It's not the best rally game on the planet, and I would prefer to play Colin McRae Rally 2.0 on PlayStation, but GTC Africa presents gamers with a good dose of everything a rally racer needs: Better-than-decent car physics, excellent tracks, unpredictable AI, and heaps of good powersliding madness. The cars, they aren't too bad, either.
Gameplay
Rage Software has approached this game with the right idea in mind. They're created a good physics engine that enables great powerslides and didn't skimp on the hard stuff, namely tough courses and respectable AI. The car list isn't the biggest around, boasting around seven cars, each with its own level of acceleration, grip, and speed, but it does the trick. Players can pick from the Pontiac Vibe, Grand-Am, and Firebird; the Ford Cougar, Mustang, Focus, and Escort; the Subaru Impreza; and the Mitsubishi Evo 6. I found that while the Subaru Impreza was far more fun to drive, offering a higher speed level, the Ford Escort Cosworth and the Ford Focus were the best overall cars in the bunch (I prefer better grip to higher speeds). As you progress through the levels, the faster, more powerful cars Mustang and the Firebird open up.
The physics engine is respectable. The cars truly vary in handling, speed, grip, acceleration, and they need to be driven a few times before knowing them well enough to tackle the more difficult courses. With a combination of hard corners to bump off, soft shoulders to roll over, mixed in with the ability to drive off course on sand, dirt, mud, snow, and tarmac, GTC offers a knowledgable blend of surfaces to provide that rally feel. While drivers can choose from three perspectives (in-car, over-the-shoulder short, and over-the-shoulder long), the best one I found was the over-the-shoulder short view for the first lap or so, which helped to prevent unnecessary mess-ups. And those will indeed happen. A handful of courses are designed with multiple snaking curves on a downhill slope, coaxing players to tip their cars. You can ride on two wheels, or completely flip the vehicle, although the physics engine leans toward trying to keep the car on all four wheels. If you have flipped over, however, a quick push on the Select button will return you into the race.
While World Rally Championship still holds the reigns on the best rally game on the system, I spent a good amount of time playing through this simple yet enjoyable rally game, and strangely, I learned more about Africa than I knew before. Hey, fancy that! It's a little geography course on the side. Did you know that Morocco had a population of 30 million and boasted the fine well-known places Casablanca and Tangier? Hey hey! Each course provides a rundown on the country's capitol, the population (Africa is really overcrowded!), areas of interest, and the terrain, with a brief description on the course itself.
The course variation is probably some of the best in any rally game, even if it leans toward more sand and dirt than snow and tarmac. I loved that I could race through a dense forest filled with waterfalls and long snaking curves, which then also offered sharp, 180 degree turns, and obstacles such as rocks and palm trees strategically placed to punish you for pulling off the turn wrong. Add in short, fast city courses peppered with lamp posts, trees and fences, and you have to totally adjust the way you approach the course. Even nicer is that in the Championship mode (in which players open courses for other modes), there are as many as 19 different circuits, which these days is a whopping sum.
On the other hand, GTC Africa is not technically advanced, offering no modification or upgrade options, not adjusting to the various courses. It's just a simple car selection process and you're off to the races. That hurts. Even worse (at least in the Championship mode) is the way in which you select cars. Players pick a racing team then they pick a car to race. The car selection process happens before knowing which course you'll race on. You can't prepare in any way for the terrain this way, which is pretty lousy. Racing fans love tweaking cars, and with a rally racing game of this quality, it's expected. I guess Rage just decided to go for the simple, casual gamer approach. No muss, no fuss. Still, it simplifies the game to an annoying level.
Unlike other rally games, GTC Africa (which I guess is technically a touring car game as much as it is a rally game) puts six cars on screen simultaneously, enabling players to wrestle with the AI, smash opponents into obstacles, and to feel the pain of the squirrelly return the favor. It's rare to race with other cars in this genre, and it's definitely a good thing, adding to the competition level, as well as its depth. The AI is really weird, through. In some races it's simply not there, while in others the computer-controlled racers fight you for every inch of the road. It's surprisingly unpredictable, which for computer AI, is a good thing. But for the record, it seems a little fishy that it's fierce sometimes, while vacant in others.
At the end of each race, players see their results, including position, time, damage, bonus/penalty, and new team status. During a Championship season, players race through three very different sections of Africa, covering 19 circuits, and including a scope of terrain. There is a Time Challenge, and a two-player mode, and also the surprisingly fun Challenge mode, which offers features 11 additional tracks with racing challenges such as time trials, hill climbs and descents, and speed challenges.
Graphics
While the cars themselves are rather plain in design, offering simple reflection maps and far fewer details than Gran Turismo 3 A-spec, other aspects of the game's graphics offer impressive results. For one, lighting appears to have been a priority. Players are blinded with various lighting effects, reflections, and enough various times of day to make the point clear.
Much like GT3, Rage's game uses sunlight to produce a visual affect -- blinding sunlight striking gamers right in the eyes -- that affects gameplay. It's a fabulous effect, handled very well. In other levels, the sun is setting, creating a warm set of orange and red colors that creates a calm, satisfying feeling. Sunlight continues to play a large role in the game -- and it should, the game does take place in sunny, hot Africa -- with streams of light shining through trees, spotlighting patches of ground and reflecting off other objects, too.
Other on target effects can be found in the dust and cloud effects, created by cars going off road from tarmac courses, or by simply driving on regular dusty courses. The dust effects are actually helpful for strategy purposes, too. If you're in last and can't see the car ahead of you, you know you're improving when you see the dust from the car ahead of you. Kind cool, stuff. The artwork in general is handled well, too. Players will see beautiful waterfalls, lush forests and dry parched courses that make you feel a little sweaty under the collar. I noticed some sweet silhouettes of trees against the sunlight, too, and there's good use of heat effects, too.
The textures are, like the cars, not the greatest we have ever seen, but the game presents a good enough variety, given the predominance of sandy courses, to keep one's eyes piqued. Part of the game's problem is that it's not running at a constant 60 frames per second, and another dilemma is that a good amount of shimmering and a small amount of aliasing, too. It doesn't help that the final product shows off a few tears in textures, and a healthy amount of artifacts distraction, too, which just lowers the overall quality of the visuals.
Sound
Perhaps the least impressive aspect of GTC Africa is its sound. The sound track is a weird collection of pseudo-African beats which blend basic African cultural sounds (hymns, vocals, and the like) with techno beats. I have listed to enough King Sunny Ade and Suweto music to know this ain't the real stuff, and the result is a watered down, hyper African-influenced techno sound. Fitting? Perhaps. Nice to listen to? The music really fills in the aural sphere, instead of enhancing it. It works, but barely.
As for the sound effects, they too could have used to some work. Some of the cars with larger engines produce a fat, burly engine sound that makes one feel like they¿re controlling a real rally car, while others sound like AAA-battery powered bathtub toys (remember those little battery-powered dolphins and boats you played with as a kid? Yeah, those.) GTC Africa's sound quality is uneven, too. It's louder in some levels than others, and it takes no advantage of the technical abilities the PS2 has to offer.
