Richard Burns Rally

[jimtendo]

PAL 60: yes

Only had a couple of hours into this so far.

I found it tough to get in to, mainly because it feels technical compared to other semi-arcade, console based rallying games. In that, you have to get the racing line exactly right - since the tracks are narrow (like real rallies) and not much margin of error to play about. using the groves in the turn to help your car turn, getting exactly the right setup and so on.
It is well worth going into the rally school to get used to how 'Richard Burns' controls.

Frame rate is sometimes erratic, and not quite as constantly smooth as Colin McRae 04, but playable.

Race setup customisation:
with Gran Turismo like tune-up options at your disposal, and more or less the ability to tinker with 'nearly' everything, it makes WRC & CM04 look like childs play.
Suffice to say, i've not messed about with this too much and just plonked myself straight into the rally withh the default setup (foolish man)

Rallying:
I found it a baptism of fire, in all honesty.
Having jumped into the various Colin McRae and WRC titles with not much problems, in terms of driving the car around, and getting used to both their styles of controlling the car. It's quite tough going trying to get used to it. Though given time it'll come to me.
Just finding it hard to keep the damn thing on the dirt

You can recce all the stages beforehand with various setups if you wish.

The only locales i've driven in are the UK and a few on Japan. Well, it's really typical stuff with lots of gravel, trees and grass. Can't really add much more than that.

When you've overturned your vehicle, you can pause the game and 'ask for assistance' where you see a set animation of a few members of the crowd push the car back on four wheels.
A thankful addition, where before the 'magical' drop was your get out of jail card.
At least it isn't as bad as WRC series, where you even drive 1 metre off track for 3 seconds then it auto places you back ?_?
I haven't encountered the 'helicopter rescues' yet - but i imagine that i'd have to make the car take a shear drop or something.

Overall:
I'm finding it tough to get used to it's style of driving, though i will persist.

[fishbowlhead]

I played this a while back (PS2 version though) but i can honestly say this is the F355 of rally games. Tough as nails but when you crack it its oh so sweet.

Quite looking forward to this.

[jimtendo]

Actually,
when you do drive off the beaten track, you do get put 'back' onto the track by the spectators.

One annoying thing, is that when you actually make contact with a member of the crowd, the screen glazes over red and the spectators put your car back on track. I know you shouldn't hit them, but sometimes when you know you are out of control and off track (but still semi-able to nurse it back onto the track carefully) and then you hit them, it's kinda annoying to lose just over 10 seconds (the standard time penalty) for that little demeanor.
Especially if you are on a fast straight, and just slightly out of control, but you know if you slow down a little you can just guide the car back on. But if you are unfortunate to touch a person... bang - you've just lost about 10 seconds or so.

One other nice touch, is the random weather settings on Championship mode.
Before in most rallying gammes you know what the weather is like on certain stages.
But in Richard Burns Rally it is quite random.
For SS1 UK rally, i've had either rain or dry or overcast or even the time of day was dusk or day.

[npg]

How does it compare graphically to Colin McRae 4?

[jimtendo]

I would probably say Colin McRae looks ever so slightly better, in terms of colour. But for the rest, it's pretty much even-stevens.

Car destruction is what you would expect, as i've had a door chopped off, windows cracked/ smashed, spoilers and bumpers lost. The option to have 'extreme' car damage is available from the start (so no need to complete championship mode once to unlock - unlike Colin McRae 04) and extreme damage it is, with a few prangs to the vehicles front end, and the engine was dead.

Having the ability to control your start/ get false starts, is a welcome addition.

The car does feel slightly light, since i have rolled my car a lot (more so than in Colin McRae 04) I've launched the car airbourne by just going over the most innocuos of bumps as well.

It is very unforgiving on mistakes, even the most slightest ones.

[Chadruharazzeb]

I saw the Xbox version last night and laughed heartily for ages. It is one of the worst looking games I have seen for several years. It looked like some kind of homage to pre-3D accelerated PC games.

Truly hilarious.

[VR46]

geektanic was it the XBox or PS2 version you played ?
If it was the Xbox version, what sort Live options are there ?

Cheers.

[jimtendo]

:::edited back the format and region back into the title:::

As for XBL, it has scoreboards only.

I've encountered a few bugs/ glitches as such...

1. Car dropped through the track and into the 'void' then it commenced on doing multiple flips in limbo.
- Restarted machine then it was fine.

2. Graphical artifacts in the bottom left of the screen resembling the 'N' letter duplicated 3 times, with some other bitmap corruption around it.
- Restarted machine multiple times and the same thing happened. It wasn't until i left the machine off for 3 hours or so, it hasn't happened again

3. When starting the rally, i floored the gas and while the car chugs to 6th gear, the car does not move forward one iota.
- This anamoly happened at around the same time the 'graphical artifacting' glitch happened, and was cured the same way.

They've only happened once so far.

[Ravon]

RBR - Play it , then play Rallysport Challange 2... See the massive difference...

RBR is utter utter rubbish, so much for burns getting any money from this little number...it wont help him to pay for his medicals bills im affrad..

[Strider]

Does it have realistic physics?

[Dragon2k4]

Played it solidly for 3-4hours all i can say is WOW! @_@ - This is the most realistic rally sim ever! Started on the tutorial and training which Burnsie talks you through to get into the controls and feel of the game, once the basic steps have been covered you can go onto advanced training for further technical driving tips, a real challenge - pass with all perfects and you get a bonus car -- havent done it yet!

Onto the main game, Rally season, has all the usual setup and screens you'd expect from this type of genre.

This is a Rally simulation -- forget your pedal to the metal Rallying games such as WRC, Rallisports Challenge and even the mighty Mcrae - this is pure hardcore rallying at its best - it requires lots of practice and concentration, getting the perfect racing lines, controlling accelerations, powering out and such, but its not unplayable to the extent of Dreamcast's F355, in my opinion F355 was totally unforgiving... In RBR, you make a mistake, you pay for that mistake, so its very convincing and realistic - physics/damage-wise you can choose from light, reduced and realistic. Choosing realistic, i gassed it down the road at 90mph and headed head-on into a lovely piece of tree, needless to say the engine was knackered lol called for spectator assistance, they pushed it back on track but it just couldn't move!

Graphically, its incredible, the colors are just right, the details of locations and terrains are the best i've seen on a rally game, at many points its photo realistic - easily surpassing Rallysports Challenge and Mcrae's generic-ish textures et co. There is some frame rate issues in the external and in-car dash views, but the best view in my opinion is the bumper cam right in front of the car, no framerate problems and can see for miles without any pop-up.

The replays are top notch too, none of those fancy rotating infront of the car 360 degree views, in RBR you get proper camera angles as in TV broadcasts as well as auto-zoom and shaky camera work, which really adds to it all - you can save the replays too.

Sound wise, all the sound effects and engines noises replicated well - funny enough for a simulation it has a custom music feature.

The more you spend on the game the more you'll get out of it, just trying to perfect a stage without losing control and going all over the place is a challenge in itself, hugely addictive and challenging.

Anyways, if you're a rally fan, a true rally fan you'd really appreciate how much detail and realism they've put into this title. The only other rally simulation that comes close to RBR's realism is the awesome Rally Championship for the PC.

[Ravon]

Played it solidly for 3-4hours all i can say is WOW! @_@ - This is the most realistic rally sim ever! Started on the tutorial and training which Burnsie talks you through to get into the controls and feel of the game, once the basic steps have been covered you can go onto advanced training for further technical driving tips, a real challenge - pass with all perfects and you get a bonus car -- havent done it yet!

Onto the main game, Rally season, has all the usual setup and screens you'd expect from this type of genre.

This is a Rally simulation -- forget your pedal to the metal Rallying games such as WRC, Rallisports Challenge and even the mighty Mcrae - this is pure hardcore rallying at its best - it requires lots of practice and concentration, getting the perfect racing lines, controlling accelerations, powering out and such, but its not unplayable to the extent of Dreamcast's F355, in my opinion F355 was totally unforgiving... In RBR, you make a mistake, you pay for that mistake, so its very convincing and realistic - physics/damage-wise you can choose from light, reduced and realistic. Choosing realistic, i gassed it down the road at 90mph and headed head-on into a lovely piece of tree, needless to say the engine was knackered lol called for spectator assistance, they pushed it back on track but it just couldn't move!

Graphically, its incredible, the colors are just right, the details of locations and terrains are the best i've seen on a rally game, at many points its photo realistic - easily surpassing Rallysports Challenge and Mcrae's generic-ish textures et co. There is some frame rate issues in the external and in-car dash views, but the best view in my opinion is the bumper cam right in front of the car, no framerate problems and can see for miles without any pop-up.

The replays are top notch too, none of those fancy rotating infront of the car 360 degree views, in RBR you get proper camera angles as in TV broadcasts as well as auto-zoom and shaky camera work, which really adds to it all - you can save the replays too.

Sound wise, all the sound effects and engines noises replicated well - funny enough for a simulation it has a custom music feature.

The more you spend on the game the more you'll get out of it, just trying to perfect a stage without losing control and going all over the place is a challenge in itself, hugely addictive and challenging.

Anyways, if you're a rally fan, a true rally fan you'd really appreciate how much detail and realism they've put into this title. The only other rally simulation that comes close to RBR's realism is the awesome Rally Championship for the PC.

Right.. im a true rally fan, and to say This POS is better than CM4 is just a joke.. RBR graphics are so underwhelming its laughable, wheres the light sourcing, its like the sun is switched on perminantly and is directly overhead through the entire game..Textures are bland and **** looking, not a patch on Rallysport challange 2.

And to compare it to rally championship on the PC is so wrong .. the 2 couldn't be further apart. RC was developed by Dice, most of the engine from the PC version was put in to rallysport challange, this then got updated and polished in to Rallysport Challange 2, which is by far the best rally game on any system, if a little none realistic..

You want realism then buy McRae 4, oyu want Arcade rallying then buy Rallysport Challange 2.

Dont buy this utter bland, badly writen POS.. Its like Herelsvelgra all over again..

Please note all comments are my own and im not forcing you to like this game, or any other i may have mentioned during this rant.

[PeteJ]

Rally Championship was developed by Magnetic Fields, not Dice. MF also did Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Amiga.

Unless MF changed their name to Dice, which could have happend

[Ravon]

Sorry i was wrong.. i was thinking of Rally masters..

[Cold War]

Bugs a plenty with terrible frame rate problems on Xbox

http://www.bhmotorsports.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=20538&sid=35f9751f2f3a851351853a4efd6b33f7

"Now I am totally convinced that the Xbox version has had the wrong build of the game sent for duplication. I crashed out of the first two rallys. On the first stage of the Artic rally I drove across what I think was acrossroads and came up against what I thought was an invisible wall. Then the front left side of my car suddenly fell towards the floor! I asked for assistance thinking that I had gone the wrong way, but was put on the track facing the same direction. I drove off along the same part of the road which had just stopped me for some reason.

There IS something seriously wrong with the Xbox version of this game. And NO I MOST DEFINITELY HAVE NOT got a pirated copy of this game. I'll bloody well post up a picture of myself holding the damn box if anyone has a problem with this!"




"This is all very worrying.

I've just bought RBR from Game in Nottingham. Plus point - nice sealed copy and they had the game in demo mode on all of the monitors.

I've been playing for an hour and generally I am enjoying it. Sadly I have to agree with Simon. In places, the framerate is terrible - it feels jerky to the point of being annoying. I hope it's only the rally school that exhibits this. I've not tried a rally yet.

Just on the soft suspension trial so I'll see how it progresses. I'm wondering if I should have bought the PS2 version after all. I didn't notice any framerate issues with the demo and I have a Logitech wheel. I just assumed the XBOX version would be a little better overall."