"Test
Drive V-Rally is very to the point. It’s the gameplay that makes this
title so good. Fast, barely in control racing on a huge variety of
tracks and we have a winner here."
Rally Car
racing really has a flavor that sets itself apart from other forms of
racing, and I don’t just mean hydro boat racing smart-ass. All of that
full-throttle tearing around and e-braking the hell out of the turns
makes for some tense racing that really forces drivers to have a firm
understanding of their cars and the tracks. Test Drive V-Rally does a
great job of emulating this with some great physics, a mountain of
tracks, and a solid framerate/sense of speed. It’s not all smiles and
sunshine however, as there are a couple of hefty problems with the game,
but all in all it is a top-notch Rally Car racer.
The
major problems that V-Rally suffers from are in its visuals. First off
they don’t look as good as they should. The game looks more like a
suped up 32-bit game than a 128-bit game. There is a noticeable lack of
detail in the cars and the environments. The other big problem is that
the camera in the game is quite jarring when taking a sharp turn.
Instead of fluidly staying behind the car the camera just slams around
all at once. You can get used to it, but if you’re really
concentrating on your times sometimes it’ll snap you out of your zone,
forcing you to lose concentration. On the happier side of the game’s
graphics is its silky-smooth framerate. V-Rally doesn’t get choppy at
all, and the game provides a terrific sense of speed. Sound effects are
serviceable, but the music, no thanks. It’s a collection of very
mediocre metal, blah.
Track
design too is very nice. The mix between relatively straight tracks that
allow for constant top speeds, and twisty-turny tracks makes for a very
good level of variation, oh, and the fact that there’s about 80 tracks
helps too. As far as cars are concerned it’s just the usual suspects
here with Lancers, Imprezas, and such.
Polishing
off the package is some very nice, solid controls. Amazingly the
Dreamcast controller actually feels comfortable when playing this game.
The buttons just feel like they’re in the right place here. The
controls are nice and
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responsive too. After a couple hours of
practice
it’s easy to get the nuances of moving the
cars. With the quality of the analog controls it’s not too hard to get
a feel for the game’s physics either.
Test
Drive V-Rally is very to the point. It’s the gameplay that makes this
title so good. Fast, barely in control racing on a huge variety of
tracks and we have a winner here.