A sadly misunderstood and unappreciated gem of a game.
Overshadowed by DiRT rally and the WRC series, this offering from Milestone is actually a solid performer. Certainly not perfect - and no game is - yet it has many features and factors that are better than even the benchmark DiRT rally. I have both games on PS4 and yet always come back to SLRE.
The car list is bigger, although there are some strange additions and also, some glaring omissions (NO Ford Escorts??? WTF?) but overall the list is solid and offers a lot. Stages are excellent; long and gruelling at times, with good variety and excellent change of surface feel. It has more rallies (8 Vs 6) and better stage design than DiRT Rally, although DiRT Rally has the slight edge in graphics. Physics are excellent in both games, I find SLRE has a bit more weight and predictability. Sounds are, ok to good. Pace notes are good to horrid - they sometimes lack details like "caution: gate" or "Don't cut : Post" enough times.
There is lots to do in the game and many ways to do it; the career mode is open, you can opt to do any path through the events, provided you can buy the cars required. I simply love it, and find as I start to get good at it, that I can turn off the features to make it more challenging again. I'm currently running with all assists off, no rewinds, hard AI and NO pace note markers on screen (boy, does THAT make you pay attention to the audio!) and having great fun, struggling to get good stage times.
One thing though - when I first got it (having not heard of it before I saw it at EB Games) I tried it... then set it aside. I couldn't drive it, and blamed the game of course. It was simply a matter of viewpoint.
Quite literally.
You see I was used to more forgiving rally games like the Colin McRae series, V-Rally and the early WRC series on PS2. I never had a rally game on PS3. I'd been trying to drive SLRE from third person view, the chase cam, as I've always done with rally games. There is something about how they did the shift in camera angle, and the car angle, in SLRE that is just way wrong. I overcorrect, the car feels too sensitive, it's horrid. Yet switch to bonnet cam (cockpit is very detailed but I find the windscreen is too quick to become dirty/damaged) and it's fine. Bonnet is my default view now, yet I still play all other rally games (DIRT Rally, WRC7, my PS2 games) from chase view. It's just one of the games quirks.
So all in all, a very good rally game. Its shortcomings can be overlooked, given the many strong plusses it has.
It's not "better" or "inferior" to DiRT Rally - it's simply a different way of bringing the sport of rallying to the PS4. I have both, like both, and alternate between the two.
If you're interested in rally games - seek it out, learn the game, appreciate it for what it is, and have fun.
Happy Stages
BF
