A winner title for this fall? After taking a testdrive, I must say it certainly looks that way! Right off the bat, they've taken a fresh approach to realism: If you miss the turn and plunge into the lake, you're history! Yep, dead, gone, wasted, Game Over. Which shouldn't be to hard to accept, since you've ruined your chance to win anyway.
Another unique feature is the approach to steering. Just using the D-pad left or right very gently steers your car left or right. To get around the sharp corners you add R2/L2. Of course, playing any racing game using the D-pad really isn't very cool, so I quickly switched to my trusted NeGcon. Excellent!
You've got no less than 40 vehicles to choose from, including beach buggies and Indy cars. You'll need them too, since the race covers three main type of races: Dakar, Sports and Buggy Offroad. The race locations are: Scottish Highlands, Swiss Alps, Egypt, Polynesia, Moscow and Hong Kong. Vastly different, all lots of fun.
There are four different modes of play, single player, split screen, linked split screen and time attack. Yep, four player action if you got the Combat Cable. All in all this is a worthy contender this fall. "Car and Driver, the #1 automotive magazine, will consult on the look, feel and handling of the automobiles to ensure the accuracy and realism of the game." Hey, sounds good to me!
