Knowing and understanding more about how the cars feel and drive like, how the techniques work, and how hard it is to do it, has made watching rallying on TV and real life an even greater joy. I can now relate to it on a whole different level, and even analyze their driving in a way I could never do before.

The only front-wheel drive car, Super 1600 MG, is sadly not available in the major game modes such as career and hot-seat multi-player. I drove this car many times and it was incredibly fun to drive such a light, well-set up rally car, with the amazing physics of Richard Burns Rally. Let us wish strongly for other types of rally cars for future versions of RBR, as the physics is just so realistic.

I have probably driven around 8 hours now. I still cannot powerslide properly anywhere but medium and wide, smooth gravel roads, like the ones in USA and Australia. The narrower it gets, the worse I am. The slippery it gets, the more terrible I am. I seem to have a talent in tarmac-driving for some reason. Perhaps my extremely smooth driving style is appreciated by my WRC car. I have so much to learn, but even when I fail it is so ridiculously addictive and amusing. The knowledge of how this is how a WRC car would handle makes it an absolute thrill.

Interesting news for certain people is that the cockpit views are experienced as quite nice, and the views can be altered and customized if you have some computer know-how and dive into the configuration files. Not only that, but the driver-view camera also moves and shakes in the same way as the interior-camera of the console versions. The car shaders also seem more detailed and tuned than the console versions. The stages feel VERY long, which suits me just fine. Endurance quite comes into play after 6-8 minutes, or even longer depending on the weather.

Not once did I hear the dreaded horn from the console versions. I think it is safe to say that we will be spared of the evil horn once and forever. There is noticeable anti-lag popping every time you lift off the pedal. It sounds rather synthetic, and I am not sure if it is present in the console versions or not. But to me, it works. This beta version had major problems with my sound card, with plenty of missing sounds and other corruption. Graphical bugs could also be noted. Crashes to desktop happens now and then, too.

It was tested on a Intel P4 2,2ghz, 1024mb DDR, and a nVidia Geforce 4600ti. My computer has previously given me unexplainably poor performance in games, so it is hard to give an impression of how it will run on the majority of computers out there. To give a glimpse of the sometimes poor performance, my friend has a 1600 Athlon with a Radeon 9700, and with the same settings on 800x600 in Doom 3, I get 14fps while he gets 57fps.

So considering my erratic computer performance, and that this is merely a preview beta, my experience should be taken with a healthy dosage of skepticism and open mind. In 640x480 with all details except particles turned all the way to the bottom (very very few things you can alter), it looks no better, indeed even worse, than the console versions, though framerates are usually in the 35-50 region. Sometimes down to 20-25 in some parts of several stages.

The sim feels better than amazing when framerates are high, but feels synthetic and loses that magical 'real' feeling when framerates are not silky smooth (40-50 or more).

On a more positive side, load times are down to a matter of seconds between stages and rally headquarters. The game itself starts up in a matter of seconds, after you turn off the intro movies. There is absurdly huge support for different control devices, such as pads and wheels. With ability to fine tune exactly how the steering on say, a pad will function, if it is digital or not, if it should become less sensitive with speed, etc. I am going to connect my old steering wheel today and put up it's pedals next to my new ones, and use the throttle of the old wheel as a clutch! Yes, it actually works!

I think I will put in my pre-order today. And I'm giving the thought of buying a Radeon 9800 PRO some serious thought.

Support BHMS, pre-order RBR in the BHMS shop: .DE shop or .UK shop.
Note: We ship to most European countries.