Sega Rally 2005: Impressions & Videos

Graphically, as you'll see in our hi-res 60fps videos, Sega Rally 2005 looks pretty impressive, especially considering it's running on PS2 - good texture quality, a semi-locked 60fps and an overall solid feel ensure that SR2005 sends sparks flying from the paintwork of Xbox's best lookers. But we got the impression there's still work to be done on the gameplay front, and in fact, the build seemed pretty early in this regard.

The jury's still out on Sega Rally 2005...

Our report from some time ago suggesting the game was "ready to go" will hopefully prove inaccurate, since the version we had the opportunity to play at TGS needed some work in a couple of areas.

...but hopefully Hitmaker's Jun Taniguchi will come through...

Unlike the original Sega Rally, which offered a more realistic rally experience than its successor and outlived it as a result, Sega Rally 2005 currently lacks the gritty feel of diverse terrains and dynamic handling, with many of the tracks at the show feeling similar despite varying surfaces.

Standard tarmac, gravel, mud, sand and ice tracks, while quite pretty, did not seem to give the choice of two cars - Subaru Impreza and a Citroen Xsara - much of a dynamic workout. We can only assume there's some tuning left to be done before the game's release next year. And we also hope more tracks will be added; at the show you could play Course A (Africa Desert, SR1 Lakeside, Europe Village and Japan Mountain) or Course B (similar but with SR1 Desert and Europe Forest).

...otherwise it's Game Over, Yeah!

Despite this feeling, the build still offered quite a thrilling experience; the booth at Sega's TGS stand, which attracted long waiting lines, boasted arcade-style sit-down set-ups with GT Force steering wheels, and left many who played it happy with the sense of speed and some typical Sega Rally style powersliding moments.

There's a stronger rally feel to the proceedings overall, with a front-end that will be more familiar to rally veterans than Sega Rally purists, and new additions such as the ability to veer off-course, triggering a timer that eventually counts you back onto the track a la Colin McRae, enhance the game's genre positioning (probably a useful thing in today's diverse racing market, markedly different to when the series debuted nearly a decade ago).

Sega's TGS stand for Sega Rally 2005

There are several aspects of the game to look forward to that weren't demonstrated fully in the TGS build; the best news for fans of the series, as you probably worked out from our track listing earlier, is that several tracks from the original Sega Rally are included (we're not sure on the status of Sega Rally 2 tracks at this point) and in fact you could race on the Desert and Lakeside courses from Sega Rally in the show version.

But one addition that could prove even better than that is the random courses feature, which randomly generates rally courses with unpredictable terrain, layout and weather, offering a more true-to-life rally experience where you can't always memorise the track before you race it. There are also several different modes of play, given that this installment is straight-to-console, with the Career Mode central to the game.

We'll bring you updates on Sega Rally each time we get access to the game before its release next year. Releases for the western markets have yet to be confirmed, but we'd be very surprised if SOA and SOE don't announce it in due course. In the meantime, download out hi-res shaky vids. (We hope to be able to bring you some direct feed very soon).

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com