14 DAY TRIAL // 
September is the first month of the Fall and the time of the best 2007 launches of the most awaited games of the year. One of these games is Sega Rally Revo, surfacing on the PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP. It's been quite a while since the acclaimed Sega Rally was launched back in 1995, but the series has grown and developed, offering the gamers arcade entertainment in the shape of realistic driving. Let's just hope that Bugbear Entertainment manages to deliver, as we're about to take the PSP version of the game for a preview spin.
Concept You'll surely hop in your nice rally car and immediately try the Quick Race mode, but you might want to know that there's a great Championship Mode waiting for you, which includes the Premier, Modified and Masters sub-modes. You'll have to complete 4 events in each of the challenges to unlock the next one and cool new rides. Sega Rally Revo also features a Time Attack mode, where you can race a ghost and beat your best times. This may not be much of a feature, but while browsing the game's options menu, I noticed that instead of "speedometer" the choice of your distance measurement unit has been renamed "speedo".
OK, not a fun comment, but still something to smile about... Before entering a race, you'll select a track, be it Safari, Alpine, Tropical, Arctic or Canyon, each with their variations. Sega Rally features 16 tracks and over 30 vehicles, including famous rally cars like Subaru Imprezza WRX Sti SpecC Type RA, Mistubishi Lancer Evolution IX FQ340, Citroen Xsara Rallycross (2004), Skoda Octavia Kit car, VW Golf GTI, Citroen C2 Super 1600 (2005) and many many others. Selecting the tyres before the race becomes a must as you'll surely choose a different set in case you're dealing with an off-road location. The player can select either road, rally or all terrain tyres, proceeding to the transmission selecting afterwards.
Choose the manual transmission if you're an expert and accustomed to the title's driving system or the auto transmission in case you're the average arcade racer. Selecting the appropriate tyres before the race sure has an impact, as I found out, by using the wrong set of tyres on a Canyon track. The result? You'll spin out of control, lose speed and finish the race on the sixth place. Did I mention that you can only race against 5 other competitors? It's not much of a setback, considering the PSP's potential and the fact that most racing games usually allow you to race against less than 10 opponents.
Gameplay Sega Rally Revo features great physics for a portable console title and we can only imagine the goodies waiting for us in the PC or the PS3 version. The car really acts like it's got weight, getting rid of the common feeling of driving a carton vehicle that was present in other games of the genre. I'm not a fan of the PSP analog control and I bet you aren't, too, at least not in this title. Using the D-pad controls is a must, because they're much more intuitive and won't slip out of your hands as often as the analog, that tends to tire your fingers. My first impression while racing in Sega Rally Revo was that the game lacks any sense of speed and that you're limited to a pretty average number of km per hour.
I was glad to see that at least this game is not plagued by the constant wall-ramming, that frustrated me in rally sims, like the Collin McRae series. Since Sega Rally Revo is an arcade title, its main purpose is rather having fun, than an accurate simulation of a real life rally racing. The producers mentioned tons of deformable content, but I guess we'll be seeing that in the next-gen versions, because the PSP only features deformable bushes, cones, road signs and rocks. By "deformable" I mean that you can bump into those things, pull them down or push them around. Once again staying true to the arcade racing genre, this title doesn't feature a damage concept, so you can ram into the other racers as many times as you want and your Subaru Imprezza will be just fine.
The AI is not much of a challenge, well, at least the last three racers aren't, as the first two tend to leave you behind in a trail of dust and dirt. Once you get used to the tyre setup, to the track's turns and hairpins, leading the race becomes a ball. Also, if you're a noob in the arcade rally racing genre, you should use those audio indications, removing them otherwise, since they're annoying.
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I manage to be stunned by the PSP's capabilities each time I play a new title and Sega Rally Revo is yet another reason for admitting that Sony's portable wonder is the best in its category. While racing, you'll see the dirt messing up your previously shiny car, so bad that you'll practically feel its sour taste in your mouth. Snowy environments, sandy or muddy ones look great and leave their mark on your rally car, also influencing the gameplay. The rides look great, but I can't say the same about the environments, but they're not bad, just that they don't use the same quality graphics as the cars. Sega Rally Revo offers the player the possibility of using a first person view or a behind the car view, in order to get the perfect gaming experience going.
Sound This arcade racing title features a standard soundtrack, made out of rock or rave tunes, ideal to increase your hunger for speedy challenges. You'd much rather pay attention to the audio indications instead of the soundtrack, while also enjoying the roar of your engine. There's not much to say about the game's audio section, as it has 99% of the features of this type of titles.
Multiplayer The newest Sega Rally title includes three multiplayer modes: ad hoc, infrastructure and game sharing, nothing innovative for a gamer who has played other PSP titles. Unfortunately I wasn't able to try the game's multiplayer yet, but I suppose I will involve hardcore racing, against your human opponents or opponents. Connecting 6 people at the same time with their PSP-s would be cool, but I'm not sure if Sega Rally Evo has such a feature.
Conclusion Seeing the quality of the latest installment in the Sega Rally series, I cannot help to wonder "Collin McRae who!?", as the game manages to surpass many titles pertaining to the same genre. It may not include a damage concept or many opponents, but its visuals are impressive, considering that we're playing the PSP version. Sega Rally Revo stays true to its legacy, giving us gamers a chance to experience realistic driving through a fun arcade system.
