upright, and this helps to keep the flow of the game going. It's a good thing too, as you'll find yourself upside down quite a lot in the night and rain stages where it's very difficult to make out where you are going. In fact the night stages are ridiculously dark, and end up getting very frustrating regardless. Equally annoying are the co-drivers. It's hard to make out what the female one is saying, and in any case they're not particularly accurate (a "bad right" instruction can be translated as "watch out for a sort-of nasty bend within the next two to four corners, maybe"). But then, given the very nature of the game, it doesn't matter very much when you're able to crash at every corner and still go faster than the AI cars.

However, V-Rally 2 has some redeeming features in addition to the frame rate. The two-player split-screen option is good fun (although why you can't get four people on at the same time, despite the fact that the game engine could cope easily, is beyond me), and the track editor is great fun to mess about with. It's simple yet flexible and you can make some fun stages with it. Oh, and the game features spectators standing on the stages who scurry away as you try to run them over. How satisfying.

Whether you purchase V-Rally 2 depends on what you're looking for from your racing games. Colin McRae Rally and Rally Masters offer fantastic arcade racing with well designed physics, whilst if you want something less demanding then Sega Rally 2 still provides plenty of powersliding fun. V-Rally 2: Expert Edition can be considered, ironically, the next step down in complexity from this.

Review By GamesDomain