Richard Burns Rally

There's nothing quite like this game out there. Yes, it is extremely hard to get even decent at, but the experience is more fun than frustrating, and after it you might find yourself bored with both arcade rally games and circuit racing simulators.You choose between 6 cars from the 2001 rally season and race on 36 or so tracks across 6 countries (UK, Japan, Finland, US, France, Australia)--four gravel countries, one snow, and one tarmac. The tracks are from real life and are well-detailed, which makes the game seem really authentic. They are also realistically long, which is a rarity in rally games. Furthermore, they are really narrow and treacherous, which both makes them difficult to navigate and create a sense of speed. Real weather effects add a lot of depth to the experience, as driving through rain or snow feels completely different.On the downside, they are all from obscure regional championship and, except for Japan, not the tracks used in WRC Championship. The variety could also have been greater. There are four gravel countries, but no mud tracks. Also, although half the WRC season takes place in Mediterranean countries (Spain, Greece), none of these countries is here. The selection of cars is limited as well. Altogether, this detracts from the presentation, especially if you wanted greater immersion into the rally world.Nevertheless, this game is all about driving dynamics. The physics are incredibly realistic, which make this a truly intense driving experience. You have to master steering, acceleration, breaking, and hand braking to execute difficult techniques, get good times and prevent crashing. And you will learn a ton about car physics and driving from this game. In fact, since it is so complex and requires knowledge, instincts, and technique at every step, just DRIVING is what makes this game great. Powersliding around corners, keeping your car from going sideways on straights, correcting spins, drifing through hairpins, and avoiding obstacles and gutters is incredibly satisfying in this game. Once you get good enough to compete on normal difficulty (took me three weeks) and crash 0-1 times per course, it will feel like you are literally surfing through the courses in one smooth motion. It's hard to master, but definitely not impossible. I abandoned several circuit simulators, because I couldn't make a single turn without spinning out for, like, five minutes, and thought the difficulty was unreasonable to have fun. But in this game, it never really felt like that. Furthermore, here, when you drive better, you can FEEL the benefits--you stay on the narrow road, avoid obstacles, prevent damaging your car, sustain speed, etc. In circuit simulators, whether your drive perfectly or sloppily, you will still go fast, stay on the wide track, and not hit any obstacles, so there is no visibly perceptible reward for having better technique.Most importantly, for a rally game, where you don't race against the competiton, you NEED it to be hard to drive to keep it fun. When I played Colin McRae afterwards, where the car is easy to control and the roads are wide, I did not understand why anybody would have fun playing it--it just felt like driving the the grocery store on an empty road.However, the driving does have some serious flaws. The game is not as polished at it should be, which seeps into the gameplay. Brushes and small trees are modelled as solid objects, so instead of riding over them, you can get stop cold in your tracks. You can only go several yards to the side of the road before hitting an invisible wall. If you ever end stuck perpendicular to the road against this wall, you can't just do a U-turn--you have to back up and turn around. Finally and most importantly, weight is modelled really poorly here. The cars flip at the slightest bump. This is not only cheesy, but prevents you from driving like rally drivers do. You can't cut across rough terrain or over a rock at 80 km/h--whereas in real life your wheel would jump up 10 inches in the air and land back down, here, you'll do a 1080 flip, land upside down, call for help, and loose 10 sec off your clock.So if you think you can handle the challenge, even if you aren't into simulators or rally racing, definitely get this game. It is like no other racing game out there.One word of caution--variable inputs for gas and break (i.e. you control how hard you accelerate/break) are REALLY important to this game. However, the PC version doesn't allow you to program that into a gamepad. Hence, you'd be better off playing this with a steering wheel on a PC. If you want to get it for a console and play it with a controller, PS3, Xbox, and Xbox 360 allow variable input, but PS2 doesn't.

If you're buying this game you probably already know about it and know it's a really old game but one of the best rally games ever made.What you might not know is this reseller has created their own poorly written self-branded wrapper installer, for no reason at all, that will not install the game. I figured I had a bad disk and just didn't bother complaining since it was only a few dollars. Turns out they slap their brand all over the disk and break the whole install process.If you ignore their intrusive, unwanted, non-working install app and run the setup.exe file on the disk (NOT the setup.now.exe) it installs no problem. Pick another company that doesn't try to shove their company, that has NOTHING to do with the game, in your face and you'll love the game.Ironically their super annoying, non-working branding only makes want to never buy from them ever again. If they had just left the normal install alone I would have been buying more games from them. As it is I will never buy from them again.

Ok so why am I writing about a rally racing sim made in 2004? The main reason is that it has not died on the shelf like most other games of this generation. There is a huge fan base out there that has kept this game going with free massive patches and updates that have this thing rival Dirt series.While the graphics are not up to the Dirt franchise, the physics and actual skill involved is immense. On Dirt I had maybe 1 race before I jumped head long into the game. On Richard Burns I had no such luck. You are taken through a school that requires several frustrating attempts to complete each lesson.I have a  Logitech G27 Racing Wheel . This game makes full use of the force feedback, the paddle shifters, hand brake and so on. You really feel that once you enter the rally circuit that you earned it. There is so much here to love that I can see why the RBR2010 crew has spent the effort in keeping a game like this going.No, the graphics are not as sharp as newer games, there is no wide screen output.If you can get past this, there is probably no other rally game you can play out there that has this level of realism and difficulty. The killer part is that the price right now is less than a meal at a fast food place. So, if you are looking for a great rally sim you cant beat this one.Graphics: (+/-)While not really crisp the game really does have authentic scenery and circuits. You will be racing down roads that look just wide enough for a tractor and cow to pass each other. There is detritus on the edges, twigs, sticks, stumps all waiting to rip your tires to shreds.Physics:(+)Amazingly real feel to the car. Flick the hand brake and watch it shift over left and right. Crashes are not epic flip fests that have have you land on your wheels to keep going. No, this is more like a car should and does behave.Support: (+)The community is amazing. I cant post URL's here but have a look for RBR2010 out on the web. They have near 1GB patches that are free to download. You can challenge other people around the world with your skills. Because there is actual skill involved here when you win a race it feels really good. Some of the sites are in French and English, but mostly French.This is a must have for Rally enthusiasts. Highly recommended!Thank you for reading my review.

What a classic. This is one of the few computer games that have a massive cult following. The mod community is still very active. And RBR is more then just a game, it's a true SIM at it's best. Challenging and rewarding. For those who might hesitate to get it because it's old, it works very well with windows7.

I bought this excellent value-for-money game for my 8-years old grandson after falling foul of buying a number of games that could not be played with a basic joy-pad that I had got him. As a result, my keyboard would get thumped and hammered when he was excited or agitated and I needed a solution. I found a list of games on-line via Google, that could be played with the joy-pad and this was one of them. No killing, no violence - just loads of boy-fun, trying to get the better of the selection of cars and rally circuits on offer! What's more, my keyboard lives on!

I bought this in anticipation of my forthcoming birthday present, a steering wheel. Of course I had to have a go using the keyboard. Its awesome. REally like it. Probably a little easier with a wheel but is manageable with the keyboard. I play truck simulator using a keyboard but trucks are much slower so is easier to control. The graphics on the Rally sim is excellent. In fact its better than I had expected. Well worth buying but remember to go through the driving school first.

I have played a lot of rally games in my time and by a long way this is the best. Richard Burns was a British rally driver who managed to win the World Rally Championship only once but that was still enough for a game to be made. Unfortunately, Richard Burns died in 2005, aged 34, and no more games were to be made (Unlike Colin McRae).Pros:- This is the most realistic rally game out there.- Clear pace note instructions although takes some getting used to what gear you are supposed to be in.- Brilliant physicsCons:- Graphics are not very good but this is an old game and the physics make up for this.- Doesn't work if you have more than one monitor plugged in unless you get the pluginRecommendations:- complete the rally school. This will really help.- download the RSRBR Mod to get more cars and stages. Makes the game a whole lot better.- have a steering wheel and pedalsOverall this is a very good game and is worth picking up IF you have a steering wheel and the patience to practice a lot to get good at it and for it to be excellent fun!

Following putting a two star review due to no game after 10 days i received an e-mail saying that there had been a mix up and they had just shipped a replacement out, got it the next day! very prompt service, sorry for the original feedback, now on to the game!Truly amazing, some of the best tire to road effects ever, you can feel everything! brilliant, physics very good! I have heard of people in the work of brand new, improved physics in an attempt to resurrect this game from the dead, and the trailer video looks brilliant.More on the force feedback and physics, the feeling and pure accuracy of the FFB is truly stunning, you feel every bump and blade of grass! steering goes a little light over jumps etc, just night and day prepared to games like Dirt 3, even though that's something like 6 years newer. More on the physics side, the tire physics are just correct not anything like Rfactor where you can't even catch a tiny slide or like Dirt 3 where you can go full speed into corners and just slide through them. Although I haven't done the whole rally school yet it's certainly a brilliant initiative in the game, teaching you anything from forcing the car to oversteer to gain more speed and increase the inertia of the turbo around fast corners to scandinavian flicks round 90 degree corners, this game teaches it all! Richard Burns (the instructor for the rally school)teaches you not just how to do these techniques, but also what the car is really doing when this happens, for example the scandinavian flick, in which a sharp turn to the left and then back to the right causes the pendulum effect to swing the car nicely around the corner while remaining a decent speed. All in all I would highly recommend this game!Fanatec GT3RS V2Clubsport Pedals V2