14 DAY TRIAL // 
Activision could have been better off without this title underneath their protective wing. A great brand doesn't make a good game and I guess that there are few people in the world that haven't heard about Harley-Davidson and their great bikes. I'm not very passionate when it comes to motorcycles, engines or exhaust pipes, but I was a fan of the Orange County Chopper show. That was my only contact with the exciting world of bikes and bikers. A video game is a product that must provide some "food" for the mind of its buyer. Well, I guess you'll starve to death with Harley-Davidson Motorcycles: Race to Rally.
Concept and Gameplay Before comparing this game to any previous title, you should know that I didn't by any means want to offend those great titles by mentioning the Harley Davidson game in the same sentence. Back to the drawing board, we'll find a combination between the crashing frenzy from Burnout, taken to the two-wheel universe and the bashing you were able to do while riding a motorcycle in the Road Rash titles. There's even a slight chance that the bikers won't dig this game, even if it's got the Harley logo on top of it.
Getting past the prejudices, in Activision's title you'll be strolling across the United States riding your cool Harley (of course) and racing other fellow bike aficionados. You'll race on famous routes like Big Sur, the arch-famous Route 66 or the Badlands and I must say that I don't quite remember another racing game with such long tracks. Once you've got past the first FMV, and it's a pretty dull one, you'll have to create a profile before you start racing. For a Harley game, this title has too little content to really please those bikers out there dying to get a cool original ride. There are 20 Harleys available in the game and you'll be riding a 2006 FXSTB or a 1984 FXST, perhaps a 2000 FXTD or a 1936 EL. The two-wheeled vehicles are divided into categories, so they seem more than they really are. Dyna, Softail, Touring or Sportster it doesn't matter, as it's all a matter of pixels gathered to make a wannabe Harley bike.
In case you lacked coolness while playing this title, you'll be able to pick a character to ride your speed demon and it might be a fat old biker or a pretty and angry girl. Upgrades are available if you were not satisfied with the original setup of your bike and you'll can now toy with the wheels, the exhaust, the seat, the camshaft, the carburetor, basically all the stuff we've seen on Orange County Choppers. This being a game that has a brand name all over it, I expect the content to be licensed and there's not a sole inch of bike or upgrade part without Harley's logo on it. Some of you might be wondering what this game is about and I really can't give you a decent answer since this seems to be a bike-crashing-car-wrecking simulator that will keep you not entertained and frustrated for about fifteen minutes. That's about the time you need to play the game for five minutes and call your friends to make fun of a new silly game for the other ten minutes. Seriously, the only good thing about Harley-Davidson Rally is the speed sensation given by a totally unrealistic boost that brings you up to 160 miles per hour.
You'll have to race against other bikers, who'll have no prejudice when it comes to knocking you down. Don't expect the cool fights you've seen in Road Rash, as it's all a matter of milliseconds here between your contact with the opponent and your deadly fall. Does a crash mean game over? Wrong, wrong, wrong and you'll be reseted to the track faster than you were in the oldest Need for Speed games. Players will be able to see a boost meter at the bottom of the screen, that gradually fills as you're racing on the wrong side of the road. The whole boosting concept reminds me of Burnout and even the way it charges seems extremely familiar. As long as you'll drive dangerously, the boost meter stays full and if it weren't for its annoying sound I'd use it more often. You'll crash into cars, that I can guarantee, whether you'll crash into walls, other bikers, road signs or ....thin air, well, that's up to you.
I've never seen a PS2 game that had such humongous bugs, as if it didn't even pass the beta testing phase. The biker flies over cars, trucks, hills, over the edge of the highway, while the bike can explode and still you'll be reseted back into the race like nothing happened. The AI is no challenge at all, they're either too stupid or too clever to create some serious competition, and it all depends on the way you start the race. One crash at the beginning and it's all over, but keep in mind that it's a many minutes race, so you're about to waste precious moments of your life playing this piece of...contorted metal instead of playing masterpieces like God of War II. Neither you, nor the opponents will have a hard time in getting back on the bike after an accident, because you can't even get to see the crash properly since you're reseted to the track almost instantly.
Video Harley Davidson Rally tries to cheat on us, at least in the graphics' sector, with a pretty neat blur effect that surrounds the passing cars. That may fool the average gamer, but we all know what lies behind the mass of blurred pixels: a horribly designed vehicle and I bet that there are about 10 cars in the whole game, the other being just replicas of those original few. The bikes look nice, although more detail couldn't have hurt anyone and since we're talking about defects, let me say that the camera angle is horrid. Choose between the third person or the first person view and experience true chaos, with the only benefit of seeing your shadow when you're driving in first person mode. Realistic approach? Not here, bikers and biker ladies, because I wasn't able to tell between one of the average bikes and tuned up Harley speed demon. They're all the same and I bet that there's a hardcore Harley fan playing this game right now cursing those lazy Activision producers.
Sound Probably the only segment of the game that makes a good impression is the soundtrack, made out of badass rock tunes, especially golden oldies that rocked our infancy. Poison, Heart, Great White, Thorogood, they're all in with the best songs one can wish to hear while driving his noisy bike. If you want to get most out of this game you'll HAVE to silence that damned engine, specially when it goes into the boost mode. It sounds just like a chainsaw and what's even worse... a broken one. Stick to the soundtrack and ignore the horns that you'll hear, the screams of the other bikers when they fall to the ground or the sound of your vehicle being smashed to pieces.
Conclusion Bikers must have never felt as wronged as they do now, with Activion's failure, called Harley-Davidson Rally. It might be just one of those games created for commercial purpose only, but that doesn't justify the huge amount of bugs included in the title. If I were the most famous brand of motorcycles in the world, I would hire the best producers in the world to promote my products. Of course I'd expect the result to be a kickass simulator with tons of licensed content and tracks, billboard top 10 songs and fierce gameplay. Who's to blame in this case? Certainly not Harley-Davidson, but surely it's the fault of the some Activision producers that got beaten by some bikers just before starting to create this disaster piece.
