Much like many others, I thought of myself as a competent, knowledgeable (race) driver. I loaded up "Pirka Menoko", a Japanese stage. Selected 'bad' (what is bad about rain?!) weather, the Corolla WRC, and went at it. With my skills and physics knowledge, I will get into it by the end of the stage. Or so I thought.
My very first thought was: "My god, the understeer! This is insane". But, I know about understeer, and I know about the techniques one need to use to destabilize the car to enter into juicy powerslides, the fastest way to get around a slippery bend. But wait, I can't get the car to oversteer. It's too narrow, too slippery, I'm not paying proper attention to the pace notes. Why isn't left-foot braking working? Why are my scandinavian flicks resulting in the car rotating 180 degrees away from the turn every time, or just understeering straight off the turn? The lucky few times I did manage to get the car to oversteer, I tried to powerslide it. It ended the same every time - work up too much speed and go off on the outside of the turn, or have a spin. Why is it not working?!
The answer is simple, but not always so easy to admit: I was incompetent. Knowing turns out to be different from doing. Having an ego is never a substitute for experience and training. I know enough about physics and from my own toying around driving experience to recognize that Richard Burns Rally is about the most hardcore game, forgive me, 'simulator', I have ever played. Perhaps not quite as hardcore as Microsoft Flight Simulator, but it lurks close enough.
Enrolling in rally school turned out to be another eye-opener. The school itself was excellent. Getting to try ones hand on many different things. Getting to grips with the basics and a bit beyond. For example, during the left-foot braking exercise, I realized "oooh, you have to do it for a moment before it actually starts oversteering". I had for some reason always assumed the effect was instant. Lift-off oversteer turned out to be another highly useful technique. They both work better the faster you already travel. Things started coming together. My driving was not just driving next to the road half the time.
Gentlemen (and the few ladies), I have never had this much fun in a driving game. The moment I started managing to drive fast without crashing for a moment, getting the car to oversteer when I wanted, even if just a few times a stage, and all those other things, is when I became majorly addicted. The sense of accomplishment is massive. Watching a replay is incredibly enjoyable. The cars never appear to commit to anything they should not be doing. Yesterday I managed to pull off a perfect powerslide in the old 2000 Impreza on the Australian stage "East-West" (a favourite of mine), and when I saw it on the replay I just swelled with pride and cheered out loud.
All that for a powerslide? Indeed, something I see so much on TV and did so much in other games that I had stopped even think of it as anything special or spectacular, unlike most Eurosport-watching rally fans who never get enough of 'sideways action'. This simulator has instilled in me, a great deal of renewed respect for the real drivers, particularly the ones in the World Rally Championship. But also for those who drove skillfully in the console version videos they released.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.
