Dakar 2: The World's Ultimate Rally (Nintendo GameCube, 2003)

Product Specs

Description

The annual Paris-Dakar Rally is a multi-stage race that runs in 12 venues, beginning in France and ending in Senegal. Dakar 2: The World's Ultimate Rally features a grueling test that leads monster trucks, motorcycles, and off-road vehicles through some of the world's toughest terrain, including hills, deserts, forests, towns, canyons, and mud. Inclement weather, wild animals, and other hazards and distractions conspire against the driver and co-pilot as vehicles sustain realistic damage to engines, shocks, steering, and tires, requiring repairs and tweaks between stages. The Nintendo GameCube version offers both campaign and arcade modes like its Xbox brethren, but also provides a dozen downloadable mini-game tracks for the Game Boy Advance system, which must be unlocked using campaign mode. Unlike the Xbox version, which provides for multiplayer competition via Xbox Live, the GameCube offers split-screen head-to-head rally racing. Arcade mode consists of Single Races (head-to-head against three computer-controlled drivers) and Time Trials. Player vehicles are selected from those unlocked in campaign mode. There are three initial tracks with more unlocked by finishing in first place. A Quick Race option lets the computer select a track and vehicle for instant action. During races, onscreen displays include the driver name and time, tachometer RPMs, the current gear, the current speed (shown in miles per hour), a map of the track, co-pilot warnings (arrows), and time differentials that are updated at each checkpoint. Damage icons are shown in four color-coded levels (none, low, medium, and high) and three difficulty settings allow players to learn controls and track layouts at their own speed. Race stages include Artois, Chateauroux, Castilla La Mancha, Atlas Mountains, Sahara, Ahaggar Mountains, Mali Desert, Niger River, Timbuktu, Mauritania Grasslands, Savannah, and Dakar Beach.