Interview SEGA Rally

X-Power: Will SEGA Rally include online racing? Will the game combine this with other online functionalities? Or is the ability to race against other people enough?

Mark Fisher: It will most definitely have online modes and SEGA Racing Studio will include as much technology as they can. It’s all about competition and not hing gets better than something like Xbox Live. They will focus on that and make it as best as an experience as possible.

I’m not too sure, but they will have plans to download ghosts, but I don’t know whether or not it’ll happen automatically like in other games. I can't disclose too much about the online aspect sadly, so we’ll announce our plans in the future.

XP: Are you considering adding content from the previous SEGA Rally’s? Such as the announcer from SR 1 and some tracks from previous games? If not: is there a chance these will appear as downloadable content?

MF: The team are looking to recreate and enhance the regional SEGA Rally: all the previous elements from the others will be present, and it will sound familiar to longtime fans, while sounding more advanced; it’s not the same guy however, but he’s quite similar in the way he delivers the lines. We’ll be taking these moments, add them as cameo’s so that people will remind stuff from the previous SEGA Rally’s, the stuff they enjoyed and fondly think back of.

XP: Regarding the engine: will physics play a big part in the game (next to track deformation) and will it run at 60 frames per second, as stated before?

MF: I know they will strive for perfection. One of these things will be fluent sixty frames per second, something the team will definately try to achieve, but it's too early to make any guarantees concerning this. We'll have to wait and see how it evolves.

The bulk of the races will revolve around three laps, so the deformation can optimize during the length of the race. Generally speaking: the tracks are made up out of three layers, but if you keep the race running, there will be parts of the track that will look noticeably different than at the beginning of the race, like expanding the water puddles or reaching the bottom of the mud and making the tracks very hard. We even left the game running once for more than 12 hours straight (as a test) and the differences between its original and final state were vast.

You've all played Motorstorm by now, right? It’s a fun racing game, no doubt, but what we’re doing with track deformation is completely different from what you see in Motorstorm. You know how they, the developers, claimed they were pioneers, that their game would be the first racing game to properly include track deformation? I was looking forward to that, but when I played it, it became clear that it was nothing but a fancy graphical effect, more than anything else. Sure, it has some (minor) influence on the track, but their track deformation is more ‘arcadey’ than what we have created in SEGA Rally. SEGA Racing Studio is the first to include true track deformation, and they’re proud of this!

The amount of kick-ups, such as the amount of dust, is being discussed and adjusted, but we’ve had some very interesting conversations about the track deformation. You can wait and keep a distance instead of plowing through the dust clouds, which limits your vision, but later on, once the ground becomes wetter and filled with mud, that’s your time to make your move and pass your opponents.

Physics will play an equally large part for the handling of your car, but not in a realistic manner. Your car can’t be totaled, but they will have cosmetic damage. We like to call this 'Hollywood damage', but sadly we couldn’t show you today to what extent our cars can be damaged. It isn't available in the current build, but rest assured: damage models will be available in the final code.

The reason why we haven’t gone for realistic damage: SEGA Rally is about a smile inducing experience and having physical consequences for bad driving (like mine today!) distracts the player from that feeling. It’s all about fast-paced racing and competitiveness. That’s where the rubber band A.I. comes in: yes there will be slight rubber banding, but we also want to prevent frustrations like being spun in the back by your opponents. Frustrations like that isn’t what SEGA Rally is about.

XP: What kind of single and multiplayer modes can we expect? Also: why did SEGA prefer something like Championship in stead of opting for the return of SR 2’s 10-year career mode, or tour de force?

MF: They’re currently finalizing the single player modes, so unfortunately I can’t give you much information about this. But, the team, if they got a question or don’t know what to do, they’ll replay the previous games and evaluate wh at made them great, and add them in the game to further emphasize its roots. Not many people get the chance to get to work on such an iconic franchise, so to them, it’s all about bringing back the feeling of the previous games and the intensity of the racing itself.

XP: Speaking of modes: any new race types that weren’t in the previous games?

MF: SEGA is guilty of the past in that they had a arcade IP for consoles, but didn’t fully develop them for that specific userbase. But SEGA wants to improve on that and insure a solid single player where you have great depth in the concept yet keep the core addictiveness at the same time. We want to keep the fun factor very instant and very accessible, which is what people expect from arcade games after all. The team is really going to great length so that this SEGA Rally won’t disappoint in both single and multiplayer.

XP : Out of the camera views: will there be a dashboard view? It would add greatly for the immersion of the races. For that matter: any word on support for force feedback steering wheels?

MF: There will be four different camera views: two of them will be in third-person (one close to the car, one further), a hood cam and bumper view. There will be no dashboard view, but there will be force feedback on the Xbox 360: we’ve tried it with the Forza 2 wheel, it works and it feels incredible!

Regarding the PlayStation 3 version: the ball is in Sony's court. We’d like to add force feedback in one way or another and we’re currently negotiating with Sony, but we’re not making any promises. The situation is also a little different than on the Xbox 360, considering the lack of rumble in the Sixaxis controller.

XP: Will there be any form of car customization, be it decals or adjusting some parts of your car such as suspension, tires et cetera?

MF: The team looked closely to the level of customization in previous games and they want to make sure that all of the vehicles will be pretty even versus others. They will have some 'special abilities' if you will: some are better suited for certain environments and surfaces, but all of them will nonetheless be pretty even to one another.

In terms of actual customization: there will be different liveries, and the standard vehicles will have three different variants where tires, suspension and other components will be pre-set for you, all with specific statistics. However, there will be no independent customization.