V-Rally 3

"The best racing game for the GBA?"

Introduction

When I got V-Rally 3, I was expecting at least the graphics to be amazing. After seeing all the preview videos and screenshots all over the web, who wouldn't? What I wasn't prepared for was the gameplay however - Generally, games that are revolutionary with the graphics never quite cut it with gameplay (Star-X/Backtrack anyone?).
Not so here though! Not only are the graphics the most phenomenal thing I've seen on a portable console, but the gameplay is extremely tight and great fun. If you don't feel like reading the rest of the review, I'll say now - This game is most definitely worth buying.

Overview

As is suggested by the title, this is a game to simulate the popular (at least in my country of Britain) sport of World Rally. This is a sport where extremely skilled drivers take souped-up, but standard road cars and drive them at insane speeds down narrow and winding tracks. V-Rally 3 features 10 licensed cars (all big names, including Ford and Subaru) and 26 unique tracks (52 listed, but the other half are the tracks driven backwards), consisting of 3 unique tracks for 7 countries and then a further 5 'Rally Cross' tracks (short tracks which join up at the beginning and end).

Graphics - 10/10

Phenomenal. I had a hard time believing that the game was going to look as good as the preview videos, but it looks much much better - Not only that, but it manages to keep a silky-smooth 30fps constantly - The only hint of slow-down is during link-up and for a split second in one of the 'Rally Cross' tracks. Not only does this game feature fully texture-mapped polygons, but the textures are incredibly high-detail, colourful and varied as well. The graphics truly do reflect the look of a Rally and are done very well.
There are 2 view-points selectable - inside the car and behind the car. I find the behind-car view-point much easier to use, but some people will find the in-car viewpoint easier. One thing that can be said is that the in-car viewpoint makes the game look a lot more realistic, although you wont see as much of the track-side detail.
Another great effect are the weather effects - During night, your view-distance is significantly reduced and distant objects fade into black - it truly does make the game much harder and you'll find yourself relying on your co-pilot's directions and the map a lot more. The fogging effect also lowers your view-distance, but not as much, and makes distant objects fade into a cloudy-white colour. The fogging I find particularly impressive. The other weather effects aren't too amazing - snow is quite good and moves correctly in relation to the speed you travel at, however rain is very poor and hinders your vision a lot more than it should do.

Sound - 9/10

Sound is another impressive part of this game. There are very few musical tracks and they're all played during menu sequences, but they are quite catchy and listenable. The sound really comes into its own during the race though - The engine sound is great and the gear-changing sound is quite realistic. The surface sounds are also quite impressive - sliding over snow really does sound like sliding over snow, and similarly for other surfaces (dirt, gravel, tarmac (asphalt), etc.)

Gameplay - 9/10

This is the important bit - and the game really doesn't fail to impress here. Let me address one of the main issues that has been leveled at this game - and this is the ease. This game does indeed start of easy - but play a few more rallys and time-trials and you'll come to realise that the game actually adopts your best-time settings for use in the rally mode. Obviously, this makes the game progressively harder and drives you to improve. Soon you find that the car settings that apparently have no difference, actually do have quite a major difference to your performance and will let you get the extra half a second or so you need to beat your previous time. This works the same way as F-Zero: Maximum Velocity - Once you've clocked the game and realised all the computer players' weaknesses, you could say that it becomes easy; but the real fun and challenge in the game is to improve your own scores and challenge friends.
One complaint I have is about the Time Trial mode. On the plus side, it stores your times for every track, including the times between checkpoints. On the negative side, the only way to view these times is to actually race the track! The ghost that it stores is also fairly lackluster, but does the job. I would have appreciated a special time-trial only track, as in F-Zero with a replay function. However, the time trial still beats a lot of the other racers on the GBA and is very fully-featured, allowing you to play every track in the game, forwards and backwards.
The only truly bad bit about the game play is the collision detection between cars in Rally Cross mode. It is truly awful - computers aren't affected by you hitting their car or them hitting your car - however, you slow down to an almost halt. This is incredibly frustrating as you can imagine. It makes it very hard to pass them and until you establish a fair lead, it's very easy for the computer to just come up behind you, brush you and stop you in your tracks. However, the Rally Cross mode is obviously not a large part of the game and the collision detection is much-improved between player-controlled cars.

Linkplay - 7/10

This is one area where the game disappoints slightly. The link-play works, however I really don't understand the presence of the computer-cars in the Rally Cross mode and the game appears to run slower as well. I only got to try 2-player link-up, so perhaps the 4-player is a bit better.

Overall - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/02, Updated 06/20/02