Megadrive1988
Veteran
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151147
read the whole thing here
interview with Mark Fisher here
color me impressed!
The introductory part of the presentation in Amsterdam contained comparisons between the old and new SEGA Rally, especially concerning graphical details. For instance: the first SEGA Rally had environments consisting out of 20 000 triangles. Pretty weak in this day and age, but you mustn’t forget that in it’s time (already 12 years ago) these were pretty impressive. Current-gen consoles won’t be easily intimidated by this and plans to provide us with levels built out of 20 million triangles! Furthermore, this new SEGA Rally will include cars with 65 000 polygons each, which should provide us plenty of eye candy. All of this should normally run on a constant 60 frames per second and at 1080p; my hat off to SEGA should they attain this goal in the retail version. We couldn’t actually get any confirmation though whether or not the Xbox 360-version will support the same resolution, but we were assured both versions will look exactly alike in every way.
Let’s follow up with some words about the studio behind the latest iteration of the ever so famous series shall we? SEGA Rally Studio was founded in April 2005 and is located in Solihul, in the rainy West Midlands of the United Kingdom to be precise. Currently, they have about 50 members and most of them (if not all) are ex-employees from other well-known studios. Codemasters, Criterion, Rare and Rockstar North for example. The main purpose of this development company is to offer us next-gen racing games from old and new IP’s and they take their job seriously. Mark Fisher, whom gave us the presentation, assured us that the basement of SEGA Racing Studio is literally filled with arcade cabinets, so that they can look for inspiration at all times if they don’t have an idea where to go next for a while. Perhaps we’ll give some false hope to die-hard fans with our next comment, but what the hell: when asked by other members of the press whether or not the next project of this company will be Daytona USA, we were met with a “maybe”. Mark Fisher also replied with a “who knows!”, when asked if there’ll ever be an arcade version of this new SEGA Rally.
The biggest feature SEGA Racing Studio loves to boast about in this game, are the environments and this for many reasons. For starters: they paid a lot attention to the level designs so that the environments look gorgeous. We only got to take a gander at one sadly, but it was – especially for an older January build – already rather impressive. Said jungle level had some features that other environments could lack, namely large draw distances and big sections of forest. It’s only natural that you won’t find much bystanders in the rainforest, unless you take a bunch of mosquito’s into consideration. But nevertheless, there will be more spectators in fitting locations.
The second reason why environments are so important, is because of the Track Deformation, which will undoubtedly be the most discussed topic whenever SEGA Rally is mentioned. What’s the idea behind this feature? Imagine driving through a sandy track with the ocassional water puddle or two. After a few laps, the entire surface will be changed so drastically, that no round will ever be the same. Creating muddy tire tracks, grinding the top layer, expanding the puddles et al will be possible during the entire race.
Maybe it’s for the best to explain what we saw with a clear example. At the beginning of the jungle level, you start with a hard surface where the tire tracks are hardly visible. When you advance however, the structure of the surface will become less tight and a couple of mud puddles will originate as a result. Drive through these muddy parts of the track and you will create deep tire tracks that not only improve your traction, but also entirely change of the outlook of the racing track. Because of this, your car will visibly bounce up and down and will also covered with a hefty amount of mud, something you can actually see on your vehicle. A nice little detail is that you can remove the mud by driving through puddles of water, which in their turn act as a carwash, instantly cleansing your car. In other words: the Track Deformation will have a noticeable influence on the gameplay, unlike Motorstorm, where it mainly served as a fancy graphical effect. We agree with such statements from Mark Fisher in any case, now that we’ve seen SEGA Rally with our own eyes.
There will be other important physics to the gameplay besides the Track Deformation. The weight of your car for instance will help decide the road holding (as well as how badly the track will change) and there will be a handful of graphical effects to admire. In the code that they demonstrated were plentiful minor details, such as kickback of sand, mud and water – all of them were a Work-in-Progress by the by – but we noticed they’re also a part of the gameplay. The unlucky racer that’s way in the back, will possibly have to think in advance when he will pass one of his opponents, thanks to an obstructed view. These kind of physics will expand in the final version, with fluttering leaves of breakable wooden fences. Or to quote Mark Fisher: “even the side parts of the main course will be submitted to Track Deformation, including grass”. Not only that, but it seems that the (in theory) impressive weather ‘simulation’ of Project Gotham Racing 4 also had an impact on the developers, due to the fact different weather conditions were promised. When it rains, the course will be filled with mud in no time, which will naturally give an advantage to off-road vehicles. This change in weather won’t happen in real time mind you: it will only differ per track. Don’t expect any extreme physics calculations either, seen in Forza Motorsport 2.
Finally, potential extra’s were discussed that may or may not be a part of the game. As expected, they weren’t willing to inform us about downloadable content, but Mark Fisher did provide us small hints concerning actual unlockables. Sonic will appear “somewhere in the game” and there will also be a couple of familiar moments from previous games returning as cameo’s (such as the helicopter). SEGA is also considering the inclusion of the original SEGA Rally, but they’re still on the edge about this because of the recently released Anniversary Edition. Which, as we all know, didn’t do too well.
In a period where racing games are slowly returning in a glorious fashion after a disappointing 2006, it is very important for SEGA Rally to differeniate itself from other games to draw sufficient attention. Figures, with local competition (sort of) from Forza Motorsport 2, Project Gotham Racing 4, FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage and Colin McRae: DIRT, let alone the games on other platforms. But SEGA Rally actually succeeds to do just that from the looks of it, by delivering a feeling that we don’t see in any other similar next-gen racer. Not even in DIRT or Motorstorm, by far their biggest ‘rivals’. Are you craving for semi-realistic steering, then you’re looking up the wrong bush and you’d better for Codemasters game. Are you actually looking for a game similar to Rallisport Challenge 2 to fill the void DICE left, then without a doubt SEGA Rally is a game to look forward to. Add advanced Track Deformations and pretty graphics, and we realised at the end of the presentation that SEGA Rally could turn into an excellent debut for SEGA Racing Studio.
read the whole thing here
interview with Mark Fisher here
color me impressed!
