“RalliSport Challenge 2” Races to Xbox with New Features, Enhanced Gameplay, and More!

by Louis Bedigian

Find out why we’re dying to play this long awaited sequel.  

With stellar physics, excellent controls, mind-blowing graphics, and terrific track designs, RalliSport Challenge earned endless praise from many game critics (including myself).  The PC port was also well received.  In his review of the game, Ovaldog said that everything “about the game engine, graphics, sounds, and options roll into a well rounded Rally Racing game that ranks among the top of the genre.”
 

Rallisport Challenge Xbox Review

Rallisport Challenge PC Review

The awesome, unforgettable gameplay of RalliSport Challenge has made it difficult to wait for a sequel to arrive.  On May 4th the day will finally come when you can take another challenge.  And this time you can do it online!

To celebrate the game’s release, we got in our cars and had a race with RalliSport Challenge 2’s producer, Karl Magnus Troedsson.  The race was over quickly – he drove a Porsche, all we had was a Ford Focus, a Dodge Ram, and a VW Beetle.  Not even a Hemi could have saved us…

We were so depressed after losing the race that Karl decided to cheer us up by telling us what we can expect from his game when it’s released next week. 

Online play is said to be a big part of RalliSport Challenge 2.  Tell us about it.

Karl Magnus Troedsson: Indeed it is. We set out a high level goal that all the different ways the player can race offline should be available online, much since one of RalliSport Challenge's perks is the variation and the freedom to race any class of car on track in any race mode. In the end the online orientation of RalliSport Challenge 2 imbues in every part of the game, much since we think it's so important.

Will Xbox Live be used solely for online play, or will new game content be added as well?

KMT: The support for downloadable content is too nifty to miss out on and the plan has always been support this. So we're definitely planning to have packages of content available to all those who wishes even more to play with. Some freebies will for an instance already be available when the game is released and later their will be additional drops of cars, careers, skins etc.

What was the most challenging thing about bringing RalliSport into the world of online gaming?

KMT: Well, there's been several things which proved tougher than we initially thought. For an instance, on thing I would say we greatly underestimated was the sheer amount of menu work which was needed. Lag and lack of performance are of course always issues as well but we didn't get too snagged there. Before we started with the Live support we had heard scary stories of other developers who pioneered the Live support, allocating masses of network coders just in order to get up and running. We only had one guy implementing the whole lot so I guess we should consider our self lucky (or perhaps just brilliant programmers). In the end we're very happy with how the game works on Live, it should keep the competitive player busy for many, many months.

It’s not easy to see in the dark, but what you can see sure is pretty.

Besides online play, what's new to the RalliSport series?  What's being done to make sure it's better than the original?

KMT: Surpassing the prequel was of course an important goal. Implementing the online support in the form of Xbox Live and XSN gave us real leverage and this has changed the game immensely. Except for this there is the mandatory demand for quadrupling the amount of content, everybody wants so much more. The game consists of more than 40 cars and 90 tracks which puts it way ahead. But even more important is of course the work that we've done updating the physics engine and the controls of the cars. Here's where the real game play changes will be most noticeable. And finally, the stunning visuals have now excelled even further.

One of my favorite things about the original RalliSport was its realistic use of racing physics.  Will the physics work the same in RC2, or are they being altered in some way?

KMT: The physics engine was rewritten from scratch in order to get us the power to change the things which we wanted to upgrade, it's easier to work from a clean slate. The result is that we've maintained the easy to pick up and play controls typical for the prequel but generally made the cars' behaviors and the controls much more accurate. Since the track design has gone more towards real tracks, truer to their real life race styles, this proved very important. The player will experience a much greater control of his vehicle when he learns to use the throttle, brakes and handbrake and this will be much needed when rocketing down the narrow and much more technically demanding roads.

Snowy roads are back!

Another one of my favorite things was being able to change your tires to accommodate the changing terrain.  Other than the tires, will players be able to alter or upgrade their vehicle?

KMT: For the real gear heads there's a massive amount of options on the cars which are tunable. This is not a must for the players' which doesn't enjoy tinkering around with the settings though, the standard selections set per track will be very close to perfect. But for the gamer who want to personify his ride, making it behave just the way he's used to then there's hours to be spent in the car tuning screen. It's all done in game so you want have to reload tracks and cars before testing your settings which should speed up the process of finding your perfect car setting. When done, just save it and bring it up later on when getting ready to race.

Approximately how many tracks, track styles, and terrain types do you hope to have in the final game?

KMT: The tracks in the game are all heavily inspired of real life location and typical rallying spots in the world. We chose to not go all the way and try to license and recreate the actual stretches though, much to leave us with the freedom to design the tracks just the way we wanted them to be. If the player unlocks every track in the game he or she will be experiencing pretty much all road surfaces and driving conditions available in real life. Think of rain, snow, ice, fog, gravel, sand, mud, puddles, hot tarmac, slippery concrete and so forth... and then try to select the appropriate tires for it (don't worry, we'll help you with a standard setting). :)

See what I mean about the lighting?

Will all of these tracks be playable via Xbox Live?  Will there be any tracks exclusive to online play?

KMT: Yes, all tracks are available over Live, at least if you've unlocked them but there's no unique tracks for Live.

Lighting played a huge part in the RalliSport Challenge's graphic appeal.  Screenshots indicate that it will also be a major part of the sequel.  What other graphic effects or techniques are going to blow us away?

KMT: This is very true, we strongly believe that lighting is the key to making believable environments and an immersive game experience. We also believe that one unique rendering feature shouldn't get too much focus since then it steals focus from the total feeling, it should all work together to create that perfect visual portrait. In RalliSport Challenge 2 we've changed so much from the prequel in order to make this happen. The new and ever present streaming in the game has given us the opportunity to create extremely long tracks with completely unique landscape geometry and object placement and there's sub vegetation everywhere we want it. The precipitation effects are all new and together with the new particle rendering it will definitely immerse the player.

Thank you for your Time.