- Title: SEGA Rally Revo
- Platform:Xbox 360
- Publisher: SEGA
- Developer: SEGA Racing Studios
- ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone
- Genre: Arcade-Style Rally Racing
- Pros: Deformable tracks; fast paced racing; nice car list
- Cons: Shallow, somewhat boring gameplay; DiRT came out four months ago …
Features
SEGA Rally Revo offers a full set of both offline and online game modes. Quick Race, Time Trial, and Championship Mode are the name of the game in single-player action. Championship Mode progresses at a fairly normal pace and has you starting with lower end cars and working your way up to better rides and increasingly smarter and faster AI opponents. There isn’t any sort of tuning or customization other than choosing off-road or road tires and picking the paint job. Another disappointment comes from the fact that there are only five areas to race in, each with three tracks each. Fifteen tracks, or 23 total counting reverse courses, sounds like a lot, but the three tracks in each area all feel pretty much identical so there just isn’t much variety here.
You can also play Revo in splitscreen multiplayer or online. Up to six people can race online in player or ranked matches. The online races are pretty fun because, unlike the AI which always gets a head start in the single-player races, human drivers all start out equally which leads to far more exciting races.
Gameplay
The AI in Revo is also worth mentioning because of how frustrating racing against it can be. When you start a race, the AI drivers blast out to an early lead and you spend the whole race playing catch up. Now, that isn’t too bad since it is a fairly standard practice in arcade games. The problem comes from the fact that in later races, you literally cannot make any mistakes or you will absolutely not catch up. Also, the AI seems to just decide on its own when it wants to win and will blow past you late in a race even if you are driving well.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, SEGA Rally Revo is a very nice looking game. It isn’t a realistic looking game, but considering that it is an arcade racer the arcade style graphics fit in perfectly. What do I mean by that? Everything looks nice and the cars are detailed and the tracks look good, but you can tell immediately that this is a videogame unlike DiRT or Motorstorm on the PS3 or even RalliSport Challenge 2 on the Xbox which look more real. It is an artistic choice that works well here. Where Revo does impress is in the deformable tracks and the way your cars collect dirt throughout a race. And it is a nice touch how some dirt gets washed off when you splash through water.The sound is merely decent. I’m not crazy about the engine sounds or the music or any other aspect, but they don’t detract from the experience. Again, it all screams “arcade”.
Bottom Line
