Rally Cross

The ultimate in rally road racing games. This one is gonna be tough to beat. The game features creative track designs, a large number of vehicles and a gradually increasing difficulty level. The graphics, animations and sounds are all top notch and fit perfectly into the game. Add to this the fact that it is the first official game released to use the forthcoming dual analog pad with the force feekback option and you have yourself a real winner.

With six well designed courses, all of which can be raced backwards and have their own shortcuts, 16 cars and four trucks to race in, at last we have a racing game which has sugar-coated visuals and equally tasty gameplay to match.

Rally Cross does have a few annoyances. Even when using automatic transmissions, you'll need to place your car into first gear to begin the race, and you'll also need to mess with the gears if you need to go into reverse. The caves tend to be claustrophobic, and the camera doesn't behave well inside of them. If you end up facing the wrong way inside a cave, you're really screwed. The game's fantastic sound effects include creaking suspensions and crunching metal, but the generic guitar music is pretty lousy. Rally Cross is showing its age, but it still remains a genuinely fun racer after all of these years.

If you thought Sega Rally or Top Gear Rally were hard, then I'd have to say steer clear of Rally Cross as you'll get no preferential treatment here. Overall, a great racing game with a learning curve that knocks its grade down a bit.

Sony's Rally Cross is one of the more unique racing games to arrive on a console system in some time. With a little persistence, racing fans and rookie drivers alike can appreciate what this game has to offer, and should certainly rev this title up for a test drive.