V-Rally 3 Review

Platform X-Box
Dev Co: Eden Studios
Publisher: Atari
Release (UK): 28 Mar 2003
Review code: Pal / Europe
Wide screen mode: Yes
S/Sound : Dolby Digital & Pro Logic
60Hz: No
Online content: No

This is the first outing for the V-Rally series on big black box and it’s been a long time coming. Originally released for the PS2 in June 2002, people were not overly impressed. The game had reportedly lost some of it’s “edge” and it didn’t exactly break records in terms of sales. Now that it’s arrived, has it been worth the wait?

The short answer is yes and no.

First things first, the game has definitely improved since its PS2 outing. The PS2 version was slated for having unbalanced gameplay, very poor frame rates and the inability to use the right stick for throttle. This version rectifies that by levelling the playing field and under no circumstances can the frame rate be called “jerky”. This game is as steady as a rock and fast with it, too.

The graphics in V-Rally 3 are a mixed bag altogether, with the downsides being balanced by the ups. The textures are very low resolution and suffer badly from jaggies, but the sheer amount of objects on screen at once is an absolute marvel. The game never suffers from any slowdown and the frame rate sticks to a healthy rate throughout. There are numerous nice touches to the graphics (reflective puddles and reduced draw distance when racing in heavy rain), but equally there are graphical bugs like a severe lack of real lighting effects (in some places shadows actually point towards the sun). All in all though this is not a particularly bad looking game. Still shots will never do this game justice – as always it’s best to see it moving.

The original V-Rally game structure veered away a little from the more sim-like McRae games by offering really simple setup options and races against opponents who were on track at the same time as you. Gone are those days. V-Rally 3 opts for a less arcade-like game by giving you a career to build on and by allowing you setup options approaching the complexity of McRae (although not quite matching). The physics engine was always the most accurate aspect of the V-Rally games. This has remained and you car will flip and roll impressively if you behave badly enough.

The game starts in your office. You are a new driver on the rally scene looking to make it big. On your first day you check your emails (after presumably hounding teams) and see that you’ve been offered a few test-drives with different manufacturers. The teams available to drive for range from poor to good, with better performance needed in order to qualify for the teams with the better performance stats. Complete any of these that you can and you can then choose a team for the season.

The seasons are built up of five races with service points at the beginning of stages 1, 3 and 5. Obviously these service stages are where the all important setup choices first come into play. The variations available to you are quite wide – everything from tyres, tyre pressure, brake bias, ride height and suspension stiffness can be altered to your heart’s desire (this list is by no means exhaustive). Unfortunately, by stage three of your first rally, you’ll realise that the setup area also houses one of the game’s more annoying bugs: your previous setup choices do not get saved. This means that if you set your preferred ride height for Sweden, you have to keep on resetting this choice at each service stage. I would have preferred an option by which you could “tweak” the setting for a country, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, finalise your settings and away you go.

There are four rallies available to you in the first few seasons: Finland (mud), France (tarmac), England (mud again) and Sweden. After you’ve proved yourself successful in the smaller leagues, you will be awarded with two more: Africa (dust and sand) and Germany (more tarmac). Another slight shortcoming of the game makes an appearance at this time: there are only four tracks per country. This means that there’s always one reversed track during each rally and it doesn’t take long before you’ve seen all the areas the game has to offer.

The game has a reasonable damage model and it doesn’t take too much effort before you’ll come across cracked windows, dented bodywork and start losing panels/bumpers. As the damage builds it will start affecting your performance. Steering, brakes and more can all fail to varying degrees and it can sometimes be a real struggle to complete a race. Lose two wheels or more or fall over a cliff, though and the stage is over. At each service stage you will be given a chance to repair damages that have accrued. The time allotted is very limited and you’ll have to be quick, as it starts to decrease before pressing the all-important “repair” button.

Your first seasons will be raced in the 1.6 litre classification vehicles. These are small two wheel drive cars and are immense fun to throw around the tracks on offer. You will be given a target to achieve for the season (say, place higher than eight out of sixteen) and you are left to your own devices. You visit your office in between each rally to relax and catch upon your emails. Here you can find out what your team and the outside world make of your performance so far. At certain times the emails on your system can hold opportunities for mid-season test-drives with rival teams. These help increase your options open for the end of the season. If you’ve been successful in reaching your target you will automatically be offered a place for the next season. Otherwise you will have a stack of offers from the other teams as they will all be hoping that you’ll effect a transfer and assist them in their efforts for season victory.

Complete a first place season victory and you can then move up to the big leagues: the 2.0 litre cars. These are so fast it’s not funny (well, maybe a little bit). The difficulty of the game shoots up as you suddenly find yourself overshooting every corner you previously were zipping round. Starting this is certainly a challenge and getting the lines right in these little monsters makes for an excellent rush.

The sound in V-Rally 3 is a bit hit and miss in the same way as the graphics. There is nothing patently wrong with it, but sometimes the effects will appear from the wrong speaker (or, when the replay is playing, only out of the rear speakers) and the volume of the engine and effects seems to be a little detached from the action. Having said that, it’s perfectly serviceable and certainly isn’t bad enough to detract from the gameplay.

There is a little gem hidden within the replay system – full telemetry. As you watch the replay you can study the stats of yourself and the ghost car, comparing where each of you have gone wrong. The stats displayed show gear selected, braking power, acceleration rate and more in rolling graph format. This is fantastic to watch and it really gives sim-heads something to concentrate on.

The multiplayer aspect of the game perhaps lets the side down the most. Gone are the days of 4 players on screen, nudging and pushing; V-Rally 3 is time trial only. The time trials are broken into different arrangements (or challenges) to try and give it some semblance of organisation, but it’s still just one player on screen at a time. Whilst trialling over the short stages is a laugh, it’s just not V-Rally without the shoving.

Overall, V-Rally 3 just doesn’t quite make it as a top rally game. Had it been released for the Xbox a year earlier then it would have been a contender, but unfortunately it’s just arrived too late. Since March 2002 we’ve had the unbelievably gorgeous (and fun to play) Rallisport Challenge and the exquisitely detailed Colin McRae 3. This makes V-Rally only worth a buy if you are a die-hard fan of the genre. As Rallisport has recently gone “Classic”, even bargain bin buys need to be carefully considered.

OVERALL – 7.5/10