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RUNNING ON
EMPTY
PRO
RALLY
Written By Shaun McCracken
Rally racers is and still one of the most poorly represented genres for
the Gamecube. It's kind of sad when there's only two true rally racers
on the system, and both are ports of older PS2 versions. Pro Rally was
the first rally game to come out for the Gamecube, but it's hardly new.
It's basically a port of the 2001 PS2 title with 2002 slapped on. While
it's true that the PS2 edition never made it to the states, it's pretty
obvious it was a PS2 port. Especially in the texturing.
Pro Rally is fairly standard in it's overall design, but kind of
"dumbed down" when compared to WRC on the PS2, or to a certain extent,
Dakar 2. You have very few, if any tuning options. This may be good for
those who do not like to fumble with all the small details, but if you
want to refine how your car reacts and optimize the settings for each
stage, forget it. Your journey through the stages is also pretty much
standard fare. You race in locales such as Spain, France and Argentina
with varying conditions. The courses themselves are designed pretty
well, and there are weather conditions. But then there are problems I
have noticed within the stages. You can't go very far off course, or
you will be automatically replaced. Also, there are some objects off
course that I collided into that caused the game to freeze. Then there
is the fact that your car almost comes to a complete stop when you hit
another care. It's like you never really exert force on another object.
I wouldn't have expected this amount of glitchiness in a game like
this.
The graphics are average. Blurry PS2 textures in most spots, and
nothing ever really takes advantage of what the GCN can do. I bet if a
developer actually designed a rally game specifically for the GCN, it
would look excellent. But we have yet to see such a thing done. I think
the best aspect of the graphics deals with the car models. They look
fairly sharp and good. Not perfect, but much better than the background
area. Here's a strange thing, though. At some areas, the entire
background of the stage will flicker quickly. It's like for a split
second, the entire area has been deforested.
I'm glad that Ubi Soft actually provided music during the race. I can
understand why some developers would leave music out during the race
(it's so you can hear your co-pilot), but I would like to have the
option to have music during the race. Here I do. It's not fantastic,
but it's not annoying. Standard engine noises and collision effects
round out the audio package.
Final Thought
Overall, Pro Rally is a disappointment if you have played games such as
Rallisport Challenge, V-Rally 3, WRC, Colin McRae 3, Shox, Rally Fusion
and even Gran Turismo 3. I think the only ones who could enjoy this are
the ones who only own a GCN and are very desperate for a rally game.
Honestly, if off road action is what you want, buy Freekstyle or ATV2.
If you want a racer with a lot of gameplay, get Burnout 2. If you own
multiple systems, there's no need to bother with this. I'm just hoping
one developer can give GC owners a good rally racer before the end of
the system's lifespan.
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Published
By :
UBISOFT
Developed
By:
UBISOFT
Year Published :
2002
Players :
1-2
ESRB Rating:
EVERYONE
OVERALL
SCORE
6.7
VISUALS |
7.0 |
AUDIO |
6.9 |
GAMEPLAY |
6.5 |
REPLAY
VALUE |
6.5 |
INNOVATION |
7.0 |
Nice try on bringing rally-sport to the Cube, but a late, busted port
doesn't quite cut it.
Honestly,
there aren't many rally games I've played that are worse than this one.
RalliSport
Challenge 1 and 2
Colin McRae Rally 04 and 2005
Gran Turismo 3 and 4
Shox
Rally Fusion
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