V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

[Wilk5280]

I think I am one of the few people who are actually looking forward to this badboy.

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Me too The career mode sounds very intriguing.

[Peter_OS]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Yes I'm planning on picking up this babboy.

Should hold me over until Mcrae come out.

[Wilk5280]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Well damn, it appears that his game got pushed back another day.

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Really??? I have a fedex tracking number that says it is out for delivery. I should have it this afternoon.

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Got it, I'll give impressions soon.

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Career mode starts you off in 1.6L cars. You have several "emails" from some manufacturers that want you to take a test session where you have to beat a certain time to get a contract offer from them. Interestingly, the teams themselves have stats rated in morale, reliability, performance, budget, and how they last finished.

I took up VW's offer and took a spin in the polo on asphalt in France. Missed their target time by 3 seconds and bumped a curb. Nice looking damage resulted with the front bumper almost coming off. I use the d-pad to drive and handling was a bit sensitive so I retried the stage with a much lighter touch on the d-pad and came in 5 seconds under their requested time and felt better about how the car handled. Seems like the analog stick may be the way to go unless you can be very light with your thumbs on the d-pad, otherwise you tend to oversteer the car fishtailing down the road. If you have a light touch, the handling seemed fine. I need to drive on some gravel.

Got a contract offer from VW that says they want me to finish in the top 13 for the year. I'll have to do some more driving and check out the other teams.

Graphics are good. About on par with WRC if not a little bit better IMHO because VRally doesn't seem to have as many repetitive textures. Initial impression is good...that career mode really hooked me. The car handling seemed a bit touchy though, but that could be cause of any number of things...on asphalt, the vw may be twitchy, the 1.6L cars may be twitchy...I gotta drive some more.

[Wilk5280]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

I'm very much looking forward to more impressions, but i do have one question about this:
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Seems like the analog stick may be the way to go unless you can be very light with your thumbs on the d-pad, otherwise you tend to oversteer the car fishtailing down the road

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Why on earth would you NOT drive using the analog stick?

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

lol. I just got used to driving with the d-pad I guess.

Just got done with Rally Finland.
Bad news -
1. The brakes are wayyy too powerful. Maybe its just the 1.6L cars aren't going all that fast but even with the brake sensitivity option turned all the way down the brakes just seem to stop you too quickly.

2. The pace notes have to be for the 2.0 cars cause I can take turns at least a gear or 2 faster than what the co driver calls out. This won't be so bad if the pace notes match up to the 2.0 cars better, but right now I can take sharp turns called out as 2 in 3rd and sometimes 4th gear.

3. Damn it. I wiped the floor with the competition in Finland. I finished a whole 52 seconds faster than the Fiat driver in 2nd place. Heck I would have placed 3rd in the 2.0L class. I sure hope the first rally is the easy one so as not to frustrate you early. Fiat did get 36 manufacturer points compared to my MG's 31 though.

4. This game is not better than CMR2.

5. Who the heck is my co driver? It never says.

6. Only 4 rallies with 5 stages each per career year. But the career does last 20+ years and apparently the stages are slightly different each year.

Good news
1. I like the car setup options where you immediately know how what you changed has affected the car.

2. Other drivers are listed as "retirement". So I assume I can take enough damage to force my retirement.

3. The whole career mode is pretty cool. Having to try out for teams and then they give you a goal for the year. Plus the teams morale, reliability, and budget change. After winning Finland, I got an email from MG saying "all eyes will be on me next reace. Surprise us again!". Career mode lasts for 20+ years. Helping build a struggling manufacturer with rally wins is cool.

[Peter_OS]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Tell us more abou tthe damage model in this game?

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
6. Only 4 rallies with 5 stages each per career year. But the career does last 20+ years and apparently the stages are slightly different each year.

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Can you elaborate more on this? What differences do you see?

Nothing beats racing a rally game with a steering wheel. I have the Driving Force for the PS2 and PC and the feel is heaven.

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Some are run in reverse and the weather is different from year to year...

I just finsihed my first 2.0L rally after winning the 1.6L championship easily. I'm in the Toyota Corolla now and things have gotten slightly harder. I think 2 new rallies opened up to, so a career year conisits of 6 rallies with 5 stages each now. The stages all average around 3 minutes to complete.

The roads have gotten a bit narrower in the 2 new rallies and the competition has stepped it up a bit. I finished 8th, some 40 seconds behind the leader. I had a spin out in the last stage that cost me about 15 seconds trying to get back on the road but even if I hadn't spun I still would have only placed around 4th. Toyota wants me to finish 12, so I'm doing ok.

The braking problem is with every car. I've started to use the handbrake all the time cause it won't stop you on a dime like the regular brakes do. Seems a bit more realistic to me.

The damage model seems ok so far. The front and rear bumper always seem to start falling off halfway through every stage. I've only really had one major crash and my front left wheel came off and forced me to retire. You can bump minor things and only see cosmetic damage, but if you hit things hard, little icons pop up on the screen showing you your damage. I've seen a gear shifter, tires, and a differential damaged.

...I just went out and intentionally did some damage. You can damage your car enough to where it breaks down and you can't continue (a blown engine or collateral damage I guess). Big crashes result in a good amount of damage. It's forgiving enough that you can get by with the little bumps, but the big ones look like they'll get you.

[Peter_OS]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Thanks for the impressions Mudtiger. Keep em coming. I might just pick this game up.

[mudtiger]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

For me, the difficulty is right at the point where if I run the stage paying careful attention to my co driver and I don't make any mistakes, I usually finish in the top 3 spots. I really don't feel the need to push all that hard to get 1st. Just run a careful but fast stage and you'll win nearly every stage or at least be in the top 3. But, if I make a mistake or two spinning the car or getting into a crash, then I have to push and take a few chances in order to stay in the top 5 spots if even that high.

Overall, the game is fun but leans toward the easy side. There are plenty of opportunities to screw up so running a perfect stage 5 stages in a row does test your skills. I never really feel the need to find ways to shave off a second here or there in certain corners on a stage like in CMR2 where every second counts though. The career mode will probably keep me coming back for some time...at least until the xbox release of CMR3 this winter.

[Wilk5280]

Re: V-Rally 3 this week...anyone picking it up?

Spent more time with V-Rally 3 - Appreciating it more

When I first brought V-Rally 3 home I was immediately disappointed. The control was, IMO, just plain awful. It appeared that they had made the steering WAY TOO sensitive, almost as if even the analog stick acted as it was digital. Either all or none if you know what I mean.

Then there was this ability to make even the sharpest of turns without never having to worry about under-steering them. I mean, even sharp hairpin turns were easy to OVER-STEER. I was borderline pissed at how the control could be so jacked up.

Well, today I started tinkering with the setups more and have found to my dismay that for some reason the recommended setups were all jacked up. Once I started getting deeper into the setups (and you can get MUCH deeper then say the likes of WRC) I found that I could solve all of my major gripes.

You have the ability to customize the following:
Tires
- Select type (select from 12 different types of tires)
- Set pressure for front and rear

Chassis
- Set suspension for front and rear
- Set ride height (front rear settings)
- Stabilizer settings (front, rear)

Mechanics
- Gear Box (set your gear ratio)
- Differentials (front, rear, central)
- Breaks (balance and strength)

After some fine tuning I was able to get the car to handle the way I would like it to, however as mentioned in another thread the breaking is still too strong....even after lowering the strength as low as possible.

One of the major gripes with WRC was that there just was no sense of speed. I must say that if you choose to use a chase camera in VR3 you won't get any either, but once you get inside the car you have nothing to worry about. However, there is one disadvantage to the In-car or over the bumper views. For some reason the frame-rate seems to get choppy when you use one of those two views.

The V-Rally Mode (career mode) is a lot of fun. You start out as a nobody (go figure eh) and work your way up to the top. You have several manufacturers sending you offers to come try out for them and you'll have to beat out other drivers on timed runs. I have even received emails from other drivers trying out for the same manufacturer that I was trying to talk smack to me. I'll admit, it got a little chuckle out of me.

So far it seems a little easy, but not WRC easy. If do have to at least keep the car on the road if you wanna win once you get a little ways into the Career mode.

The single player challenges were ultra easy, but again, once you get into your 2nd year of V-Rally mode the competition starts to heat up.

Is it the best rally racer on the market? Uh.....No, but it's no too shabby either. I'll definitely be keeping it in my collection. It does a lot of neat things that hopefully will be implemented into future rally racers.