Richard Burns Rally | 
 enlarge | From: Sci
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $7.15
You Save: $12.80 (64%)
New (7) Used (1) from $7.15
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 7791
Format: Cd-rom, Dvd-rom
Platform: Windows Xp
ESRB: Everyone 10+
Media: Video Game
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: RICHARDBURNRALL
EAN: 5050740020467
ASIN: B000C97156
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: *NO CALIFORNIA SALES*, **FREE** UPGRADE TO EXPEDITED SHIPPING EXCEPT CALIFORNIA. Brand New Factory Sealed DVD case.(DVD-Rom) Ship daily via USPS w/FREE delivery confirmation & Shipment Notification. Works on OS,Win95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP, Processor P3 or higher, Ram: 256MB or higher, Disc Space: 1.5Gb or higher, Graphics: 32MB Direct3D. We highly recommend our expedited shipping during holiday season/APO address.
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| Features:
| • | Features British rally driver Richard Burns and co-driver Robert Reid | | • | They tutor players in a training mode set at the Forest Experience Rally School in North Wales | | • | Features official rally circuits from all over the world and licensed cars including the Peugeot 206, Citroen Xsara T4 and Subaru Impreza 2003 | | • | Delivers a high level of realism with dynamic weather effects, a real-time service park for carrying out repairs, and a 3D track generation system |
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Product Description
Get into the mind of a World Champion and behind the wheel of a 300BHP rally car with a totally new rally experience. Learn genuine rally techniques at the Forest Rally School, fine tune your car to a level of detail never before seen and compete in a full rally season.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Great engine, but frustrating presentation June 4, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This game is actually not as great as everyone says. It does not even try to appeal to anyone except die-hards who'll play any game for months to years just for its sim engine. The graphics are average. There are only eight cars, of which only three are available at the outset. Unlocking the other five can be done by coming in first in a championship, which is extremely hard even on the "rookie" setting. The game also only includes one type of racing, timed rally, in only one class, and in only the mid 2000s era. Because of this lack of diversity, they could at least have included a full rally season to make the sim complete. Instead, there are only six countries to rally in and only 36 tracks in total, including only one tarmac rally and no mud rally. Because of these things, there just isn't much to do in this game.
The game is extremely difficult, which naturally makes it less accessible and fun. If you want to drive like a rally car driver, it won't happen. You'll either be tip-toeing around the track or crashing and flying off the road on every corner if you actually try to go fast. Handbreak turns and powersliding are almost impossible to execute without crashing. However, since the consumer should realize this when buying a sim and could opt for something easier instead, it would not be fair to criticize the game because it's not as fun as an arcade racer.
The problem is, though, the game is NOT as realistic as its fans say and is in fact harder than real rally driver. Overall, the physics are excellent. On the other hand, tire wear and damage is not in the game and your only choices for tires are dry, intermediate, and rain. Vegetation is also modeled as solid objects, so you can't just drive over tiny saplings or bushes--you'll smash up the car and be stopped cold. In some places, you can only drive maybe 1.5 car lenghts off the curb. Often you'd be stuck perpendicular to the road behind a tree or a bridge and this artificial wall, and although in real life you'd just quickly do a U-turn, here you're walled in and have to call for help. In other places, you fly off the road and are quickly driving back through the wide curb, but the game resets your car one sec before you reach the road and adds a time penalty to your clock. Also, when you're clearly sliding towards spectators off the road, they just stand there. You hit them (unrealistic, btw) and incur another time penalty. Most importantly, cars' weight is modeled very poorly. They feel like they weigh, like, 200 kg, and spin out, bounce off trees violently, and flip numerous times in the air at the slightest opportunity. In real life, it would be ridicilous that a 1,230 kg car with a moderate 300 hp designed for harsh terrain driving would do a 1,080 degree flip in the air because the driver cut a corner at 80 km/h and one of his wheels hit a bump off the road. When rally drivers do that (usually to cut), I've seen the wheel go up in the air 15 cm, I didn't see them flip through the air like a plastic RC car. Such unrealistic mechanics not only look cheesy, but force you to drive more carefully and slowly (and less fun) when cutting corners than you should, and make it extremely frustrating when you repeatedly flip out for no reason and have to add 10 seconds to your time each time by calling for help. All these things make the game a lot less refined than it should be, make driving unnecessarily frustrating, and strongly detract from the realism created by the otherwise excellent physics model.
However, my biggest complaint is that the game makes little effort to teach players who aren't skilled at driving sims how to drive. There are no detailed information in the manual about accelerating, braking, and taking turns. The Rally School gives you a number of challenges and tells you what the goal is, but finishing it on all perfect will not make you a proficient beginner racer. It would do wonders to have the kind of training that real rally drivers would have--first, theory about what driving lines to hold, how to take turns in general, how to recover from skids, etc. and second, to have a teacher actually drive with you a couple of courses and, tell you what speed to use, how to take each turn, where and how hard to break and accelerate, at what point to pull and release a handbreak, where to use which rally skill, etc. There is a qualification trial that has breaking, acceleration and turning cones set up to guide you, but it never tells you WHAT your speed should be at each point, and HOW HARD to brake, accelerate, and turn where. There is also one lesson where you see Richard drive a course, however, his speed and gears aren't displayed, so you have no idea how you could emulate his driving. I mean, rally drivers practice this stuff for years, so if somebody is going to jump into the game and attempt to do what they do, the least the game could do is offer not just a mode with driving challenges done on a big parking lot, but a theoretical and field track driving tutorials.
In the end, if you have mastered other sims and you can jump right into this game, you'll probably love it and have a blast driving. For everybody else, the game is too inaccessible, frustrating, and unrewarding to be fun. The competitors' finish times even on "rookie" level are so good, that although good at racing games, after three weeks of playing this game, I usually come in 10th, can only come first in two out fo six rally sets, and have managed to unlock only one car. Yes, even with the frustrations, the driving itself is really fun, but making the players feel like they are doing so poorly and not making any progress for weeks of playing the game is probably too discouraging to keep them around with much more rewarding and diverse, if less realistic, rally games around.
The best car game I've played even till 2007 August 14, 2007
This game is outstanding, I love the simulation type driving, mixed with amazing sound, graphics. I've played both Dirt and Forza II and I still much prefer this game, I hope there is some sort of sequel or another game based off the driving of this game, i plan at some point to get myself the driving wheel to make it an even better experience. BEWARE THAT YOU HAVE AN ADEQUATE GRAPHICS CARD I COULDNT PLAY IT TILL I GOT MY LAPTOP
REALISTIC! August 9, 2007
by far the most realistic racing game ive ever played... and for that, i love it... i believe most people would dislike this game because you simply cant floor it and go.. its like driving a real car.. great game though and it has some pretty amazing driving training..
A Must May 16, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you drive on PC, you owe it to yourself to own this game. This game will have you playing/simulating real Car Rally till the cows come home.
It may be frustrating if you are used to driving over the roof of your car, or a console fan. Once you've learn his skills, and you start shaving seconds, then minutes off your time, it is so rewarding.
Force-Feedback is so much better and appreciated with this game. I have a Logitech Momo and I'm so glad I bought this due to this game.
5.1 speakers is rewarding also with this game.
I currently run on AMD64 2.4Ghz, 2GB Corsair XMS, eVGA 7900 256MB GT PCI-E, Asus A8N and its runs smooth.
The closest game that compares to this game is JooWoo's Rally Trophy. Also a must have if you drive Rally.
Some maneuvers comes in handy in real life.
Great game. January 10, 2007
It's so unfortunate that Richard Burns lost his battle with cancer. He truly was a master of his sport, and great fun to watch. This is by far the best rally simulator you can buy. The level of tuning that you can do to the car is intimidating. I had to read up on a few things to figure out what settings I should use, but if you're familiar with the inner workings of a rally car then you'll be fine.
You really need a wheel for this one because it is a simulator and the keyboard just doesnt give you enough control over the level of throttle, brake, and steering that you need to complete the stages. There are a number of rally games out there if you want an arcade-style game where you can hold the throttle button for the entire race, but this game is different. Your car will be wrapped around a tree pretty quickly if you try that. Don't expect it to be easy and don't expect to be winning races like you do in other games.
Fortunately, there's an awesome "Rally School" series of tutorials that you can go through to prepare yourself for the real races. He starts you out with the simple stuff and then takes you into under/oversteering, power slides, hairpin turns, and the scandinavian flick. I've played the other rally games like the Colin McRae series and Xpand Rally, but this is much more realistic and a great option if you're ready for it.
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