Pro Rally 2001 is a video game of the racing genre released in 2000 by Ubi Soft. A sequel, Pro Rally 2002, was released in 2002.
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When I was a kid, me and my circle often played janky budget titles. And I've been thinking for years that this is one of them. But actually playing it now, this seems more like Ubisoft's attempt at competing with Codemasters.
There is at least one area in which this game beats Colin McRae Rally (1 and 2): the vast sprawling environments with a lot of visual variety that often seem to stretch all the way to the horizon. The draw distance is incredible, and you can drive like 20-30 meters off the road before you get spawned back. This alone makes this game worth a try.
Unofortunately, it kinda fails in the most important aspect: the handling. It's not bad per se. It's just that the steering is extremely stiff. At first this is infuriating, but actually there's a learning curve here. There is a mandatory (if you wanna unlock championships) school mode, and through a lot of trial and error I realized that this stiff steering actually works in this game. However, by the end of the school, my fingers were aching. And I have to say that, even when you do figure out how to play this game, it still feel like a constant struggle. It's just in general way more effort and way less fun than in other racing games. The game is most fun when it gives you wide roads where you can have a lot of room to drift. Whenever the roads are thin and snaky, it's hell.
The championships are extremely brutal. If you mess up a race, you can't replay it unless you start the whole championship from scratch, and these championships are huge. I would advise to ignore them altogether unless you deem yourself an expert driver. Thankfully all tracks are unlocked in the time trial mode.
The graphics are pretty good for 2000 (though not at the level of CMR 2.0), and the music pretty boring, but at least it's not annoying. You have several camera modes, which btw you can switch between with function keys. The game never tells you that. You can change it from the settings menu, and the keyboard settings don't mention any keys to switch the camera mode. I discovered this completely by accident.
All in all, a pretty flawed, but admirable attempt by Ubisoft. The game came out several months after CMR 2.0, which leads me to assume that CMR 1 was their only frame of reference in regards to developing a competitor. However, even in competition with CMR 1, it doesn't exactly win. Needless to say, CMR 2.0 blows Pro Rally 2001 out of the water.
There is at least one area in which this game beats Colin McRae Rally (1 and 2): the vast sprawling environments with a lot of visual variety that often seem to stretch all the way to the horizon. The draw distance is incredible, and you can drive like 20-30 meters off the road before you get spawned back. This alone makes this game worth a try.
Unofortunately, it kinda fails in the most important aspect: the handling. It's not bad per se. It's just that the steering is extremely stiff. At first this is infuriating, but actually there's a learning curve here. There is a mandatory (if you wanna unlock championships) school mode, and through a lot of trial and error I realized that this stiff steering actually works in this game. However, by the end of the school, my fingers were aching. And I have to say that, even when you do figure out how to play this game, it still feel like a constant struggle. It's just in general way more effort and way less fun than in other racing games. The game is most fun when it gives you wide roads where you can have a lot of room to drift. Whenever the roads are thin and snaky, it's hell.
The championships are extremely brutal. If you mess up a race, you can't replay it unless you start the whole championship from scratch, and these championships are huge. I would advise to ignore them altogether unless you deem yourself an expert driver. Thankfully all tracks are unlocked in the time trial mode.
The graphics are pretty good for 2000 (though not at the level of CMR 2.0), and the music pretty boring, but at least it's not annoying. You have several camera modes, which btw you can switch between with function keys. The game never tells you that. You can change it from the settings menu, and the keyboard settings don't mention any keys to switch the camera mode. I discovered this completely by accident.
All in all, a pretty flawed, but admirable attempt by Ubisoft. The game came out several months after CMR 2.0, which leads me to assume that CMR 1 was their only frame of reference in regards to developing a competitor. However, even in competition with CMR 1, it doesn't exactly win. Needless to say, CMR 2.0 blows Pro Rally 2001 out of the water.