Need for Speed: V-Rally

Developed By: Infogrames

Published By: Electronic Arts

Genre: Racing

Players: 2

Rating: Kids to Adults

Memory Card: Yes

The newest game in the Need for Speed series isn't actually made by Electronics Arts. It was a very successful racing game in England which was adopted by EA for release here in the USA. While frustrating at first, this game has plenty of things to earn it a place in the extremely competitive racing game market.

V-Rally's visuals are great. The cars, including Mitsubishi's, Ford's, and Toyota's, are well modeled. V-Rally's real eye candy lies within the tracks themselves. The imaginative tracks look very realistic and range from the Swiss Alps, Spain, and Africa. Like always, the game looks much better in one player mode than in two player split screen, so I suggest for the full effect to try playing it in one player on all of the tracks. The headlight effects on the night tracks in one player mode have to be seen to be believed.

The sound gets the job done. The engine sounds are realistic for these cars, but the can get annoying, four-cylinder engines at high RPM's are hard on the ears. What I really liked about the sound was the music. The music was mainly Punk/Alternative music which I really like and made me want to race, but the strange thing was that they threw in a 70's funkish song into the mix.

The control at first is very frustrating and will make you not want to go on, but please do. When at least one of your tires barely goes off the road your car goes into a flipping and spinning frenzy leaving you struggling to recover. This is especially hard on your nerves, because if you are playing in Arcade mode there is a strict checkpoint to checkpoint time limit. Try going to car setup and setting the steering all the way to understeer, it helps.

Overall this game is a blast, especially with two players in Time Trial mode. If you have patience enough to master the game's frustrating controls, you will be rewarded with one of the most realistic, and best racing games this year.

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