"Don’t just rip up the track. Tear it a new one." A pretty fitting tagline for Sega Rally Revo. This game isn’t your typical racer filled with finesse, it’s best described as gritty contact racing. You’ll power slide through every turn, checking competitors into barriers with your car. Most racing games these days focus on realistic simulations, not this one. It’s got that fast paced arcade feel that has seemingly died off.
A cool feature they put in the game is the ability to literally tear the track to shreds. As your car cuts through the course you leave ditches in snow, dirt, mud, and pretty much everywhere you go. By the last lap, with 6 cars worth of tracks, you’re getting thrown all over the track.
In terms of graphics, the cars look great. The levels however, could use some work. They’re not particularly bad, but they definitely don’t stand out and fail to impress. The mud effects are pretty sweet, though. Liberal amounts of mud stick to your car and add to that gritty feel.
Sound-wise, this game really struggles. The engine noises, like the graphics are not the best, but then again not that great. The music sucks. I ended up just turning it all the way off and listening to a play list off of my computer. And probably the most standout sound flaw is the surprisingly helpful pace note announcer. The robotic bastard announces every little movement in the track, in the most unenthusiastic annoying voice. Too bad it’s a feature that actually helps me drive better. Every race I’m torn whether or not to turn the helpful voice off, or lose my sanity at the cost of convenience.
The controls are real easy to pick up. Within a lap of the first race, I felt right at home. The championship mode is pretty lackluster, though. After about the third circuit I was already ready for a change of pace. This is mostly due to the mediocre A.I. The best parts of the race are when you’re in the pack slamming into cars, and making the moves to the front, but once you pull ahead the game really loses it’s flavor as it’s a coast to the finish.
Possibly the best feature of the game is the online multiplayer. The mechanics of the game makes it seem like everyone is hungry for blood, so most races end up being some of the most physical, collision-oriented races I’ve experienced. Almost every turn, 3 cars would be riding each other into the rails, and the victims would be out for revenge the rest of the race. It’s just too bad not that many people have the game. There’s probably 8 people playing multiplayer at any time, and from my experience most of them are based in the UK, making playing at night almost impossible.
The game provides plenty of cars to chose from, but shies away from any type of customization. The only thing you can "customize" is whether or not you want off road tires or track tires, providing either better traction or better acceleration respectively. In fact, the cars don’t even have any form of ratings… you just kind of have to use them and guess which is best for you. I found that a little annoying.
Overall, Sega Rally Revo is a fun game that delivers. Sadly, I probably wouldn’t go out and buy it. There’s just too much out there that I want that I’m at risk of filing for bankruptcy, and Sega released this at the worst time with Forza and PGR out and running. On the PS3 that doesn’t take away as much since you can’t play Forza and PGR, so if you’re looking for a fun racing game this could fill a relatively empty spot in the PS3s library. I’m pretty sure most people think like me too, seeing as how it’s such a struggle to find multiplayer games. At least there’s always renting…
