Q&As// SEGA Driving Studio Director: Guy Wilday
We could quite easily have 100 different tracks,
SEGA Rally is another one of those ‘golden classics’ from the SEGA we all loved back in the 1990s and has gone AWOL as of late. It took everything from rally driving – the realism, the track design, the nasty bends and dips – and took out all the complicated stuff to turn it into something that was fun. As we are seeing lately though, SEGA is attempting somewhat of a comeback, reviving old franchises and bringing back blue skies!
The new SEGA Rally, most notably, is being developed in the UK by a new internal studio rather than the Japanese chaps due East. Whether the next game will live up to expectations (or even keep the cheesy “Game Over Yeeeeeeeaaaaaah!” jingle) is always a daunting thing to ask someone behind the project of a game series everyone adores. So, that’s why we asked Driving Studio’s Director Guy Wilday those questions, just to grill him a bit. Except the cheesy jingle one. We’d just look weird.
SPOnG: As a relatively new studio formed by SEGA, how daunting is it to be working on one of the publisher’s most prized franchises?
Guy Wilday:: On paper it might sound daunting, but we have been set up with games such as SEGA Rally in mind, so if we couldn’t handle the pressure we wouldn’t deserve to be here. Having said that, it’s actually really exciting to be working on SEGA Rally as it has such an esteemed and successful history.
SPOnG: Are there any plans to release this version of SEGA Rally into arcades or is this purely a home console release?
Guy Wilday:: Purely for home consoles. No need to replace the arcade version – it’s SEGA’s most successful arcade game ever!
SPOnG: Past SEGA Rally games have been exceptional to play, but because they have been ported from arcades are lacking in the selection of tracks. How many courses can we expect to see in this update?
We could quite easily have 100 different tracks, but if players didn’t feel like they were racing bumper to bumper in frantic races with mud splattering everywhere we wouldn’t have achieved delivering a proper SEGA Rally experience. However, we’re confident that we’ll deliver that and also have a varied selection of tracks for players to race on.
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Comments
RiseFromYourGrave 26 Apr 2007 21:38
1/4
the track deformation, complete with water placement is sweet. they may overdo it, but done properly, it should become standard!
ive been beaten by primary school kids on art of fighting in jilly's in manchester. i was on some s**t
ive been beaten by primary school kids on art of fighting in jilly's in manchester. i was on some s**t
Absinthe-Review.net 29 Apr 2007 13:03
2/4
Ah, when I heard the first details of this new Sega Rally it made me so nostalgic that I busted out the ol Saturn and ran a couple races of Daytona USA, complete with official Sega racing wheel.:) By that time I couldn't help myself and ended-up playing Darius Gaiden and Virtua Fighter Remix...couldn't find my copy of Sega Rally, though!
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Roareye Black 12 May 2007 11:08
3/4
I've downloaded the demo of Forza 2, but was left feeling it lacked. It had a similar graphical ability to PGR3, except it had better vehicle damage, and played much the same. Add to this the lack of frentic action throughout and I found the game a little tedius.
I love PGR3, but I only really play it in the summer cos it's a great chill-out title. Stick some urban music, or techno or rock on your hard drive (Cos the in-game music is s**t) and play away. Unfortunately that left me gagging during winter.
I got Need for Speed Carbon: Collectors Edition and had the most tremendous time a few months back. Seat-of-your-pants action, some nice features and a cool customisation mode.
However SEGA Rally is something else. It's not just got tiny little feature, it's not just PGR plus damage. Hell I wonder if PGR4 will be much improved over PGR3, I'm hoping it is (2D illusionist trees have been around since Ganbare Goeman on the N64, give it a rest already -__-) but SEGA Rally looks the real nuts. Sure it doesn't look 200% better graphically than PGR3 (That'd be hard enough to do anyway), and yes the track deformation may or may not be a huge improvement, and I can get my thrill ride from NFS:C. But it's the fact that it appears to be a racing game that grabs the best elements from these three titles and massages it with a traditional SEGA look and feel to make what looks to be the next best Racing game.
Having SEGA Rally and an official Saturn wheel on my Saturn (Obviously), I can safely say that out of all the Saturn racers I own (Andretti Racing, Daytona USA, Daytona CCE, Sega Rally, SEGA Touring Car Championship and Virtua Racing) Sega Rally was easily the most fun. Yes it was amazingly short, and the fourth secret level (Lakeside) was nails, but you could just hit "Retry" over and over and over and not get bored. I hope this game has the same element of "just one more" the original had. It sounds like they have the right idea anyway, tense bumper-to-bumper action over hyper-realism. PGR and Forza are already doing the realism thing, it's good to see SEGA sticking to it's roots to make a game that's easily more accessible.
Only one small concern is the online mode. If the game is interacting with polygons 17 times more than any other racer, will this not most likely cause a huge amount of slowdown or lag during online play as everyone's tracks will have to deform accordingly? I hope SEGA have thought of that too and are actively making a solution to what could be a huge unfortunate problem.
Roareye Black.
I love PGR3, but I only really play it in the summer cos it's a great chill-out title. Stick some urban music, or techno or rock on your hard drive (Cos the in-game music is s**t) and play away. Unfortunately that left me gagging during winter.
I got Need for Speed Carbon: Collectors Edition and had the most tremendous time a few months back. Seat-of-your-pants action, some nice features and a cool customisation mode.
However SEGA Rally is something else. It's not just got tiny little feature, it's not just PGR plus damage. Hell I wonder if PGR4 will be much improved over PGR3, I'm hoping it is (2D illusionist trees have been around since Ganbare Goeman on the N64, give it a rest already -__-) but SEGA Rally looks the real nuts. Sure it doesn't look 200% better graphically than PGR3 (That'd be hard enough to do anyway), and yes the track deformation may or may not be a huge improvement, and I can get my thrill ride from NFS:C. But it's the fact that it appears to be a racing game that grabs the best elements from these three titles and massages it with a traditional SEGA look and feel to make what looks to be the next best Racing game.
Having SEGA Rally and an official Saturn wheel on my Saturn (Obviously), I can safely say that out of all the Saturn racers I own (Andretti Racing, Daytona USA, Daytona CCE, Sega Rally, SEGA Touring Car Championship and Virtua Racing) Sega Rally was easily the most fun. Yes it was amazingly short, and the fourth secret level (Lakeside) was nails, but you could just hit "Retry" over and over and over and not get bored. I hope this game has the same element of "just one more" the original had. It sounds like they have the right idea anyway, tense bumper-to-bumper action over hyper-realism. PGR and Forza are already doing the realism thing, it's good to see SEGA sticking to it's roots to make a game that's easily more accessible.
Only one small concern is the online mode. If the game is interacting with polygons 17 times more than any other racer, will this not most likely cause a huge amount of slowdown or lag during online play as everyone's tracks will have to deform accordingly? I hope SEGA have thought of that too and are actively making a solution to what could be a huge unfortunate problem.
Roareye Black.
rgdfhgd 25 May 2007 12:47
4/4
[25 May 2007, 14:07: Message edited by 'TimSpong']A large slab of Spam related.