Where’s the Challenge? Review

Where’s the Challenge?

I’ve become an anti-environmentalist. Why? I like cars. I want to drive my car.

I want to get from point A to B, even at the sake of spewing exhaust into the

air. Forget the trees, I want transportation!

I wasn’t always like this. I am…er…was the owner of a brand new white

Beetle. Great car. One night, I park my car next to a tree. When I get back,

the tree has dropped one of its branches on the back of my car. Not just any

branch, mind you. A branch the width of the street. The back third of my car

is smashed. Window completely shattered. Suspension wrecked. Body damaged. Fear

of nature instilled.

It has been more than a month since that incident. I took it pretty well.

I mean, it could have been worse. I figured out the time the branch fell; it

missed my head by no more than 10 minutes. No one else was hurt. Insurance is

covering it. UC Berkeley owned the tree, so that crazy ol’ City of Berkeley

owes me. Really, it could have been far, far worse – I could have been playing

Rally Challenge 2000, for instance.

Now, Rally Challenge 2000 isn’t a complete disaster, per se. It’s playable

and has better than average graphics for the N64. But everything else about

this game is not good. It equates to a very boring rally game that doesn’t remotely

capture the joy of racing.

Rally games rely heavily on the quality of the tracks, which is unfortunate

for this game. The tracks don’t fit the nature of the game, feeling unnatural

and ill conceived. They seem better suited for kart racing than rally. Weren’t

we playing with real cars? The track is filled with extreme rights and lefts

that lend themselves to drift style racing. If all cars imbued the quality of

a drift style control, that wouldn’t be so bad, but only a few cars have that

feature. By all accounts, they might as well have thrown in powered attacks

and cute animals.

Arcade mode works on a timing system like arcade style racers. The arcade time allotments allow you to cut it by the wire from checkpoint to checkpoint. Unfortunately, they barely give you enough time to enjoy the race, and you’ll end up having to fight the clock rather than other racers.

Oddly, the other cars don’t start at the starting line alongside you. They

just show up during the race. Plus, no more than 2-3 cars can show up on the

screen at any one time. The competition just isn’t there.

The

cars are incredibly generic. Sure, there are big names like Mitsubishi, Toyota,

and Nissan, but take off the labels and stickers and you get the “fast car,”

the “better handling car,” and the “drag car.” Races become heavily focused

on speed control.

The Championship mode is a step up and portrays a truer sense of rally racing.

You compete through all 9 tracks, steadily increasing your position as you go

along. Despite this broader goal, the tracks and the cars are still awkward,

leaving a less than full experience.

The screen is cluttered with details, from RPM’s to the countdown of time

in the race. But in Championship mode, they’ve forgotten the most important

detail – what place your car is in. Huh? Did I miss something? If you are supposed

to be racing other cars, isn’t that the most important piece of information?

You have to wait until the end to find out your place? This is racing? This

is fun? Can I be more sarcastic?

The audio is weak. The hobo outside could do a better job than whomever they picked to do the voice acting. Plus, there is no way to turn off just the announcer’s voice without turning off all the sound effects.

Racing, by its very nature and definition, is about competing. With the lack

of challenge from the other cars, Rally Challengeis something of a misnomer.

It goes through all the motions of driving, but it doesn’t feel like racing.

So stay away from those damn trees. And this game.