Sega Rally Online Arcade Review

By Mark Brown Published 19 May, 2011

Mud pressure.

Version tested: Xbox 360

No game has issued that nostalgia-shattering comedown as forcibly as the original Sega Rally.

My dad, brother and I absolutely adored the game. We loved it in the dingy arcades of Bournemouth's piers and we played it to death on the Sega Saturn. My brother dreamed of one day buying a Toyota Celica, just because it was the coolest car in the game.

We especially loved all the iconic voice-overs and catchphrases, like "Game Over Yeeeah" and "Long easy left" and "Gentlemen, start your engines". Actually, that last one might have blared out from a nearby Daytona USA cabinet, come to think of it. Funny how nostalgia clouds your mind.

So when I was a little older and on a game-collecting kick, I bought a dusty Saturn from some car boot sale and picked up a tattered copy of Sega Rally from Gamestation. My dad and I slotted the disc in, figured out how to receive a SCART signal on an HDTV and grabbed the two pads for a race.

1

After this and the oh-so-excellent OutRun, let's have Daytona Online Arcade, yeah?

Imagine our slack-jawed dismay when the game turned out to be absolutely nothing like we remembered. We had misty, nostalgic visions of delicious tropical tracks and sexy cars churning up mud and tarmac. What we found was a blocky, pixelated blur of stretched textures and excessive pop-up; a game that sort of resembled a racer if you squinted, and made you throw up if you didn't.

Sega Rally Online Arcade, on the other hand, is exactly how we remembered it. The bonus classic mode, which pits a Toyota Celica against a Lancia Delta on the first game's dusty desert track, but with spiffy new graphics and modern handling, is like playing an artificial memory, synthetically wired to meet our impossible nostalgia.

The gorgeous, high-contrast visuals are ripped straight from the 2007 Sega Rally (known Sega Rally Revo in the US), a boisterous and noisy mud-churning rally favourite. It paints the lush landscapes in a vibrant palette of primary Sega colours - skies splashed in Sonic blue, race car bodywork gleaming with OutRun red and an overbearing sun spraying out Crazy Taxi yellow.

2

The five tracks run the gauntlet from the snowy Alpine to the garish Tropical.

And, of course, the tracks are littered with little flourishes and cute sights to remind you that you're definitely playing a Sega game, and not some po-faced WRC sim or Xtreeeme DiRT sequel. There's a space shuttle shooting off into orbit here and a formation of jets there. A few hot air balloons. A hang-glider. A yak.

On the other hand, the twitchy controls are borrowed from the arcade-only and gleefully retro Sega Rally 3. The cars dart and turn with little regard for nuisances like friction, gravity and physics, and you can fling your car into corners and over jumps with reckless abandon and a foolhardy neglect for your bodywork.

You can tackle just about every corner with the same winning strategy. Fire towards a sharp bend at full tilt, let off the gas as you careen into the apex, swing your tail out wide and floor the pedal to rocket out of the turn unscathed. A wicked Ridge Racer-style drift will hold your hand around the hairiest bends and the bouncy bumpers on every surface will give you a gentle nudge back on track if you fluff it up.

SEGA Rally Online Arcade - first 15 minutes.

The two source games, Sega Rally 3 and Revo, were built in tandem at Solihull's now-shuttered Sega Racing Studio, but came out as different games for different audiences. One was a punchy arcade pick-up-and-play distraction designed to gobble 50p pieces, the other was a dirt-rally epic for the console crowd. In Online Arcade, they're mashed together as firmly as an off-road tyre and sodden mud.

But a lot has been lost in this messy mash-up and the transition to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. For one, the ground-churning track deformation has been seriously dialled back, meaning no more soggy mud gulches carved out by too many tyres. It's no big loss, though: it wouldn't have fit Online Arcade's mantra of retro purity.

Some other holes are far more noticeable. The XBLA game (costing 800 Microsoft Points) doesn't have a traditional career mode: no sprawling tree of events and tournaments and no garage of slowly unlocked motors. Instead, you get a bare-bones "Championship" mode to beat. In this four-track event you wrestle your way to the front of a 22-car pack over three different maps, and then go head-to-head in a painfully difficult deathmatch against a near-unbeatable nemesis.

3

Online Arcade has local multiplayer for elbow-rubbing races.

There are also one-off quick races and the aforementioned classic mode. Plus there's the lonesome time trial mode, where you can race against Sega staffers or download a best-time ghost from any player or buddy on Xbox Live. That's it for single-player.

As the name might suggest, Online Arcade's true focus is the internet. Unfortunately, the match-finding menus are unintuitive and a trifle broken, and it'll often try to plop you in a half-finished race before booting you straight back out to the menu. But when the stars are aligned and an online game actually loads, Sega Rally shines bright.

The punchy, short tracks lend themselves well to jump-in races and no one gets stranded at the back of the pack for long. Most events have a neck-and-neck pack of warring rally motors which crumbles into disarray on one sharp bend, as the best racers jet on and the less attentive drivers pick up the pieces.

4

Crushingly, the game only carries one track from 1995's Sega Rally Championship.

So it's just a shame that Online Arcade suffers from such a crushing lack of content. There are a piddling five tracks to tear up: one from Sega Rally Championship, and four that were shared between the two most recent games. There are a fair few cars to drive and unlock, but no liveries or options to customise them. 60 frames per second would have been nice too, if we're just listing stuff now.

Sega Rally Online Arcade is balls-to-the-wall, old-school fun that tugs at your nostalgia strings with deadly precision - even if you have moved on and stumped for a boxy green Peugeot 205 instead of a Toyota Celica.

If you don't have fond memories of the arcade cabinet or Saturn game, it's still a truly feisty little racer that looks great and handles well. Tearing up dirt tracks with indestructible rally cars is enormous fun, and this XBLA title delivers those thrills in their purest, most undiluted form. It's just a shame that there's so very little of it.

8 / 10

Sega Rally Online Arcade is available now on XBLA. A PSN release is also planned.

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
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About Mark Brown

Read more articles from Mark by visiting the Mark Brown archive page.

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Comments (66) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #1 1 year ago

    Yeah, that's right. 8/10. Go on, do your worst.

  • lucky_jim #2 1 year ago

    Is 8/10 the new 7/10? Bloody inflation.

  • Beano #3 1 year ago

    Another "safe 8".

  • CaptainQuint #4 1 year ago

    A tongue-in-cheek admission of fence-sitting doesn't give you a pass, EG.

    ;)

  • Progguitarist #5 1 year ago

    8/10? Must mean the online bits are completely broken.

  • Syrette #6 1 year ago

    I would be tempted were it not for Dirt 3 coming out next Tuesday.

  • Shadders #7 1 year ago

    This sounds AMAZING!!

  • dr_zoidthrob #8 1 year ago

    Shame the original artists get no mention*at all* in the credits...

  • Subdominator #9 1 year ago

    8/10 sounds about right. I played through the game yesterday for a 200/200 and had quite some fun with it. However having played Sega Rally Revo for weeks and months I don't see the big difference in car handling. I just played it exactly as Revo and only felt a minor difference. It's even more responsive but the cars themselves feel exactly the same. Maybe because they are straight from Revo.

    The lack of tracks is annoying, especially considering that you can get Revo new for 5 pounds nowadays. With about three times the content. I wonder why they didn't just use Revo's tracks with SR3's physics.

    I couldn't find a difference in the geodeformation either. It's totally the same as in Revo, you only feel that there is less because you don't drive as llong on a track for the deformation to really affect the racing. But you still get some tenth of a second in the third lap just because you can take turns faster and tighter with the additional grip.

    Nice game, but I really wonder how anybody can not like Revo and then pretend that Online Arcade is so much better. They are both good games.

  • BBIAJ #10 1 year ago

    Surely both the Desert and Lakeside tracks are from the original SEGA Rally Championship?

    Agreed, SRS should not go uncredited!

  • BBIAJ #11 1 year ago

    @Subdominator:

    The track deformation is a lot more pronounced in "Revo", and affects the car's handling to a higher degree than in SROA.

  • wizlon #12 1 year ago

    Hoping this will be discounted slightly for PS+ members, looks great.

  • TruWari3r #13 1 year ago

    @foreverafternothing
    same here, I loved sega rally but with Dirt 3 coming next week I know where I'll be getting my fix.

    I absolutely love this trailer

  • HSH25 #14 1 year ago

    Just because its not that clear in the review.

    The tracks are taken from the Sega Rally 3 arcade game, not Sega Rally (Revo). It uses the same art assets and in fact sections taken from the retail Sega Rally, but they are actually different tracks. The reason the game has 5 tracks is that the arcade machine has 5 tracks.

    Also on the subject of the original Sega Rally, though some love the Saturn version, what people should really try and get their hands on is the PS2 port of the Arcade game, it was only released in Japan (as a bonus disc to the awful Sega Rally 2006), its pretty much a perfect port, runs at a decent resolution and doesn't have any of the issues mentioned in the review that the Saturn version had...of course its still a 16 year old game, but its well worth playing if you can find it. In fact it really should have been included as a bonus with this.

  • sonicyoda #15 1 year ago

    I think you've misunderstood the purpose of this. Like Outrun Online Arcade, it's simply an online enabled port of the arcade game, not a mash-up of 3 and Revo. Therefore, it was never going to offer a Career mode because there isn't one in the arcade version. If you want a Career mode, go and play Revo. You bloody well should too because it's been the best arcade racer this generation.

  • rockin_rob_1 #16 1 year ago

    WANT!

    The last one was great, no nonsense classic arcade racing.

  • SpookyTang #17 1 year ago

    Loved the last Sega Rally (Revo) and having major fun with this. It does lack content but you used to pay 40 quid for games like this on the Saturn. Taking it online this weekend so if anybody wants to add me then my tag is Tangi3r.

    EDIT - Sega please remake Daytona and i would even pay 1200MSP for that !!
    Edited by SpookyTang at 19/05/11 @ 12:06

  • Subdominator #18 1 year ago

    @sonicyoda No, it is a mashup. They couldn't use the cars anymore due to licensing problems, so they took those from Sega Rally Revo.

  • spongebob #19 1 year ago

    EG, come on, register Eightoutoftengamer.net now when it's still available :)

  • Eldritch #20 1 year ago

    "a Toyota Celica, just because it was the coolest car in the game."

    The Celica cleans the Stratos' loo by a mile.

  • basiclee #21 1 year ago

    It may basically just be the 360 game rehashed a bit but I'm still enjoying it. Having so few tracks makes you really focus on becoming ridiculously good at them and online races become a game of who can drive 3 practically flawless laps which really makes things exciting in my eyes.

  • Jonny5Alive7 #22 1 year ago

    This actually sounds like an 8/10 review as supposed to other ones on here recently. ::cough:: Brink ::cough::

  • bigtechno #23 1 year ago

    it's only 800 points but why buy it when i have Sega Rally (revo)

  • PixelPirate #24 1 year ago

    Some other holes are far more noticeable. The XBLA game (costing 800 Microsoft Points) doesn't have a traditional career mode: no sprawling tree of events and tournaments and no garage of slowly unlocked motors. Instead, you get a bare-bones "Championship" mode to beat. In this four-track event you wrestle your way to the front of a 22-car pack over three different maps, and then go head-to-head in a painfully difficult deathmatch against a near-unbeatable nemesis.

    So does the PSN version have the career mode?

    Its not clear from this statement if its missing from the XBLA versions and *not* the PSN one. Or if it simply isnt included in either.

    Edit: Ask a question, get negged? Awesome. Thanks for the response below clearing up my question.
    Edited by PixelPirate at 20/05/11 @ 08:32

  • jablonski #25 1 year ago

    Is giving 8/10 to absolutely everything a sly way of removing scores from the end of reviews?

    People feel compelled to actually read the review now, as we no longer no right from wrong anymore

  • PixelPirate #26 1 year ago

    Yeah, that's right. 8/10. Go on, do your worst.

    Eur8gamer ?

  • Collymilad #27 1 year ago

    Lol. Revo the best arcade racer of this gen.

    Next joke plz.

  • jonsaan #28 1 year ago

    This trend for skimping on single player content absolutely dismays me frankly.
    Edited by jonsaan at 19/05/11 @ 12:47

  • RobotRocker #29 1 year ago

    Surely you brother meant the Lancia Delta. :)

    OUT. OUT VILE BLASPHEMER

    ALL HAIL THE STRATOS. STRATOS IS LIFE.

    Yeah, that's right. 8/10. Go on, do your worst.

    But is it as good as Halo?

  • JodSUMO #30 1 year ago

    @PixelPirate - The PS3 version is the same as the 360 version.

    I'm glad that some people realise that this is basically a port of Sega Rally 3. The cars are different because SROA lacks the WRC license, but the handling has been taken from the SR3 cars. Some elements of Revo made it in, such as the replays and the vehicle models, but the courses are from Sega Rally 3. They're based on Revo courses (Except Desert '95), but have been prettied up and made more interesting.

  • monkeyspasm #31 1 year ago

    Fluffy - bit harsh, a lot of the best racing games are 30fps.

    The PGR games being one example, also Dirt 2, F1 2010 at the other end of the realism scale being another.

    Rock steady 30fps is fine, when games drop from 60 to 30 it's worse.

    We need a new gen on consoles to get a steady 60fps with a reasonable quality of visuals on fast paced games.
    Edited by monkeyspasm at 19/05/11 @ 12:56

  • Zerobob #32 1 year ago

    Wow an old Sega racing game is as good as L.A. Noire. Nice.

    I have fond memories of Sega Rally 2 in the arcade and on my Dreamcast. Such a superb handling model.

  • beatwolf #33 1 year ago

    Did it occur to any of you fools that all the 8's are given because the games are actually worth it??? By they way, brilliant review.

    EDIT: Must be big rally day, Dirt 3 just shipped from shopto :)
    Edited by beatwolf at 19/05/11 @ 13:20

  • sheldipez #34 1 year ago

    I've been playing this all morning; I'm not worlds best SR player but It's well worth the few quid.

    mmmmmm sega blue skies

  • gribb #35 1 year ago

    Relevant - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKHwtuwv7Ug

  • liveinabin #36 1 year ago

    Downloaded it yesterday. The snow level is worth the price of admission alone. I think the 'lack of stuff' is the strength. Arcade racers lately have suffered from too many tweaks and options, even Ridge Racer 7 had all that stupid customization and boost types.
    I just want to go fast round a brightly coloured track. There are so few games that just let you do that now.

  • StolenGlory #37 1 year ago

    "Fucking retards, no wonder games are getting so shit if people lap up these 30fps arsewipe games"

    Honestly mate, you can stop the FPS trolling now. Go load up F-Zero GX or something.

  • monkeyspasm #38 1 year ago

    '[...]I think the 'lack of stuff' is the strength. Arcade racers lately have suffered from too many tweaks and options, even Ridge Racer 7 had all that stupid customization and boost types.
    I just want to go fast round a brightly coloured track. There are so few games that just let you do that now.'

    liveinabin has it right, absolutely spot on. My thoughts exactly. Focused, fast and fun.

  • Eldritch #39 1 year ago

    @gribb

    [link url=http://videosift.com/video/Lancia-Stratos-Rally-Porn
    ]http://videosift.com/video/Lancia-Strato...[/link]

    Best URL ever.

  • Nipples #40 1 year ago

    Well, I've just had a massive grin on my face since downloading this yesterday. Sega Rally....ONLINE!! My life is almost complete...

  • flaming.carrot #41 1 year ago

    I used to own one of those Celica's, not so great to own when it needed a new clutch.
    Edited by flaming.carrot at 19/05/11 @ 13:30

  • Fatnick #42 1 year ago

    What we found was a blocky, pixelated blur of stretched textures and excessive pop-up; a game that sort of resembled a racer if you squinted, and made you throw up if you didn't.

    To be fair, its worth pointing out that Saturn Sega Rally dated from a period when console versions rarely came close to the originals. It wouldn't look like Sega Rally 3, but i'd wager you'd have been much more impressed with the original arcade version (no that Sega will ever port any of their old arcade stuff. It's like they dont want our money or something)

  • Mattattattatt #43 1 year ago

    Getting bought! Sega Rally was one of my favourite Dreamcast games.

  • carlitoswagon #44 1 year ago

    A little more imagin8tion with your scores. My m8te bought 8rink after your review and wasn't happy.

  • Snooz #45 1 year ago

    Hello?! Is there a millionaire in the house?! Somebody needs to buy the Richard Burns Rally code and make a new quality rally sim.

  • linksdad #46 1 year ago

    Funnily enough I dusted off Sega Rally at the weekend and have been playing all week. I gave it an hour or two when it first came out and moved onto other things. I didnt realise just how a)good and b)challenging it was and how fair the AI are during a race.
    Looks like I've got the better game, shame there are no on liners for it anymore - perhaps this will tease em out of the woodwork.

  • SandyMcD #47 1 year ago

    "unintuitive and a trifle broken"

    "it'll often try to plop you in a half-finished race before booting you straight back out to the menu"

    "Crushingly, the game only carries one track from 1995's Sega Rally Championship."

    "a crushing lack of content"


    8/10

    I think it's time Eurogamer stopped giving scores at the end of reviews.

  • beatwolf #48 1 year ago

    Or maybe its time readers read the whole text through and assessed the score in the context of that instead of being overly focused on the negative paragraphs.

  • SandyMcD #49 1 year ago

    I did read the whole text, you jerk.

    Major faults pointed out, plus "You can tackle just about every corner with the same winning strategy" which indicates a lack of variety.

    The lack of consistency in Eurogamer's scoring policy makes a mockery of the review scores.
    Personally I think review scores aren't needed anyway. Perhaps Eurogamer could man up and omit them entirely.

  • Badassbab #50 1 year ago

    I downloaded the demo of Sega Rally Revo just to compare and first of all Revo looks much better (as expected being a full retail released vs a 1. something GB download) and the handling is a lot more slippery.

    My main issues are I really wanted the classic section to have all the tracks from Sega Rally 1. I hope they release a DLC add on for that.
    Edited by Badassbab at 19/05/11 @ 21:59

  • StolenGlory #51 1 year ago

    ""unintuitive and a trifle broken"

    "it'll often try to plop you in a half-finished race before booting you straight back out to the menu"

    "Crushingly, the game only carries one track from 1995's Sega Rally Championship."

    "a crushing lack of content"


    8/10

    I think it's time Eurogamer stopped giving scores at the end of reviews."

    I think it's time Eurogamer stopped crushing things.

  • darc #52 1 year ago

    "A yak."

    :)

  • gamingdave #53 1 year ago

    Shame its not got all 4 courses from the original arcade. Easily my favourite cab of all time.

  • cawley1 #54 1 year ago

    If anyone is looking for the authentic Sega Rally experience, you need to grab the Japanese PS2 release Sega Rally 2006, you get the original 'arcade perfect' version on a second disc in the pack!

    These knock about for £25 on eBay, the biggest problem will be how to play the Japanese PS2 game in the UK!

    Much better than any of these nob updates...

  • metalangel #55 1 year ago

    I had both the Saturn original and the then-new Dreamcast with the sequel in my student house. The Saturn was running almost constantly :)

  • Lucodeath #56 1 year ago

    I have got sega rally for xbox360 at about £6 so I wont be borthering with the online version. I do prefer sega rally 2 an daytona on the dreamcast, Just that I cant plug my dreamcast into av reciever that they dont get used much now.

  • zztopp #57 1 year ago

    Does it run at 60fps? Sega Rally Revo was average looking at best..it didn't have the sharpest textures and the 30fps framerate couldn't match the impact of Sega Rally at the arcades.

  • Yuroko #58 1 year ago

    You moan about lack of content yet any real Sega Rally fan only cares about the desert track. More time was spent on that track alone than any other game on my Saturn.

  • milki-tea #59 1 year ago

    I can't believe how awesome this looks!!!! ahhhh i fucking loved my sega saturn!!!!

  • SonicUk #60 1 year ago

    People seem to think anything below a 7 is crap wheas in reality 5 is an average. I think gaming sites should just not use scores at all and people should go by what the review actually says not by a score at the end of it which in a years time after a staff rethink might be way out anyway. Also bear in mind a review is someones opinion and may not be the same as yours or another persons.

  • Quak #61 1 year ago

    > My brother dreamed of one day buying a Toyota Celica, just because it was the coolest car in the game.

    Surely the Lancia Stratos was the coolest car in the game.

  • Quixz #62 1 year ago

    This game has the worst trail EVER you only get one lap?

  • Bombonera #63 1 year ago

    I had a quick go on the trial of this earlier, and it seems to be the exact same game as Sega Rally, which was released for the 360 in 2007 as a retail title. Cash-ins don't come much more cynical than this.

  • funkateer #64 1 year ago

    Ok, another 8/10. It might or might not be deserved, but people will be bitching about it nevertheless without reading the actual review.

    I think it's time for a change here.
    The dutch MTV's "gamekings.tv" always do video reviews done by 2 people, and they never give a score. Sometimes they don't even agree with each other but they almost always give a well informed and honest review.
    I'm a big fan of that format: It forces people to digest what the reviewers really have to say about the game without just skipping to the score and bitch about a number. Besides, it's a hell of a lot more entertaining for most than just reading 2-3 pages of text.

    Screw Metacritic and their scoring system, let people really know what they want to know and let them make their own decisions.
    EG's reviewers are usually very witty and informative, and some of them participated (imho quite successfully) in video items as presenters already.

  • mrblonde #65 1 year ago

    " If you want a Career mode, go and play Revo. You bloody well should too because it's been the best arcade racer this generation. "


    NAH I found DIRT 2 / 3, PLUS NFS HP / BURNOUT PARADISE, all far superior titles than sega rally. For a fiver 2nd hand these days, its great value though. But if SEGA RALLY were released in todays market at FP only a 5 or 6 OUT 10 imo.

  • FeralYouth #66 1 year ago

    Game is worth a 4 at best.

    Simplified handling (which the kids now call tighter handling I see). Quite frankly bizarre A.I Nevermind the lack of content. Plays like a poor Iphone game.

    Revo was a fantastic game and deserved a nine. Probably still the only true next gen racing game out there, with it track deformation, which isn't even functioning in this game at all. Shame that it got released at the same time as PGR 4

    Truly awful.

    Revo has been removed from games on demand I see. Just in case someone got confused and brought the superior version.

    Least the devs(Sega Racing Studios) of Revo got snapped up by Codemasters for good reason, just in case you want to hate.

    Their influence in Dirt 2 and 3 is clear to see.