V-Rally 3

V-Rally 3
File:V-Rally 3 Coverart.png
Developer(s)	Velez & Dubail (GBA) Eden Games
Publisher(s)	Atari
Platforms	Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	Game Boy Advance & PlayStation 2 JP 27 June 2002 (GBA) NA 30 September 2002 (GBA) NA 22 October 2002 (PS2) JP 16 January 2003 (PS2) Xbox GameCube Microsoft Windows
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

V-Rally 3 is a 2002 rally racing video game, developed by Eden Games. It's the third game in the V-Rally series and the sequel of V-Rally 2.

The game focuses on the unique career mode, where the player races against bots in various rallies across an endless number of seasons, ultimately trying to become the champion.

Alternatively, the game offers a quick race mode, where the player can play time attacks on the stages provided by the game or compete in one of the five different challenges it offers.

The game features 24 tracks and 20 official vehicles, including the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII, the Subaru Impreza WRX '01 and (the game's "flagship" car) Peugeot 206 WRC. There are four unlockable vehicles, which can be unlocked once the player has achieved a goal (like claiming the 2,0 L Championship).

Tracks and areas

The game features six racing areas (Finland, Sweden, England, France, Africa and Germany), with four tracks each. The tracks can also be raced reversed, which makes the total amount of tracks 48. When racing a track reversed, the weather conditions of the track may change.

Each area has its main surface and to gain success in the game, the player needs to handle them all. The dominating surface in the game is gravel, and it is the main surface in the areas of Finland, England and Africa. France and Germany have asphalt as their surface and Sweden is the only rally raced on snow. In the career mode each area makes their own rally by 5 tracks chosen randomly from the 8 possible.

Drivers

V-Rally 3 features 74 fictional drivers and 6 real-world drivers (total of 80 drivers). These drivers compete against the player in the "V-Rally Mode", the career mode of the game. Each time the player begins a new career mode, a random algorithm selects 31 of the 80 drivers, 16 for the 2.0 liter championship and 15 for the 1.6 liter championship. While the player progresses from season to season, the game automatically drops off a random set of drivers from the 2.0 liter championship (raging from 0 drivers to 6 drivers at the end of each season) and replaces them with new "rookies", that compete in the 1.6 liter championship. These drivers cannot be used in the "Arcade Mode" of the game, unless they are recreated by the player in the driver creation mode.

There are 6 real drivers in the game: Gilles Panizzi, Richard Burns, Carlos Sainz, Philippe Bugalski, Piero Liatti, and Tommi Mäkinen.

If you win the 1,6 Litre Championship, you win a bonus car, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI. The younger brother of Evo IV which was in the original V-Rally from 1997 and of Evo V which was in V-Rally 2.

There is another bonus car if you win the 2,0 Litre Championship. That is the Subaru Impreza WRX '00 edition, which was also featured in all previous V-Rally games (or its older evolution respectively).

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 77.73% Metacritic 82/100 Review scores Publication Score Game Informer 88% GamesMaster 75% GameSpot 72% GameSpy 75% OPM (US) 90% Play 80% PSM3 81%

On release, Famitsu magazine scored the Game Boy Advance version of the game a 31 out of 40.

See also

• V-Rally
• V-Rally 2

External links

• Eden Studios page
• Atari PS2 page
• V-Rally 3 at MobyGames