Recent reviews by Stoney Bologna

(My plan is to come back to this review every once and a while and update it when I get more hours in the game)


For context before I actually talk about the game, I'm a pretty big fan of rally sims. I haven't made it so far as to try the "holy grail" that is RBR that a bunch of rally sim people online say is good, but I've put hundreds of hours in the dirt franchise, with most of them in Dirt Rally and Dirt Rally 2.0. Other than some time spent in Dirt Rally 1 on gamepad, I also typically only play these games with a racing wheel (Logitech G29).

Broadly, I don't know if this game is good enough that I'm willing to declare it "Dirt Rally 3.0", but it's also good enough that I'm still enjoying it, and at least at this time, I'm confident saying that I think you're going to like it if you enjoyed previous Codemasters' games like Dirt Rally, Dirt Rally 2.0, and Dirt 4. Pick it up on sale after all the technical issues are ironed out if you're on the fence on if you'll like it or not.

Talking about the feeling of driving in the game itself, it feels like there's genuine improvements over DR2.0 when it comes to handling on tarmac, and, at least off the top of my head, the gravel and snow physics feel about on par with what I remember them being in DR2.0. I've heard that there's some improvements in how rwd cars are easier to handle in this compared to what they were in DR2.0, but I've only naturally encountered 4wd and fwd cars in my playthrough so far, so I'll have to cover this in a later review once I run into those cars.

Speaking of the gameplay that strings along the bits where you're actively in a car rallying, I feel this is also an improvement over previous Dirt Rally games. I like how it gamifies running a rally team, and find that it actually adds some interesting background tasks to rallies you're doing that you otherwise wouldn't get out of DR2.0 (e.g., having to worry about not breaking your repair budget in a provided car in a benefactor event).

Speaking of the technical issues of the game, I'm running the game on my simracing rig with a Ryzen 5 5600/RX 5700 XT/16GB ram, on a 1080p 144hz monitor, and I'm seeing performance that's fine. I had a bunch of stuttering issues for the first hour or so I had in the game before the 1.3 update went live, but the rest of my time after downloading that update has been ok. Usually the game seems to run at 144hz, with the occasional framerate drops depending on how much is going on in the background on the rally stage I'm on. Graphically I'm indifferent about it compared to its predecessors, it's good enough that it does what it needs to, and I can live with that.

Finally, I want to talk about just the backlash of the state of the game this close after release. When it comes to previous Codemasters games, they haven't had particularly good launches either. I remember preordering Dirt Rally 2.0 and having RaceNet issues that locked you out of the single player career mode, remember having bizarre technical issues upon the launch of Dirt 5, etc. All of which have taught me that it's usually a safe bet to let a new Codemasters rally game sit for a bit, and have them iron out the technical issues before it becomes functional. Now reading some of the other reviews, it sounds like this is extremely arbitrary based on PC specs, but at least on my machine, I feel like it's just barely in the zone where it's now functional. There's probably still work to be done, but at least for now I haven't seen anything so bad that it's stuck with me when writing this review.

Compared to Dirt Rally 1, I think I'm liking this one a little more, but I'm going to sum up why in a quick pros and cons list:

pros:
Better Handling on all surfaces compared to DR 1
The Repair system is arguably better compared to DR 1 (it's a slightly improved version of the Dirt 4 one)
Game is still incredibly playable on gamepad, I personally have none of the assists on and I get along just fine
Probably the best rally game I've played so far

meh:
How they're handling dlc. Many seem to be dissapointed in some ways with the dlc, and aren't the biggest fan of how some cars in the upcoming season 1 are cars that have been in previous Dirt games.
Steering wheel FFB: this doesn't effect me for now, but I've heard that steering wheel force feedback is kind of weak, so if you have a wheel, that's something to remember
Minor gripe, but I wish that you could "opt in" to the bonus cars you get from the deluxe edition, kind of how in Gran Turismo 5, when you unlock a car, you first unlock it, then you have to "redeem it" so it can really be in your garage, and I wish that you could do that with the DLC starter cars.

cons:
Always online single-player modes. To be fair, the only two single player modes that are locked under their always online RaceNet system is the RallyCross Career mode, and the Rally Career mode, but other race modes, like a RallyCross championship, Historic rally, custom races, and time trials are all available without the always online drm, but you won't earn career credits in those modes. Other than the literal first day of the game's launch, I haven't personally had issues with this, but many other people report this as an issue, so if your internet is less than perfect, then I'd hold off on it.


In conclusion, until it's been shown that RaceNet can be trusted to be fully reliable, it's hard to recommend this for its full price, but regardless, the gameplay is really good on this game, and my personal experience with RaceNet is that it mostly worked other than one small hiccup, and I didn't even lose any progress, so I'd still recommend it in the end.

You know, I was really sold on this game when I first build my computer, when Rocket League only had DLC cars, and the base cars, and in that state, this game was a 100% recommend from me. That form of extra monetization was fine, but as time has gone on, Psyonix has been adding in:

csgo-esque Crates and Keys
Cars you can only get from this crate and key system
A Fortnite-esque Season rewards thing, with a paid tier (in a paid game, by the way)

While that isn't that bad, I feel like I'm starting to get too nickel and dimed by this game. If they released all the cool cars as dlc on it's own, I wouldn't be too dissapointed, but at this point I'm getting tired of all of this. This game is one of my examples of how capitalism ruins video games.

At the end of the day, the core gameplay is alright, hell honestly it's still one of my favorite games based off that itself, but I disagree largely with how much they are trying to monetize the game. I feel like this game is begging for something like R6 Siege, where you get a free starter edition that it's harder to earn things, and then the normal, paid game, where it's easier to earn different cars, paint jobs, etc.


Edit as of 8/9/19, after the news that they're removing the crates and keys: I'm going to leave my "I do not recommend the game" until the update hits that removes the crates, but once it's done, and assuming that the shop that's taking its place doesn't pull anything shady, it's very possible that my review might turn back into a "I do recommend this game." I'm still a little iffy on a paid game having so much extra paid content, but since none of it would arguably be gambling anymore, and since a kind of toxic trade market would probably cease to exist, that might be good enough for me to recommend again.

Wow, so this is going to be quite the review. First off, I remember this game being called Team Losi RC Racer, which from my research turns out to be the name of the American release of this game on the PS1 (which is the system I've owned this game for). From what I can tell gameplaywise, they're about the same, though the rc's look differently cosmetically between Team Losi RC Racer, and Buggy.

So first off, ignoring the quality of the port and emulation, I'm going to go right into the gameplay itself. The driving physics are alright (although no option to control with analog controls, just analog mapped internally to d-pad), however, what really shines with this game is the power up system. To get power-ups in this game, instead of something like Mario Kart, where you run into a box and then get something random back, instead you have these colored gates, and what these colored gates do let you build your power up a color at a time. If you want a speed boost, find a Yellow then a Red gate, invincibility, Green then Orange, etc. This is something unique for sure, but not interesting enough to be a big draw. Overall, for a ps1 RC racing game, this is actually still pretty good, but shows its age a ton. Unless you have nostalgia for Buggy/Team Losi RC Racer, I would probably find something else to play.

So, onto the quality of the port. I played a ton of the American version of this game, Team Losi RC Racer, on both my ps1 and ps2 growing up, so I'm somewhat familiar with how the game should feel. The first thing I noticed about this game is that this steam release of buggy is most likely a Playstation 1 emulator, versus the actual PC port of the game. This means the game has Playstation button prompts, etc. My only two gripes with the emulation are that you can't map an xbox controller's analog stick to the emulated playstation's analog stick, it just automatically maps it as the d-pad. It's not like this game is unplayable without analog steering, but it's dissapointing. Other than that, the quality of the emulation seems fine, but I'm still confused as to why they didn't update the windows port of this game.

Now, about this Windows port of the game I'm talking about, according to my own research (mostly on Gamefaqs), back in 1998 when this game was originally released, as Buggy in EU territories, and Team Losi RC Racer in the US for PS1, a windows PC port was released at the same time, as Buggy in all territories. There was a EU only re-release of the game in about 2003-04 on both platforms as well by Zoo Publishing. Now back when this game was proper abandonware, I managed to track down a copy of the .iso file from the EU re-release, but couldn't get it working in Windows 10. However, I still have that .iso saved, and then installed it on an extra machine running Windows 7 I recently purchased, and it runs great. It has much better graphics options, runs at a higher resolution, has better resolution settings, actually lets you rebind controls, etc. compared to this emulated port. Since I just recently learned about this port on steam, I was assuming that they managed to fix the original Windows release, and now they have it for sale, but it turns out that they just emulated the ps1 version. It makes me wonder, why didn't they fix up the better windows re-release, or at least let us have analog controls in game.

Overall, it's hard for me to recommend this Steam port, as the American release of the game can still be found fairly cheaply (only a few $ more than the steam release's price), and owning the original release means it's fair game to emulate it on a more configurable emulator. I can't speak for how easy the original is to come by in the EU, but you might have better luck with there being both an original ane re-release of it. However, as a game, I think it's definitely a pretty good, overlooked game on the ps1, so maybe if you're familiar with ps1 games, and want something you probably haven't played yet from that era, I would recommend the steam release on sale only, and the original release, either emulated or on original hardware, in a heartbeat.

UPDATE: I looked into finding the source to the "engine" they are using, and it turns out it's based pcsx-r, which is an open source PS1 emulator, that, much like other emulators emulating the PS1, handle it's video, audio, and Controller inputs via plugins. The version of the emulator used on this Steam release is no exception, and it seems like the AudioDriver.dll, ControllerDriver.dll, and VideoDriver.dll files are just preconfigured plugins like what epsxe or other plugin-based emulators use. This also means that you can get a controller plugin that supports analog inputs, replace the ControllerDriver.dll with whatever you want to (I went with lilypad.dll, pcsx2's default controller plugin, with good analog controller support) renamed it ControllerDriver.dll, copied the ini file from it to an inis folder, and that's how you can get analog controlls properly in this game.

Long story short, if you tinker with a bunch of the files, you can get analog sticks to function as they should in this game, which means that, if you're willing to mess with it, it's a worthwhile game purchase, but if you aren't willing to mess with it, I'd still say wait for a sale. If you need help with the process of replacing the controller plugin, comment here, I might try to figure out how to edit pcgamingwiki articles and add my solution there too.

This game is so good because it has such a high skill ceiling compared to Dirt 4 and Dirt 3. I personally think this is the best Dirt game I've played (I've only played 3, 4, Rally, and about 5 minutes of Showdown), but I would only recommend it if:

• You're ready for a challenge
  
• You have a gamepad or racing wheel
  
• You've maybe played through Dirt 3 or Dirt 4, gotten through their campaigns, and wished it had more realistic handling.

If all that sounds fine, you're in for a really good, but not perfect, Rally game. I'd heavly recommend you pick it up on sale if you're interested.

The game finally feels less like an Early Access tech demo, and more like a game. The game that's here is still obviously a beta in many ways, but the gameplay is fun to just hop into and play. Really scratches that itch for a modern Destruction Derby II/FlatOut 1-2 successor.

Rally cross and Land Rush are where this game shines the most, but the rally modes are pretty fun if you want a more casual game than Dirt Rally. The procedural generation on the Rally stages could use a little work too, but the sections used as building blocks are more seamless than something like Trackmania (any game)'s track sections. I can also get behind it because it means you see a new layout everytime, instead of going over the same rallies over and over. Overall, if you liked Dirt 3, but thought it was too arcadey, and too "POST THAT CLIP TO YOUTUBE, YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE GOING TO LOVE THAT" this game is a more mature one than that, both in tone of the career mode, and in gameplay.

edit: I recieved the game for free from SEGA's Make War Not Love 3 competition/promotion a while ago, and have just got around to playing it now.

pros:
Very good story with multiple endings
The game lets you shoot specific parts off of the robot enemies you get to face in this game, and it just feels really satisfying. For example, you can shoot the legs off a robot, and it will start crawling towards you, if you shoot the arms off, it will try to charge you and melee attack you, or if you shoot it's head off, it will start attacking other enemies for you.
Runs pretty smooth on a GTX 950 pair with an AMD x4 860k. According to steam's built in fps counter, I got 60 fps in gameplay, with it rarely dropping, and then 30fps in cutscenes only.

neutral:
The game has a voice command system for your squad in game. It is completely possible to complete the game without using this voice command system, and it's what I did when I beat the game, but it's also a very gimmicky system.

cons:
Has some very wierd mouse acceleration when playing with keyboard and mouse (It is very hard to describe how bad it is, but once you play it you'll know)
When playing with kb + mouse, some on screen button prompts are confusing. For example, every time a quick time event or tutorial wants you to use any of the mouse buttons, it just shows an "M" key icon for the action.
AI for your squadmates is a little rough. They can sometimes run right infront of you when you're firing, and when they do that they get angry in game at you.


Overall verdict: Despite the really janky mouse aiming, in the end I really enjoyed playing this game (and I used kb+m controls the entire playthrough). A few bosses aren't very good gameplay-wise, but overall the story was compelling enough that I strongly recommend this game, and I had enough fun shooting arms and legs off of robots that I'd strongly recommend this. Pick it up on sale, if you can't handle the janky aiming then refund it, otherwise you're in for a good time.

8/10

It's a fun game, and I have absolutely no problems with the uPlay integration or anything, but for the life of me, trying to connect into squads with my friends has consistently not worked for me, I swear I've seen the "Error joining squad" screen more often than actual gameplay, and my NAT type is open on my menu. If Operation Health fixes this, I may come back to update this review, but for now, I can't say I can recommend it, because of the unreliability with getting the game to work with friends.

The best Twisted Metal-like game on steam today. My only complaint is that it's vastly under-rated.