RalliSport Challenge 2

As one of the few racing games available in the first few months of life of the Xbox, Rallisport Challenge almost automatically had a large fan base built-in. But, even though lack of alternatives surely helped sales, the first Rallisport Challenge was a genuinely fun game, especially if you threw a few friends and a couple of pints of alcohol into the mix. Rallisport Challenge 2 comes back with all the same stuff that made the original a blast, along with online play for those without local friends to share this one with.

Rallisport Challenge 2 delivers 40 cars and around 90 tracks, about double what we found in the last game. Like before, many of the cars feel almost interchangeable to drive, and the difference between the AWD, RWD, and FWD cars seems even more muted than before, but the car selection is great, and the Group B cars still pose quite a challenge. Circuits are broken up like before based on a few different types of racing. We have traditional point-to-point rally stages, hillclimbs, rallycross tracks with multiple cars on a winding track, ice racing circuits again with multiple cars going fender to fender, and crossover stages, which are new this year.

Crossover races are where two cars race side-by-side on a single circuit that basically takes two trips 'round to complete a single lap, with one section of the track that flips you from side to side. Fans of the WRC Super Special Stages or the Michelin Race of Champions will have seen these sorts of stages in action, but the rest of you think slot-cars with two lanes on one track and a crossover in the middle, and you'll get the idea.

The variety in places to race great, overwhelming at times, and each stage and circuit looks immaculate. The first Rallisport wowed gamers with its graphical capabilities, and Rallisport 2 makes the original look seriously dated. New and improved environmental effects bring the circuits to life, while some amazing crash damage modeling in the cars makes them more realistic as well. Get a corner wrong and roll the car and you'll be treated to a nice outside view of your car tumbling down the road with doors swinging open and bits and pieces flying everywhere. Not the way to win, for sure, but fun nonetheless.

Fun is a good way to describe this game; realistic is not. Like the first, the game engine presented here does a good job of hitting all the major laws of physics, but doesn't really worry too much about presenting them realistically. So, what you're presented with is a game that plays well and feels consistent, but is easy to pick up and rewarding to play. This game is not a rally sim by any means, but as a rally and sim-racing junkie, I can tell you that doesn't make this game any less entertaining to play.

One thing that does seriously inhibit the fun at times is the game's co-driver (the virtual guy in the virtual seat next to you who's supposed to tell you the corners that are coming up) who's at best slow making the calls and at times will still be so late he'll actually call the corner behind you. Why rally games don't give you the option to tweak the speed of the co-driver to your tastes I'll never know. But, other than that, audio is generally good, with rich sounding motors and great environmental effects.

So what about the new online play? Well, it's a great addition to the series, but is a little limited. You can race up to four cars at a time directly against each other, or up to 16 if you don't mind turning off collision detection and switching all the cars into Tron-like wire frame boxes. The ability to compete against 16 others is great, but having a dozen brightly-colored meshes zipping around and crashing into everything can be very distracting. The game also supports XSN, allowing you to create tournaments online, choosing stages, inviting friends, and charting the progress of the tourney online. But, these tournaments take days and days to complete, and require you to write down long passwords to access them via your Xbox. It would be nice to be able to just make a traditional rally on the fly and invite a bunch of friends, then compete for stage times without having to worry about the distracting wire-frames getting in your way.