You’d be hard pressed to find a publisher with a deeper and more talented pool of R&D teams than SEGA. Creativity and variety run rampant throughout their studios and it always shines through in the games. One of the best franchises to come out of SEGA has to be the Sega Rally Series. My first experience with Rally was back on the Saturn and it has gotten better with each new entry into the franchise.
Sega surprisingly broke from using it’s usual AM teams (AM3, AM5) who were responsible for the previous Rally games and went with the new kid on the block. SEGA Racing Studio, an all new development studio in the UK, took over development duties for Rally which had some worried. Despite the concerns of classic Sega Rally fans around the globe, SEGA Racing Studio did a bang up job and really put out a racer that that likely has AM teams of the past a bit jealous.
Fundamentally, SRR is the definition of an arcade experience. Just like DiRT and other Rally racers, Sega Rally Revo draws on real life for its inspirations. But don’t expect some boring depiction of reality as everything in SSR is an exaggerated form of racing reality. An example of this is rather than using boring greens and murky browns for textures, in SSR you’ll find yourself racing under brilliant blue skies with the backdrops seemingly jumping out with bright colors to catch your attention. As a result, Rally Revo has the same unique light-hearted charm you'd expect from a Sega game; unlike the harsh and stubborn way other rally racers force virtual drivers into realistic driving sims.
The detail in the course design is a perfect example of this. Everything you see as you blast around Revo’s tracks seems in keeping with its location (wooden chalets and pine trees aplenty in the Alps, bushes, rocks and sparse trees in the Safari levels, etc). However, the exaggerated manner in which these object are distributed around the levels – where you can literally go from careening through a forest pass one moment to whisking past buildings in a picturesque alpine village or kicking up snow around a mountain peak the next gives the player that rush you’d expect from a Sega racer.
SEGA Racing Studio, while new to the Sega family, obviously has a good grasp on what a Sega racer should look and feel like. Pull over and turn down the excellent music and you’ll hear birds, elephants and the like making noises in the background, crowds cheering in the distance and helicopters buzzing overhead. Likewise, splashing through a puddle will clean the mud off your car and when passing from a frozen area to a warmer one, you’ll see that the snow that’s built up on your machine rapidly melts. These are just some of the examples that show the developers focus on the little details that can make a good game a great game.
Sega Racing Studios has taken everything that AM3 did right in the past and added to it with quality additions of it’s own. The biggest addition being track deformation technology that really has a profound effect on the gameplay - each track features this in some form or other, comprising of multiple surface types, with softer material that deforms, harder material that refuses to be damaged and material that falls somewhere in between. This is most realistic terrain seen in a rally racer to date. Think Moto-Storm deformation, but better looking and more accurate in it’s responsiveness.
Your cars handling is affected big time by this new deforming terrain and the way the surface responds to debris and weather. When on the softer material, you’ll find it quicker to stick to the ruts cut in the ground by other cars. But when on the harder surfaces, there’s little or no penalty for going off line. Using the grooves cut by a rival makes it possible to build up enough momentum on a soft surface segment to allow you to catapult your way past your opponent the moment you hit some solid ground. So needless to say, the surface you’re driving on plays a large part in the strategy with which you’ll use to win. Each and every aspect of this game compliments the next and vice versa; resulting in a perfectly balanced racing experience.
Courses tend to be relatively wide, allowing cars to go into corners two or three wide. The combination of the wide turns with long straight-aways allows you to build up a big amount of speed before arriving at the next turn and sweeping inside to take the lead.
Sega Rally Revo’s arcade gameplay is very forgiving. In fact, it could be said that SRR is too lenient. While other rally titles would have you start over with a flashing car and a steep penalty for hitting a giant tree on the side of the course, SSR just bounces you on your way in an almost bumper car like motion. This adds a lot more fun to the overall experience as you’re not too scared to take hat hairpin at full speed. While this may seem like a weakness in an age of super realistic racing sims, in the case of Sega Rally Revo, it’s a welcome breath of fresh air.
With a near perfect mix of Sega style arcade racing, a sizeable career mode, Time Attack mode and just refreshingly fun gameplay, Sega Rally Revo delivers an experience that will be enjoyed by all that get a chance to play it. This is not Forza, PGR 4, or even DiRT. This is Sega doing what Sega does; make a fun game that anyone can pick up and enjoy. If you like racers, pick up SSR. If you’re a casual fan who likes to get behind the wheel on occasion, rent it at least.
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