Rally Fusion: Race of Champions

"An adrenaline rush"

Rally fusion is a racing game that carves out its own niche in the racing genre. It is all about rally racing to the extreme. Tearing up the asphalt, tarmac, snow, or whatever is under the tires of your car as you, the driver, try to control the beast hiding underneath the beautifully drawn rally cars. You will drift and grip drive your way to be the new undisputed champion of the ROC (race of champions).

The game play is simple enough for a beginner to jump right in and difficult for an expert to master. There are only four controls you will need to use, they are the brake, emergency brake, the gas pedal, and of course the steering. The first three are your typical controls but how you use them to your advantage while steering will separate the men from the boys on the race track.

Drifting takes a lot of time and practice to master, one cannot simply jump in and always perform the perfect drift, it is all about timing and how you maneuver the car in the corner. One mistake could send your car into a wall, a spinout, or even into a barrel roll across the road. A little time and patience will be rewarded with wickedly awesome drifts that will earn you bragging rights in front of you friends.

Grip driving just looks boring because of the fact the car never “slides” in a corner it looks like a roller coaster set on its tracks, even though it doesn't drift, grip driving has many advantages in certain corners. If you can learn to master both grip driving and drifting everyone including the A.I. will be eating your dust!

The A.I. is very well done. It plays out like a friend who has been playing the game for a long time. The first time you race against them you will be slaughtered because they know the course extremely well and what entry speed should be taken for a particular corner. Also, if you are neck-and-neck with the A.I. controlled cars will try to block you and if you get too close they will even slam into you causing you to lose control. There are many times you will be on the edge of your seat, white-knuckled, and dry-eyed trying to pass one more car before the finish line.

The graphics are simply gorgeous! Each location has a ton of detail like the snow falling on the artic track or the heat steaming off the tarmac in the desert. There are plenty of diverse tracks including an Incan trail, the desert, artic, a few indoor courses, and several more that need to be unlocked through the ROC mode that will keep your eyes enjoying the fruitful candy.

The biggest thing that really got me hooked on this game, well, besides the awesome game play is the fact there is real-time damage. If you slam into a wall with your front tire you may scratch it a little, pop it, or hell you might even lose it depending on what angle and how hard you hit the wall. This applies to the four tires, the engine, and your gear box, abuse of any of these will decrease the handling and speed of your car.

This adds more challenge to the game depending on how bad your car is damaged but the car can only be damaged so much before you have to retire. If you lose a wheel in the front left the car will “pull” heavily to the left since there is no balance on that side, causing you to re-adjust how you will drive straight and how you will enter a corner. If you lose another wheel, blow an engine, or burn out your gear box you will have to retire and start over. In other words completely destroy two parts of you car and you will retire.

Another great aspect of the game is the music department. There is not a whole lot of music tracks on this game there are plenty that will keep you nodding your head, slapping your knee, or even thumping your foot. Most of the music is rock-ish and fits the atmosphere exceptionally well. The car sounds are right on the mark from the squealing of the tires, the revving of an engine to the crushing noise a car makes when it collides with something. Last but not least, we have the co-pilots voice that not only helps you out with turns that are coming up on the track but will insult you if you take a turn wrong or crash into something. This compliments the real-time damage of the car extremely well and with each insult or compliment the co-pilot dishes out, you will know exactly how well or horrible you are doing at that moment in time.

There are a ton of modes in this game, just like the back cover says from someone who reviewed it “More modes than you can shake a stick shift at”. There are a total of 8 different modes. The one you will be spending most of your time in is the ROC, trying to be the next and new champion of rally racing and opening up new modes, courses, and cars. There is also the quick race mode, where you can start a quick game with up to 4 players at once. A training mode that helps you become more experienced as a Rally Driver.

Many times you will find yourself wasting hours upon hours away playing this game because it is just that addicting. If you can find this game buy it now! It is one of the best rally racing games ever made for the PS2 with tight and responsive controls, great graphics, and more modes that you can shake a twenty dollar bill at. But, all this gaming goodness does have one flaw, the load time. The load time is really long, for example you are doing a quick race, and there will be 28-29 second load time before you get to play. This will happen again if you switch courses, that is why I picked one or two locations to keep replaying because there is no load time after the course has been loaded, only when it is loading up a new course. If you can deal with this minor flaw there is a ton of RALLY fun to be had!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06