driftingmonkey
I have been playing for about 2 weeks now, and i noticed that the rally control is horrid! im so upset with the fact that every time you side the back of the car out to do a turn, the rear end acts like a magnet to the wall. Does anyone else notice this and find it rediculous?
Well, at least I see I'm not the only one really upset about what they did with the Rally Mode. I have to say that although the tracks look even better than before, and though there may be a bit more realistic handling involved (I don't like it myself), apart from that, the Rally mode really, REALLY... SUCKS!!!!! They have so totally ruined this mode for me!
Even if the handling is more realistic, the 5-second penalties they dish out for "grazing" a wall or opposing car are absolutely ridiculous! I don't agree with them giving you penalties at all, and here's the kicker: the CPU car can bounce off the walls like a pinball, and can ram into you at will! You can't, so what gives with this crap? I finally managed to beat all races in Easy Mode, and I have won a few harder races (i.e. road races: Paris Rally, Citta di Aria, Costa Di Amalfi, Tsukuba Wet), but that involved using race cars. (N.B. The Alfa Romeo Race Car is an excellent choice for these races. You can win that car by winning the Festa Italiano in the European Hall. The Tsukuba Wet course on Hard will require a real race car, such as the Audi R8, or Bentley Speed 8.) Getting back to penalties, if they are going to insist on giving you a penalty, then make it something like 3 seconds, because you could actually recover from that, but 5 seconds is too much.
It really is a shame, because the visuals are gorgeous, and the Rally mode really could have been so much more fun, but now it's just annoying. I really like the inclusion of the crowd in the new races (best effect is in the Grand Canyon race in my opinion), but the penalites just make it so frustrating. I remember when doing the Rally races in GT3, that by the time you got to the third 7-lap race, you knew that was going to be a real challenge, because your opponent had a really souped-up car, and you were both going to have to really fight it out over 7 laps to see who was going to win that one. Back in those days, I could win or lose the race by as little as a second or half-second; now, once you screw-up even so much as twice, you are looking at losing by well more than 10 seconds. Note to Polyphony: The game isn't any fun when you don't have a chance. If we're going to make it realistic, then allow the cars to go off the track to some degree (a la Colin McRae & WRC), because in the real world, the cars just don't bump into invisible barriers, or fly up the sides of buildings (Citta di Aria). In CMR and WRC, you can go off the track a bit, and that is realistic, because Rally cars do end-up in the ditch sometimes. If you go too far, then I could see them placing you out on the track again, and with a time penalty, but that's only if you continued to drive off course.
And my last complaint about Rally mode is the lack of two-player support in it. There are so many weird things about the way the mode is structured:
Citta di Aria: You can play against the CPU in a Gran Turismo Mode race only. You can practice alone on the track for 5 credits, or do time-trial in Arcade Mode, but if you want to race another car, you have to have someone in two-player mode to do that.
(Note: Do not even get me started on the 5-credit bit. That's another stupid idea of Polyphony's, and I hope they smarten-up for the online release of GT4, or GT5 at least.)
Grand Canyon, Cathedral Rocks I & II, Chamonix: You can't play these in two-player at all. At first I thought it was because of the animated people (too much for the wee PS2 to handle?), but there are animated people in the Ice Arena, I think, so I don't know why this was such a problem.
Well, that's about it. What else do you guys dislike about Rally, or GT4 in general? Don't get me wrong, it's got it's strong points, and many of them, but there are several areas where I think that they really just weren't finished yet on this one.
Good luck, and if you're going to take a penalty, make it a good one! (Tip: if you're going to hit the other car, try and hit him in front, and then pin him against the wall. That way, when your penalty is up, you'll be on even footing, as opposed to him being more than 5 seconds up on you.)
Cheers,
.
