Jump to content

FIA World Rally Championship

The Sarge

By The Sarge,
in Discussion

 Share

Recommended Posts

Rushy

Rushy

Posted
Posted
I just want a Group B rallying game:

Did no-one play Rally Evolved? :lol:

It had Group B cars and they were insane. Off the top of my head it had:

Ford RS200

Renault 5 Turbo

Peugeot 205 T16.

Audi Quattro

Lancia 037

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dimahoo

Dimahoo

Posted
Posted

Theres not much in it it must be said.

dimahoo - every racing thread i come across you have to do it! i hope you're on commission

Far from it. I'm a n00b compared to those guys but i take your point. Won't do it again. Promise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
McSpeed

McSpeed

Posted
Posted
Did non-one play Rally Evolved? :o

It had Group B cars and they were insane. Off the top of my head it had:

Ford RS200

Renault 5 Turbo

Peugeot 205 T16.

Audi Quattro

Lancia 037

WHY DID I MISS THAT?

Going to look out for this one in the second-hand shops :lol: Should be a blast, kind of like the Historic Rally thing in DTM Race Driver 3 (with the Audi Sport quattro).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Rushy

Rushy

Posted
Posted
WHY DID I MISS THAT?

Going to look out for this one in the second-hand shops :lol: Should be a blast, kind of like the Historic Rally thing in DTM Race Driver 3 (with the Audi Sport quattro).

Don't worry I think most people missed it :o Shame as I still play it to this day, and it still plays great (especially with a good wheel!!!)

£2.30 on Amazon Marketplace isn't to shabby.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Rushy

Rushy

Posted
Posted
I don't think I've played that either. I have played a couple from that series and I thought they were shocking. Is this one genuinely good?

My favourite rally game of all time. Importantly it used an entirely new physics engine from the others in the series so it offered by far the most realistic drive (and most accessible if you upped the driving aids).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
The Sarge

The Sarge

Posted
  • Author
Posted

New Trailer

EG - Hands On Preview

So Milestone's WRC is just you, the car underneath you, the track underneath the car and a timer ticking away in the corner of the screen. It's rigorously simple, but it comes in thousands of permutations: 13 rallies in 13 locations around the world, 78 stages covering 550 kilometres over 40 different surfaces, and 60 vehicles (though many are the same make and model) across four classes of car.

And it's never the same twice, as Zonca says: "One of the mottos of rally drivers is that a driver that races in circuits sees the same corner thousands of times. A rally driver sees thousands of corners one time."

To give you some sense of progression through this exhaustive database of corners to slide round, the game's 55-event single-player mode will lead you through the career of a rally driver, beginning as a "newbie" starting your own team in the Junior championship. You'll then take your driver and team up through the Production and Super-2000 classes, moving from local to national, regional and continental cups.

All the while you will be earning credits and experience, and attracting more attention from the official WRC teams. But it's not until you reach the WRC itself that you get to join one of these teams and sit alongside the likes of Sebastian Loeb, Kimi Raikkonen, Ken Block and Petter Solberg. (There will, of course, be a quick play mode that allows you to try their cars right off the bat.)

There will be two multiplayer modes, too: a simple hot-seat offline mode where you and your friends set times in sequence; and synchronous online multiplayer that features no collision, in order to respect the rallying "paradigm", with other players represented by ghost cars. It supports 16 players with absolutely no lag, boasts Zonca.

Moving to rallying from circuit-racing presented Milestone with two significant challenges. The first was to write an entirely new physics engine to house a handling model that could cope with the bumps, surface changes and loose, handbrake-heavy, drifting driving style of rallying. It also needed to satisfy simulation enthusiasts while remaining accessible to casual fans of the sport.

"The fact is that you have to give a model that can be handled by a newbie, while keeping the game fun to play," Zonca says. "We started saying, OK, if I apply this aid I will be prevented from skidding. But one of the most beautiful things in WRC is to drift, skid around corners. So why prevent the player from doing this?

"So for example, even if I apply the stability help, it will be impossible to spin in a corner, but it will still be possible to arrive at the corner, brake, making a Scandinavian flick, making the weight shift from one side to the other, then taking the apex, accelerating, exiting the corner with a powerful drift... It's really important."

It's also looking more and more like a success. At E3, WRC's handling had the right feel, but was often unpredictable. Weeks later in Milan it's taking shape beautifully. I try the game on Finnish dirt, Swedish snow, Jordanian sand and German tarmac, and grip is finely modulated, progressive and surprisingly subtle, with noticeable rather than pronounced surface feedback.

The swishing, graceful slides on snow are particularly delicious and easier to control than some games' representation of power-sliding on tarmac. On a console pad, with some driving aids turned on, it's a surprisingly accessible; on a steering wheel (WRC will support every wheel imaginable) with the aids removed it will bite your hand off. But, crucially - and unlike, say, the difference between such set-ups in Forza 3 - it feels like the same game each time.

Milestone's other, even more daunting challenge was creating the stages themselves. Actual stages being far too long to represent in a game, the team had to craft every one of those 550 kilomtres themselves, trying to capture the characteristics and spirit of the actual stages while making sure they'd work from a gameplay perspective.

"So we analyse with deep research of the real location of the rally, go along the track and take photos to understand the characteristics of the ground, the vegetation, the landscape, what you can see from the road..." says Paglianti. "And then, when we have all these elements, we started to recreate based upon various stages. It's not exactly the same, but they have some links to the real ones. Also we put along the stages the typical elements, for example in Finland there's a very famous jump in the rally and we recreate the shape of that jump."

This, based on 24 stages available to play in Milan, is where Milestone has struck gold. Previously bound to transcribing real-world circuits, the studio has found in the freedom of WRC a real talent for creative and exciting track design.

In Sweden, you thread your car down terrifyingly narrow gullies of packed snow, watching walls of ice slide by as you drift past the apex. Germany offers a tight, urban, tarmac complex winding around a Roman ruin that suddenly opens out into a thrilling high-speed sequence through picturesque woods. Jordan is a hair-raising test of guts, the track a ribbon of loose sand winding along the tops of dunes with precipitous drops on either side.

The only thing more amazing than the sheer number of corners Milestone has created is how many of them are memorable and interesting. WRC's stages are credible, but condensed and dramatised in a way that will really help the game escape accusations of dryness.

There are rough edges here; graphical polish is variable, with Finland's watery autumn sun and muddy forests looking very atmospheric, but the Jordanian and German stages needing a few more passes to come up to scratch. Unforunately, you can't expect Milestone to be able to match the visual pyrotechnics of, say, Codemasters' EGO engine. The sound, however, is already excellent.

But it's how WRC feels in your hands, and the feeling Milestone exhibits for the sport, that really matter; especially so after a five-year wait for the return of true rallying to the videogame form. On those counts, you've every right to be optimistic.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/wrc-hands-on?page=1

Hands On Preview

http://www.vvvgamer.com/forum//showthread.php?t=8650

Lots of screens at the link. :)

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Varnsen

Varnsen

Posted
Posted

lols at 'spherical hermonix' in that link. I still wonder why games press attempts to report anything technical when they obviously know nothing about computer graphics. I remember as a kid arguing the classic n64/PS and having 'mip-mapping cappabilities' thrown in my face despite neither of us knowing what that meant.

As for the game, looks meh graphically but nice to see another Rally game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
Sigourney Beaver

Sigourney Beaver

Posted
Posted

My favourite rally game of all time. Importantly it used an entirely new physics engine from the others in the series so it offered by far the most realistic drive (and most accessible if you upped the driving aids).

Finally bought Evolved this week. Unplayable with no steering help on the pad but it feels really nice with it up to max. Looks stunning upscaled on the PS3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dimahoo

Dimahoo

Posted
Posted

If it's anywhere near as good as Richard Burns Rally then it'll be a winner!

Tis true, but it won't happen. RBR is a pure sim and i don't even know if Milestone understand that, and even if they don't, their "mass-market" titles play pretty badly as well.

At best it'll be a fairly decent rally game with updated graphics. I think were looking at 6 to 7's here. The online elements might make it fun. It MAY give Dirt a run for its money but i can't see it better Dirt 2.

Still, its nice to have choice.

The irony of all this is the only great contending company to Dirt was Evo, and they're doing the San Fran thing. I'd be surpised if TD2's rally elements will be much better - but thats not its core selling point.

So maybe the 360 owners are only left with Dirt 3. Obv. Ps3 owners have GT5 to look forward too.

Thing is, i sometimes feel that rally games are easier to program at times.

Sega Rally played really well, yet was only an arcade game in effect and lots of arcade games have done the slidy car thing really quite well (Blur, Flatout, etc)...

the geek in me would love to see the parameter stats emulated for car games compared.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dimahoo

Dimahoo

Posted
Posted

...but Mr Clarkson, rally stages don't look that exciting in real life. Just like many race tracks...

RBR doesn't blow your head off but plays very well. With a wheel.

Sadly i think RBR is now in the hands of Squaresoft as SCi was dissolved into Eidos. Even sadder, that probably means no Carmageddon 4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Boozy The Clown

Boozy The Clown

Posted
Posted
Press Release:

London August 31st 2010 – WRC, the official game of the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship, developed by Milestone and published by Black Bean Games, not only gives petrol heads and racing gamers alike the chance to compete as the stars of the WRC in all the classes and cars of the 2010 season, but also offers exclusive content to expand your garage even further.

An additional cars package features some of the most glorious and iconic models of the eighties, from the legendary Group B era. Group B cars were the dominant force in the FIA World Rally Championship between 1982 and 1987 and the add-on pack will be downloadable from October 8th 2010, the date of the game’s release.

This add-on will be available for Xbox®360 and PlayStation®3 through the Marketplace of XboxLive and Playstation®Network respectively, for 400 points and 4,99 Euros. The PC version of the game will also include this exhilarating DLC.

Discover some of the fastest, most powerful and sophisticated rally cars ever built: the Peugeot 205 T 16, Lancia Delta S4, Ford RS200, Citroën BX4 TC and Renault R5 Maxi Turbo. Each of these cars will have two different liveries, making a total of ten designs. The raw power of these beasts with the most infamous reputation in rally history will enrich the 18 official cars brought to you by Black Bean Games in the standard package:

WRC

Citroën C4 WRC

Ford Focus 09 WRC

Ford Focus 08 WRC

Subaru Impreza WRC 07

S-WRC

Abarth Grande Punto S2000

Ford Fiesta S2000

Škoda Fabia S2000

Peugeot 207 S2000

P-WRC

Subaru Impreza N4

Mitsubishi Lancer X

Mitsubishi Lancer IX

J-WRC

Suzuki Swift S1600

Citroën C2 S1600

Renault Clio R3

Honda Civic R3

Ford Fiesta R2

Citroen C2 R2

Suzuki Swift R2

This comes out 2 weeks after F1. It's very hard not to be cynical and get all internet outraged at the measly 18 car line up with 5 additional cars available on launch as DLC for extra money. If the publishers had any sense they'd be offering the DLC cars for free as an incentive to buy the game on launch instead of waiting for the inevitable price crash a few weeks down the line. I actually have quite high hopes for this after reading a few interviews with the developers and a few positive preview write ups. They cite CMR2 as a major influence which has to be a good thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Karzee

Karzee

Posted
Posted

Hmmm. I love rally games but this isn't looking as good as I hoped and I don't just mean graphically. For example, the tracks look just too wide, I mean you could have at least two trucks driving side by side. Watch that 1st vid in Jordon from 3:40 onwards to see what I mean. Also watch that 2nd vid above in Finland then compare to the real thing:

Another slight issue is the co-driver's turn descriptions, notably 'Hairpin'. Watch that Jordon vid from 4:10-5:10 and you'll see the car going through six corners noted as hairpins and yet the driver does them all barely dropping lower than 3rd gear and averaging 45mph.

One thing that pissed me off about that later CM games and Dirt 2 was they wouldn't tell you what the track conditions were like before the race, meaning you had to guess how to set up your car's mechanics (brakes, height, suspension etc). It doesn't show it in those vids but it looks like there might be an icon that you can select giving you the info you need.

Still, I really need a pure rally game again and for the few misgivings I have this game looks like it'll give me that buzz of driving on the edge of the car's limits to try and beat the times of anyone on my Friends List.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Karzee

Karzee

Posted
Posted

It's more that the tracks are so smooth. Where are the bumps, divots, potholes, etc. The roads just look like they have no 'character' to them.

Yeah there's that too. I hoped things had moved on since the (awesome) CM2 but it looks like the devs are just copying it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
spatular

spatular

Posted
Posted

regarding track width in rally games, i haven't watched any of the videoes for this - but i think if you want a realistic track width but still have an accessible game you need to compromise on the handling - like that old mobil 1 rally game on the pc, or have realistic handling and make the tracks really wide like rally trophy. if you do both you have a really hard (but great) game like RBR. CMR2 is a good compromise imo, so hopefully this will be similar, although i'm not getting my hopes up.

milestone seem to have a poor reputation at the moment, and i haven't bought any of their recent games to really comment on that, screamer 2 and screamer rally both had great arcade style rally handling back in the day though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
mr_woo

mr_woo

Posted
Posted

Demo for this now up on the Euro marketplace. I can't download it due to my internet being a bit fucked at the minute (ie BT are useless cunts) but here it is:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/games/offers/00000000-0000-4000-8000-00004c5387e4?cid=SLink

Apparently it's been made more with controllers in mind than wheels. (the whole game I mean, not just the demo)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Boozy The Clown

Boozy The Clown

Posted
Posted

demo replay in car view

It is without a single warning that the WRC demo was released yesterday evening on Xbox Live, a few hours ago that is. If you own a PC or a PS3, you will unfortunately have to wait until September 24 and 29 to get your hands on this demo, so we figured you might want to have a look at the Xbox 360 version until then. We will start with the cockpit view, which is totally playable, in spite of the odd wheel and hands animations. It is worth mentioning that the footage was captured from a replay, after I finished the race in these exact conditions : cockpit view, no driving aids and a Fanatec wheel. Two more videos will be added shortly so you can see the same race from the hood view and finally, like on TV.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Use of this website is subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Guidelines.

  I accept