Is Test Drive: V-Rally Still Good?
Test Drive: V-Rally is the second in a trilogy of rally racing games from Eden Studios.
Like the first game, it went by a number of different names depending on the platform,
publisher, and country of release.
For the North American PlayStation it was Need for Speed: V-Rally 2, as it was published
by Electronic Arts.
In Europe, the PlayStation version is called V-Rally 2: Championship Edition.
The Windows version added some additional content and was released as V-Rally 2: Expert
Edition, which was the same name used for the European Dreamcast release.
Finally, the North America Dreamcast port is known as Test Drive: V-Rally.
Despite the lackluster Test Drive license, the game was actually met with critical acclaim.
IGN scored the game a 9 out of 10 stating, "Whether you're a rally fan, or not, this
game is a must-have racer for any Dreamcast owner."
GameSpot agreed giving the game an 8.9 out of 10 noting, "It's an inviting, fast-paced,
technical rally game that offers enough replay value and features to satiate any racing audience."
Finally, CNET scored the game an 8 out of 10 proclaiming, "Though crappy brakes take
away some of the game's drivability, the superb graphics and special effects still offer a
winning combination for Dreamcast off-road enthusiasts."
So, is Test Drive: V-Rally Still this good?
Let's dive in.
Test Drive: V-Rally starts with a driver creation tool that acts like a save slot and keeps
track of the player's progress including total miles driven, hours played, and a point tally.
After this a car selection screen is provided, allowing the player to start with a slow 1.6L
Kit Car, a 2.0L Kit Car, or dive right into the World Rally cars, based on the 1999 roster.
The game doesn't care which you select, and will adjust the competition to match the car
level chosen.
After making a selection, the player can partake in one of four modes: Time Trial, Arcade,
Trophy, and Championship.
For this review I am going to skip the Time Trial and focus on the meat of the game, the
other three modes.
Arcade mode is typical of the time, pitting the player against three opponents on a multi-lap
race.
The goal of the mode is to pass through checkpoints before the timer runs out.
As best as I can tell, winning is not actually required.
Curiously, the countdown timer is hiding in the corner of the screen, rather than being
front and center like a normal arcade racer.
Still, quibbles aside Test Drive: V-Rally leaves a nice first impression.
The controls are great.
Even using a car from the slowest group, the sense of speed is convincing and it won't
take long before your drifting around bends like a pro.
The controls are forgiving, allowing the player to scrape walls or go off course, and brakes
are not necessary except for the most extreme corners.
Even flipping over isn't a huge deal, with the game resetting the car with haste.
Test Drive: V-Rally definitely leans on the arcade side, rather than simulation.
The forgiving nature makes it easy for beginners to come to grips with the controls, and allows
more advanced racers to drive more aggressively.
After racing through the 6 stages, clearing every checkpoint before time runs out, the
next challenge is unlocked, a Level II rally, and a bonus car is unlocked.
The new rally gives a nice sense of progression and the bonus car offers a nice reward for
the effort.
The Level II rally offers an increase in difficulty as well as an increased number of stages,
eight instead of six.
The difficulty arises from the increased pace of the opponent drivers, who make fewer mistakes
and are just generally quicker.
It's also possible the tracks are more challenging as well, but if I'm honest I really didn't
notice them demanding more technical expertise.
It's also at this point I did notice a few trends with the artificial intelligence.
Sometimes they were incredibly slow allowing for easy victories, and other times they were
insanely fast, especially on pavement, making victory virtually impossible.
I should also note the final stage of the Level II rally was brutal, with insane time
limits on the checkpoints.
One error was enough to ruin a run, and it took me five credits, or continues, to complete
the event.
These credits are limited as well, and failure will result in having to start over from the
first stage.
But of course winning unlocks the final Expert rally, and another car.
But before moving onto Expert, let's move onto the Trophy Mode.
Like the arcade mode, Trophy mode features a trio of competitors on the course; however
the goal of the event is different.
In this mode, it's all about finishing in the least amount of time and there are no
checkpoints.
This means if you are in the lead, you'll want to try and extend that lead as far as
possible.
Alternatively, if in second place and having problems passing, finishing just behind first
place doesn't really punish the player.
It's a subtle change for sure, but having to worry about total time rather than a countdown
certainly changes a racer's priorities and I welcome the altered strategies.
Like arcade mode, Trophy has a trio of rallies to compete in, with only one initially available.
The European rally isn't too difficult and most players should breeze through it without
much fuss.
The World rally on the other hand, can be tough depending on your chosen car.
Using one of the 2.0L cars for example, I ended up second after the dust settled, an
incredibly disappointing result and a waste of an hour of playtime.
On my second go-around, I opted for the Lancer Evolution World Rally Car and had a much easier
time securing victory with a few seconds to spare.
Finally, there is Championship mode.
Here, each leg of the championship is divided into two stages, and the total time after
the stages is used for calculating championship points.
To win the championship, the player needs to have the most championship points at the
end of the rally.
Again European is easy, and the World rally is a bit more challenging.
As you've probably noticed from the footage, V-Rally 2 features damage.
Headlights and taillights well get smashed, and body panels can be dented and crushed.
Even cooler, the cars get dirty as a race progresses, or even snow-covered on the cold-weathered
courses.
While not ground-breaking in 2017, damage wasn't nearly as common in the year 2000 and
was definitely a stand-out feature upon release.
However in Championship mode, the damage actually matters, rather than being merely cosmetic.
In the upper right hand corner of the screen are icons representing various systems of
the rally car.
When the player collides with obstacles or ventures off course, different parts will
start to sustain damage which negatively impacts handling and speed.
A loss of suspension would make driving up hills very slow, and losing steering would
make turning nearly impossible.
Needless to say, a 12 second lead would evaporate awfully quickly as I watched the car bounce
from wall to wall with no grip left.
The artificial intelligence also begins to crumble.
For example, in the first stage of the French Alps, I decimated my opponents by around 30
seconds.
However, in stage two, I lost by a staggering 15.
These two courses are in the same event, and there is virtually no reason there should
be a 45 second swing between the two stages.
At this point in Test Drive: V-Rally, 6 of the 9 main rallies have been completed and
6 of the 10 bonus cars have been unlocked.
So with that, there are just the three expert rallies needing to be completed.
Up until this point, Test Drive: V-Rally presents a pretty fair challenge.
I might have failed now and again, but generally speaking one can select their favorite car
and with enough skill, be successful.
In Expert mode however, this is not the case.
The checkpoints in the Arcade Expert Rally are nearly impossible with many cars in the
game, and I tried a ton of different cars.
However, I was finally able to find success with the Toyota Celica GT4 bonus car.
It seems the timer was designed with the World Rally cars in mind, and the Celica offered
just enough advantage to make it through all 8 stages.
Still, the French Alps and Indonesia stages are absolutely brutal, and I had to restart
the entire mode over quite a few times after running out of credits.
I'm all for a tough racing challenge, but Test Drive: V-Rally seems to demand near perfection,
and I found it to be quite frustrating.
In Trophy mode, the Expert rally is a bit more tame.
Using the Audi Quattro bonus car seemed to offer the best advantage.
On many courses I was able to crush the competition and build up a nice lead, giving myself a
cushion for the courses where the Artificial Intelligence was much more unfair.
Finally, there is the Expert rally in the Championship mode.
I attempted to complete this using the Peugeot 205 but after a few stages it became clear
this was not the appropriate car.
So I went back to the trusty Celica.
The problems I previously referenced in lesser championships remain.
The A.I.
seemed to be pretty awful on some courses, and ridiculously fast on others.
And despite my best efforts to not run into anything, I still found myself sustaining
a ton of damage halfway through the race, and watch whatever lead I had evaporate, as
the opponents don’t seem to sustain damage.
Still, after grinding through the 2 hour, 12 country rally, with 3 stages each, I managed
to win the Championship by a mere two points, despite having a worse overall time.
With the final rally completed the 9th car is unlocked, meaning there is just one to
go.
The final car is actually awarded for obtaining 10 thousand points for the driver created
at the beginning of the game.
For me, this happened naturally, and I was given the 10th and final bonus car right after
completing the game.
Graphically, Test Drive: V-Rally is a good looking game.
For starters, I have to talk about the frame rate.
For the most part it remains a silky smooth 60 frames per second.
It will dip if there are multiple opponents on the screen and especially in replays where
there are dirt or snow effects.
The frame rate drops aren't a deal breaker, but the slowdown can be somewhat distracting.
The texture work is also well above average, most of the time.
Occasionally roadside terrain textures are of the low-res variety and stand out.
The wet Indonesia road surface is also laughable, hardly resembling mud and looking extremely
fake.
Still, these texture issues are rare and generally speaking, the quality is easily on par with
the midrange offerings on contemporary consoles.
I'm not saying it can compare with top-tier late-release offerings on those systems, but
you certainly wouldn't confuse Test Drive: V-Rally for an N64 game.
Finally, the polygon count and level geometry is above average.
Each car looks distinct, round items like wheel wells, bonnets, and tail pipes all look
round rather than polygonal.
Most impressive for me is the foliage.
The jungle and forest areas look dense and realistic, rather than looking like some low-resolution
billboards.
In fact, at times Test Drive: V-Rally is a breathtaking game, with bright visuals that
pop, an insane sensation of speed, and a truly next-gen level of detail.
When compared to the first V-Rally game on the PlayStation, it's easy to see what a massive
leap forward the 6th generation consoles were over the 5th generation.
I must also give the developers kudos for including a genuine 16x9 anamorphic widescreen
option.
This feature was somewhat rare back in 2000, but the fact the 480p image can be stretched
to fill a modern display is awesome.
The audio is top notch as well.
The engine notes sound terrific with a realistic mechanical hum, and there are plenty of little
touches like shifting sounds, and turbo whine.
When a pack of cars are on the screen, it becomes even more impressive, with a symphony
of high-tech engine sounds.
There really is nothing to complain about here and the audio holds up remarkably well.
The soundtrack on the other hand, is just ok.
It's a licensed track from a metal band called SIN.
Despite scouring the Internet for information on their music, I could not find record of
any band going by this name in the year 2000.
The credits don't list the artist's name or record label either, so it's possible Eden
Studios just used a local or even house band to create the tracks.
In any case, it serves the purpose of intense background music, but I couldn't imagine listening
to it outside the game.
Your tastes may vary of course, and if this is in fact some famous act, I apologize for
not giving them their dues.
So, with all of that out of the way we arrive back to the question asked at the beginning
of the video, is Test Drive: V-Rally still good?
First, I have to give credit where credit is due.
Test Drive: V-Rally leaves a terrific first impression and the smooth steering and flashy
graphics do an awesome job drawing the player into the game.
Even better, the controls are, well, great.
I'm a fan of all racing games from serious simulations to full on arcade games, and I
had no problem quickly adapting to the arcade physics presented in Test Drive: V-Rally.
I really enjoy how the front tires seem to actually steer the front end of the car, taking
the guess work out of corner entry.
Better still, I loved how gentle throttle inputs allow the player to steer the rally
cars from the rear during power-slides.
It feels awesome and Test Drive: V-Rally features some of the smoothest drifting mechanics this
side of Ridge Racer.
I also enjoy the structure of the game.
The checkpoints in the Arcade mode, time focus of Trophy Mode, and point system of Championship
mode offer a sufficient change in strategies making the game's massive amount of content
worthwhile without feeling repetitive or wearing out its welcome.
The progressions and reward systems are also solid, slowly unlocking new challenges, and
using bonus cars to compete in the newly unlocked challenges offers a nice carrot to striving
for success.
Test Drive: V-Rally does a wonderful job improving on the mishaps of the first V-Rally and compares
favorably to racers of the time.
However, while V-Rally makes a great first impression and is all-around a competent game,
it has some flaws.
The first problem is the Artificial Intelligence, which is bad.
About halfway through my playthrough it became obvious there is nothing intelligent about
it, opposing cars follow a predetermined path.
As you can see here, two opponents are chasing each-other lock-step without missing a beat.
In another example, I watched the A.I.
opponent flip over a turn in the exact same fashion on all three laps of a stage.
It's hard to feel immersed in the racing world when it's painfully obvious you are racing
a rigid computer program.
And I think this has to do with the courses.
In all honesty, it doesn't feel like much thought was put into these, whatsoever.
That poor A.I.
drone flipping in the same spot lap after lap is a metaphor for what it's like through
many of the game's courses.
Like V-Rally 1, in V-Rally 2 the cars still seem to lack a sense of weight.
This means they like to flip over.
A lot.
The first flip is the forward flip.
Go too fast over a jump, and the nose dives forward, with the rear racing past.
Sometimes this can be avoided with a little common sense, and other times it's like the
tracks contain a little carpet monster, waiting to trip the player.
Side flips can also be prevalent at times, though not as annoying.
For one, the player can see turns coming, and brake appropriately, which is nice.
Still, often times the area outside of the road surface is still very drivable, allowing
player to take turns quicker.
And then every once and awhile there is a bump or a dip waiting to flip the car.
Some of these issues could be avoided if the co-pilot was, well, useful.
Like, it would be nice if he told me there was a jump coming.
But never in the eleven hours I played this game, did he ever bother to warn me of such
danger.
I've played quite a few rally games in my day, and this is the only one missing this
mandatory necessity.
This again leads me to the track design, and the lack thereof.
It almost feels like a basic track tool was used, where a track designer could quickly
move around a ribbon to create turns and elevation changes, and then let the game engine procedurally
fill in the rest.
Thanks to such a basic tool, perhaps the tracks weren't tested enough, to identify issues
where the elevation changes don't quite match the turns that cause the player to flip.
And because everything was done procedurally rather than by hand, the automated script
creating the co-pilot instructions wasn't tweaked creating strange delays and brutal
omissions needed to help a player be successful.
Maybe I'm wrong, but there isn't a single track I found to be memorable or thoughtful.
It's just a bunch of generic left and right handers, filled with unfair elevation changes.
This brings us to the track editor.
Here, the player can quickly place track pieces, and then use tools to tweak the turns and
elevation heights.
After creating the road, the game fills in everything else, like road side items and
co-pilot instructions, procedurally.
The tool was so easy to use, I could quickly test my track and identify trouble points,
and then alter a hill to prevent flips, and tweak turns that didn’t flow right.
If I could do it, then you know the game designers could.
My final issue is the hairpin turns.
If the cars gets too far sideways, the engine cuts off leaving the player with no power,
and the camera gets a little spazzy.
The lack of power to get through the turn, and weird camera, make any track with an abundance
of hairpins, a real pain.
For me, racing games need a few key ingredients to achieve greatness.
Car handling needs to be responsive and consistent, and these cars need tracks designed around
the strengths and limitations and said machine.
Tracks should have a nice flow, requiring a mix of technical skill and quick reflexes,
but should also make sense where the player is given a set of rules they can count on
when making their way through the bends.
Test Drive: V-Rally fails miserably at the latter.
Not only are many lacking any sort of thought or logic, the elevation changes often trick
the player, causing cars to flip, and forcing the player to lose an hour of progress as
they restart a rally over.
While the questionable track design may have been overlooked in 2000 thanks to the responsive
controls and impressive visuals, in 2017 the flaws are much, much harder to overlook.
Test Drive: V-Rally could have been an amazing game if someone would have gone through the
courses and manually tweaked the flaws.
Still, it isn't all bad.
The snow courses in particular can be downright amazing.
The lack of phantom bumps and the awesome drift mechanics make racing through the bends
an absolute treat and I always looked forward to these stages.
Other tracks are certainly more benign as well, lacking anything truly amazing, but
also lacking in anything frustrating.
But a few of the courses really do drag down the overall experience.
So, while I would still consider Test Drive: V-Rally a good game, in my opinion, it is
far from great.
When the game shines; it shines brightly with a sensational sense of speed and unrivaled
sense of control.
I just wish the same level of detail and polish was put into all aspects of the game.
If you're looking for a fun way to spend an afternoon, Test Drive: V-Rally certainly fits
the bill, though completing the game might test your patience.
If you're looking for a rally game that has withstood the test of time, Test Drive: V-Rally
falls a little short.