In review - Game brings obscure racing home

In the United States, people equate motor racing with those NASCAR behemoths roaring around in a circle, the races interrupted from time to time by huge wrecks that send half the field limping to the garage.

But in much of the rest of the world, especially in Europe, there's another form of motor sports with a huge fan base and a brand of racing little known here.

It's called rallying.

There have been a number of attempts to bring rallying to your video game console, some more successful than others. The advent of the powerful Xbox has brought a new title to the masses -- and it's just likely to bring this exciting form of racing to a new level of popularity, at least among gamers.

"Rallisport Challenge," developed by the folks at Sweden's DICE (for Digital Illusions) for Microsoft, is an excellent game in almost every way. It re-creates the experience of rallying, which involves racing against the clock on public roads in production-based cars, from the lowliest tweaked VW Beetle to the mighty, now outlawed Group B cars with their 800-plus horsepower engines.

The thrill of piloting these cars in a wide variety of conditions, from ice and snow to deep sand and rain-slick mud or gravel, involves different skills from those needed to get you to work each day.

To be successful, you have to spend most of each race on the ragged edge of traction, sliding sideways as you seek the exact throttle setting that will hurl you forward without sending you careening off the road into the nearest tree, boulder or bottomless chasm.

Is the game perfect? Of course not. Perhaps the biggest problem is the amazing leap in difficulty between the two levels.

In Beginner, you can probably complete almost all the offered races in a few tries. But switch to Normal and the level of difficulty shoots into the stratosphere, leaving you stuck running the same race over and over in a desperate and perhaps futile attempt to collect enough points to move on. Next time DICE, how about a middle ground?

The game does offer nice playing options, perhaps to make up for the difficulty issue. There's an excellent multiplayer mode, in which up to four wannabe racers can compete in a split-screen format. There's Time Attack, which lets you race against the clock.

The on-screen information is just what you need, and there's a camera position for everyone.

DICE has created perhaps the best-looking racing game of all time. The amazing, picture-perfect images -- sun glinting off a road covered with ice, cars that get dirtier as the race progresses, rooster tails of mud or snow spewing from churning tires -- have to be seen. An amazing accomplishment.

Give those graphics an A+. If you can find a better-looking racing game, I'd like to see it.

Control gets an A. Mastering the all-important technique of braking into a turn to snap the car into a slide, then slamming on the power and roaring down the road, takes some practice. But everything you need to be successful is there. Using the triggers for gas and brake is perfect.

Sound also gets an A. The roar of the cars, the voice of your co-driver calmly pointing out what's coming next, with warnings about trees and rocks, the upbeat music -- a lot of thought went into this part of the experience.

"Rallisport Challenge" is a game any racing fan should try. If you're getting bored doing nothing but turning left in a huge converted sedan, climb aboard.

There's more than NASCAR and drag racing out there, motorheads.