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Review: Sega Rally Online Arcade

Anyone who has ever set foot in a real life arcade would undoubtedly be familiar with this kamikaze style of a corner smashing car racing game. The concept is simple: race around one of three tracks, either in championship, quick-race, time-trial or multi-player mode to unlock two more tracks and various cars along the way.

Now just to be honest with everyone, I drive a silver 2002 Holden Astra, which for those who don’t know is maybe the most generic car available in Australia; it’s safe to say I don’t know a whole lot about cars. The beauty of this game, for me anyway, was that you really didn’t need to have any knowledge of racing jargon, because all cars seemed to have the same steering capabilities and max speed/acceleration. Is that good or bad? You’ll see…

The hot: Having not played a racing game in a long time, it was nice to come back to a game that was non-complicated, didn’t require special upgrades for cars, or really any strategy whatsoever. Visually the game offers up some nice scenery while you drive, though it looks kind of outdated — it appeals in a nostalgic way.

Shall I be blunt and just some out with another plus for this game? It’s easy gamerscore.

The meh: Overall the game was a bit ‘meh’. I was able to fully complete the game (12/12 Achievements) in 3-4 hours of gameplay. There were two levels of difficulty which did not offer much challenge, so winning wasn’t always very satisfying. In championship mode the game has you start in 22nd position and you have six laps over three races to catch up to number one… but that was literally it. There didn’t seem to be a difference in the difficulty of the 1st place car versus the 21st.

There was the option of driving manual versus automatic, which gave your car a performance boost. This, I assume, was to add difficulty to the game but once you reached top gear you didn’t really have to change gear from there.

Finding someone to win five games against online opponents proved to be a bit of a struggle, but luckily I found someone eventually who was after the same achievement. The lack of interest in the online game play reflects the ‘meh’ness of the game.

The cold: After a few races, the game really just became a “things-to-do” checklist for the achievements across the single player game-play modes.

As mentioned, there wasn’t much that was overly amazing about the game, nor was there much that was overly terrible. This style of arcade game is more suited for multiplayer game play amongst friends or online, which is what I enjoyed most. Single-player was fun…ish…but was mostly non-satisfying, especially as time went on.

Keeping in mind that this is intended as an arcade game, I would recommend Sega Rally Online Arcade. At 800 Microsoft Points it will hardly break the bank, and as long as you have someone to play with, it can be quite fun. At the very least it’s an easy 200 gamerscore.


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About the author

Matthew Bird

Refer to opening scene of Bring it On.