Arabian Rally
A rally-style racing game, Arabian Rally is the third game in a series that includes American Rally and European Rally, both of which were commercially and critically successful. Arabian Rally is the series' first release designed for seventh generation systems, and while it's not a cutting edge game in terms of graphics like Gran Turismo 4, it's still a beautiful looking game, featuring detailed supercars racing through the deserts and cities of the Arabian peninsula. It's a multiplatform title, released not only for all three current generation systems, but also for the iPod Play and Supernova, where it gets a somewhat scaled down port in terms of car selection and graphics. The first game designed from the start as a multiplatformer, it has a cosmopolitan focus, and more of a simulation feel than previous titles in the series. It features a selection of 70 different real-life supercars, racing across 18 tracks spread across countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. It also features a storyline mode in which the player befriends a rich young businessman who helps him gain access to secret races across the peninsula, and winning those races allows the player to unlock more cars and race on more tracks. As a rally-type game, Arabian Rally has somewhat of an arcade-like feel as the player races from point to point. Like in previous games in the series, the player only has a certain amount of time to reach the next point, and must also race 11 other cars attempting to beat them to the finish line. The game features realistic damage for the first time in the series, and though that damage doesn't impact the cars like it does in Gran Turismo 4, it still can play a significant role: take too much damage and your car is black flagged from the race. In addition to storyline and versus modes, the game features time trial modes as well, and also has online gameplay that supports up to 12 players. Unlike Gran Turismo 4, Arabian Rally also supports local multiplayer in which up to four players can race each other either with or without the CPU. The game, like last year's Sega Rally, has optional sliders that allow the player to control how much of an arcade experience they want the game to be, though these games always had a bit of a simulation-style feel to them moreso than other rally-style racing games.
Arabian Rally is released in January 2009, two months before Gran Turismo 4. Though expected to be a good game due to the success of its predecessors, Arabian Rally isn't expected to be much in the way of competition to Gran Turismo 4, due to the level of hype received by the latter game and also the perceived differences in quality between the two titles. Despite the muted expectations, Arabian Rally is a bit of a surprise: not only are reviews outstanding, better than the reviews for its predecessors and comparable to the critical reception achieved by Sega Rally, the game also sells much better than expected, becoming the biggest new release of January 2009. Arabian Rally finally establishes the series as one of the top racing franchises on the market, and also further popularizes rally style games after the success of the Sega Rally revival. Though a new game in the series is already planned for release, the developers are somewhat surprised by the success of Arabian Rally, and respond by making some changes to their upcoming game.
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Gran Turismo 4
Gran Turismo 4 is a simulation racing game exclusive to the Nintendo Sapphire. Developed by Polyphony and published by Sony, the game is the TTL equivalent of OTL's Gran Turismo 5, and has many of the same features, including enhanced damage visuals and weather effects. The game also revamps the online mode, which appeared on the Wave's Gran Turismo 3 but in a fairly bare bones form. TTL's Gran Turismo 4 allows for up to 40 online racers at once, allowing for players to have a realistic Daytona 500 (NASCAR support is introduced in this game, as well as Indycar support). The game features a total of 1486 cars initially, with hundreds more made available through DLC. There are also 92 tracks available right from the base game, and dozens more would be sold through DLC. Polyphony worked six years to make Gran Turismo 4 the most realistic, comprehensive, and immersive racing simulator ever, and also the best looking: the game is easily the most impressive looking Nintendo Sapphire title to date. The cars look vivid and realistic, and damage also looks real and effects the racing performance of the cars (OTL's Gran Turismo 5 was criticized for the damage not effecting the cars in the initial version of the game). The game also features a wide selection of musical tracks, from both well known artists and indie bands, along with a selection of original instrumental tracks created just for the game. Just as IOTL, the player can import their own music for use in the game as well. Though the development process for Gran Turismo 4 was longer than OTL's process for Gran Turismo 5, it was significantly easier, due to the Sapphire's architecture being easier to program for than the OTL Playstation 3 Cell processor. This allowed for Polyphony to focus on adding more content and expanding the online gameplay. Expanding the online gameplay to allow for 40 racers at once was one of the biggest challenges that Polyphony faced in development of the game, but thanks to the Sapphire's advanced CPU, it was a problem that the team was able to solve. Not all tracks are available for 40 racer gameplay: only about 20% of the game's tracks support so many racers, including tracks like Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Daytona. Of course, being a Nintendo exclusive game, Gran Turismo 4 has a few nods to other Nintendo racing titles, most notably Super Mario Kart, with a few classic tracks from the Mario Kart series being included in the game, and some karts from the series included as well. There's also an homage to the SNES title Stunt Race FX with one of the tracks from that game appearing, along with a car that looks suspiciously like the F-TYPE from that game (without the cartoony eyes, of course). Gran Turismo 4 doesn't feature much in the way of voice acting, and there are no commentators during the races themselves. However, after each race, there's the option to have commentary given alongside highlights of the race, and there's also a speaking voice in the game's various training modes. Like previous games in the series, Gran Turismo 4 makes you earn most of the bonuses in the games, including tracks and vehicles, by participating in a series of license exams and circuit races. While it's not too terribly hard to make consistent progress in the game, it's very time-consuming and difficult to unlock every single thing. This is by design, and though most players are used to it, it can be somewhat frustrating.
Gran Turismo 4 is released on March 24, 2009. It's the most hyped Nintendo Sapphire game in the first quarter of the year, and reviews are outstanding, significantly better than those for OTL's Gran Turismo 5, which was seen as a good game but somewhat of a misstep. Here, Gran Turismo 4 lives up to the hype and shows off the Nintendo Sapphire's next generation power in a huge way. It's the fastest selling racing game since Ultra Mario Kart, selling more than a million copies worldwide in its first week of release, but like previous games in the series, the majority of its sales would come after its first week as the game would become a must-own staple title for many Sapphire owners. While the Gran Turismo series hasn't changed much in its core gameplay, it has expanded greatly in its scope and level of detail, and remains the best racing simulation series on the market, enjoying the same level of success that it does IOTL. The twin successes of Arabian Rally and Gran Turismo 4 cement the racing genre as still being alive and well in the eyes of many gamers. Combined with the slightly elevated success that 2009's installments of EA and Sega Sports' NASCAR games enjoy, and the beginning of 2009 is seen as being one of the best times for racing games in recent memory, perhaps even topping the start of 2002, when the NASCAR 2K series first began and a slew of other racing titles saw major successes.
There's one I hadn't heard before...
