"First of all, you'll be frustrated, hurt, maybe even angry. After the first few problems you may want to give up on them all together. But......" he said, with a crafty smile breaking out across his wrinkled old face, "but.....once you've got to grips with them, they can be fantastic!
And you know what? He was right. Only I'm talking about the vastly superior experience of Sega Rally. Good old dad, he knew that to really get the best out of something, you have to perservere, and surely he would have shaken his head in disbelief at those who complained that Rally was hard to handle. Tip: Try playing the game for more than 5 minutes before deciding you don't like it.
Anyway, standard review procedure 12000673.5 subsection (b), dictates that now we talk about the graphics. Wow. We can only gaze in wonder at our crystal balls and say "What if....". What I mean is, what if Sega Rally had been available at the Saturn's launch? The texturing on the roads, hedges, trees, Zebras and Elephants, just whizzes past so quickly, and in such a fantastic blaze of colour, that surely all the talk of the Saturn not having the power of the Playstation would never have arisen.
But we all know the stick the Saturn had to take, so it was even more pleasing to see what a good job had been made of scaling down the bells and whistles of the incredible coin-op.
If you're rich or stupid, then you probably own one of the Arcade Racer steering wheels. However, most normal people don't, so it's a good job that the game responds so well to the Saturn pad, with every corner needing you to to lovingly tap and nudge away at the steering, to avoid digging your wheels in and sending your car sliding at right angles into the woods. The depth of the control really is amazing. You really can feel the exact moment that the back will flip out, and once you've spent time learning the track layouts, the game really becomes some sort of automobile-dance, as you delicately weave and slide your way around the courses.
Now the big question is: Is it better than Daytona? Well, it certainly looks better, but, well, in my humble opinion, Daytona just has a better style and feel, and of course the tunes! But that's down to you. Rally is the dangerous, gorgeous blonde, that your father warned you about, Daytona is the slightly older brunette with the nice personality.
What do you want? Fifteen minutes of passion with the blonde? Or staying up all night talking with the lovely brunette?
Actually, see the News section, and ignore them both. The new Daytona should be all you've ever dreamed of. And your parents wll approve.
ukr:gary
