Dakar Desert Rally Review

Dakar Desert Rally is all about driving a very fast sports car through the hardest and most difficult environments you can imagine. Sometimes though, speed is not the key and that is something that the developers need to think out.

In this review, we will be talking about the Dakar Desert Rally and how it was rushed into its release date. We will see if it is an interesting game to play and if should you try it out.

Review – Dakar Desert Rally

To make this review much clearer and make more sense to you, we will go ahead and just list the Pros and Cons and then make an overall review of it at the end.

Pros

The graphics will make you breathless! Let’s see what are the other Pros.

Weather System & Seasons

There are all four seasons and a full day-night cycle in Dakar Desert Rally. Whether you’re in a blowing sandstorm, the blazing sun of the desert, hard rain and snow, or deep mud, you’ll have to beat the weather and your competitors to win.

This makes it a very fun experience to race through. The new weather seems to work much better than the last ones so it definitely is a Pro.

Beautiful Environments

One of the most beautiful things that Dakar Desert Rally has to offer is really the stunning scenery. It does have above-the-average graphics which combined with the fast-paced movement of the vehicles, you will be seeing lots of beautiful things.

You will be passing through lots of deserts, deserts with canyons and cactuses as well as some that are strict with sand everywhere. Then you will jump onto a beautiful green scenery with fields and trees only to end up on a snowy mountain road.

It is a thrill whenever you’re playing this game not knowing what to expect next in your racing track.

Racing and Mechanics

The racing and mechanics of Dakar Desert are really good and working. Well, most of the time.

You will be getting a simulator type of driving with sometimes questionable physics which might come weird to you. But overall, it has a very good feeling whatever it is that you might be driving. You will have a good feel of the vehicles and you can really feel their weight.

Difficulty

There are 3 difficulties in this game. They are:

• Sport – This will give you a more arcade experience. You will get waypoints beacons on the screen, much more things to give you an indication of where you need to go, easier opponents, and lower repair costs. You will even have checkpoint systems that will let you restart from a certain point in the map. If you are new in the game, this is the best mod to start with.
• Professional – If you are looking for a challenge, this is the one for you. You will get ruthless AI and very quick and smart driving racers. Although some players have been complaining that the bots aren’t all that good. You will get much more expensive repairs and no more waypoints beacons. You will still have the checkpoints.
• Simulation – It will basically remove all the checkpoints and further elevates all of the harder things in the previous two settings.

Players have been complaining about the bots at times. But mostly, having the option of choosing these 3 modes is a welcome addition to a racing game.

Cons

There are certain types of Cons that make this game as it needed more development time.

Small Objects

Sometimes you will be driving across the big wide and beautiful map at very fast speeds and can tramble over trees and bushes while also passing through ponds of water.

While other times, because of the weird physics mechanics of this game that can happen from time to time, you will be stopped or slowed by a random small rock on the road. These small penalties might seem like not that big of an issue, but when you’re in a tense last-second rush, they are crucial and can make you very frustrated.

Slipping and Sliding

Although this might have been the intention of the developers it is something that players tend not to like.

The slipping and sliding that the vehicles you will be driving are sometimes over the top. You will feel the weight of your car, but sometimes this won’t change or make any difference at all since you will be doing 360 circles out of nowhere over a simple bump on the road.

One small improper break or a fast turn will lead your car around and possibly even out of the road. This is something that needs to be looked upon by the devs since it is frustrating.

Long Races

Although this game is meant to represent a Dakar Desert Race, sometimes when you’re inside a race for around an hour, you might get bored of it.

That’s the case with Dakar Desert Rally. Of course, they managed to do a very good job with the overall graphics and feel of the environment. But when you’re racing in a big race like this and you’re not around any other cars, it tends to get dull very quickly.

The races are longer than they need to be. This might come as a personal preference because some players enjoy the tense quick races, but even for a Dakar race they seem too long and this is the overall feel of it so far.

Stability & Performance

Although this could be fixed in the future, it is a big Con as of right now.

You will be enjoying the stunning graphics and amazing world scenery and environment. Then out of nowhere, you will get the FPS to do a complete nose dive. You will get the most random performance drops and issues.

This doesn’t change with how powerful the specs of your device is or how much you tweak the settings of your game. It is just an optimization issue that the developers need to check upon. If you have too many opponents crashing next to each other at once, you might even experience a crash.

Bugs

Players have been reporting a crazy amount of bugs that they have been enjoying while playing Dakar Desert Rally. This is of course the case because it is a fresh release, but it seems as though it might have been too rushed.

If you are playing the game, you will be amazed at how the water physics works. But at the same time, you will notice that once you get near water, you will have lots of weird things happening to your game. The stability, performance, handling, and simply everything will go upside down.

That is one example but there are plenty. You will sometimes get clipped under the ground if you are jumping and hit with the front of your car in a rock. You can get your back tires stuck under the ground only to be thrown high up in the air and so on.

It is a very ambitious project that the developers have tackled on. But these game-breaking issues make it feel as though it was very rushed.

Overall & Rating

Dakar Desert Rally is a game that will leave you breathless because of its amazing graphics. You will be enjoying all the maps that you can play and you can clearly tell that the work has been put in.

But other than that, the developers do need to work on a lot of things. It is called a rushed game for a reason. Simply driving the cars with the weird handling mechanics will make you question if it is ready to play or not. Then the bugs will start showing up.

Don’t mind those reviews that they’re saying this game is not fast enough or something similar. The Dakar Races are meant to be long and through harsh environments, not boosting your speed with a nitro.

It is a very fun game to play as it is right now if you manage to look past the performance issues and focus on the graphics. The future for it is bright and we hope that the developers will start working on fixing it as soon as possible.

Thank you very much for checking out our review! We hope that this review has given you what you were looking for about the overall state of the Dakar Desert Rally. Happy racing!

READ NEXT: Overwatch 2 Review