Dakar Desert Rally Review - Ouch! That Was Rough!

I could not use my Thustmaster TMX wheel in Snowrunner ( XBOX Live trial)...seems controller only. That don't work for me. I do enjoy a bit of Dakar 18, which I got for cheap.

Theo7272 said:

Exactly and they can't even tell us which wheel and pedals they are using...

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More importantly, the review failed to even say why it is fun. The quality of articles on RD is really poor, to be honest. Also, whats with the multiple pages layout?

ACG on Youtube who uploads a lot of video reviews goes into how fun is the game for a general racing game fan. Even though the game has quite a lot of issues ranging from rough AI, performance issues on Xbox, screen tearing and so on. Even with the flaws, it is really fun for him as a casual audience.

Based on that one review and a number of gameplay videos, Dakar looks like a decently fun arcade game.

Hal Burns said:

I could not use my Thustmaster TMX wheel in Snowrunner ( XBOX Live trial)...seems controller only. That don't work for me. I do enjoy a bit of Dakar 18, which I got for cheap.

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I have EPIC store version of Snowrunner. My Fanatec CSW1 works fine with it.. even has FFB.

Cheesenium said:

Also, whats with the multiple pages layout?

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Just going off my F1 Manager review. It makes it more "chapterized" and less wall of text tm

I honestly forgot this was coming out. Just watched one of the trailers and it looks so casual. To me its like Forza on the desert.
"Dakar Desert Rally features all four seasons" Yeah right

XhendrickX said:

I honestly forgot this was coming out. Just watched one of the trailers and it looks so casual. To me its like Forza on the desert.
"Dakar Desert Rally features all four seasons" Yeah right

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Oh no how dare a company make a game that appeals to a wide audience and not just to the minority of self entitled sim racer

Mekonrider said:

Not sure how you came to 4/5 overall given the previous sections that scored 3/5.

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He was drunk

I pre-ordered the game on Monday (I wanted the Audi Etron) after watching some game play last week.
I can say That I love the game, short races are very fun but of course there are some things that I don't like. The game sometimes crashes with a "Fatal Error" message, I need to change my graphic settings from ultra to high because the frame rate is unstable and the handling... Well is great but it's hard to control when the car oversteers.
I agree with most of the people in this post and in steam forum about the simulation mode, I don't know if in simulation mode the stages e are long as in dakar 18 but this mode is locked until you are level 25 or 26 I think witch sucks. anyway I'll try to unlock the simulation mode. Classic vehicles are probably the best thing in this game in my opinion.

Considering getting it on xbox series s but worried the frame rate is gonna be too choppy to be enjoyable. Had this issue with SBK22 and ended up buying it a 2nd time for pc. Really dont wanna have to do the same again. Only reason i am considering xbox is because ive currently got a £20 voucher

There is a pretty detailed review available here in text and video:

I played the game so far on proffesional. And indeed trucks i only drive. In my opinion the game went a bit towards DiRT 5 style, although i am still very far in the beginning of the game. So less simulation, as so far you cant get out of the vehicle like in Dakar 18. There I sometimes stepped out the vehicle on top of a big dune and watched around for 30 seconds in a 45 minutes stage.

The AI seems sometimes to fast, especially in the first stages, and later stages of a rally they are slower, that causes you to push a lot and navigation sometimes becomes more as a guess. Almost no time to check the notes yourself. Now it is like taking big jumps. Even though I was pretty flat-out and did a stage in 8 minutes, the first position truck was 2 minutes faster...

I do have some fun with the game, although I would have had it would been an improvement from the Dakar 18 simulation game. Now it is an improved game, but more arcade style.

Also the roadmap became a bit late in my opinion. Like the team customization was being showen, but its not in the game yet. Just like some other features, which is a bit strange. Although looking forward to it.

For someone who is new to this sort of rally, what is the tutorial like? Useful?

Unplayable as is.

The basic gameplay, navigation and stages are great, but the game is full of bugs. Performance is okay to poor with frequent slowdowns and occasionally the entire graphics engine bugs out and renders the world as a series of black monoliths. The co-driver frequently gets confused or suddenly stops giving instructions altogether (I only used professional mode) even when you were just following in a fixed CAP direction. At least he should guide you back to the previous control point. They also get confused between 116 and 160, which is just great.

Worst of all, the third event second stage of the career has a bug where all the AI crash and pile up in the first time control, leaving the player stuck and unable to finish the stage nor progress anywhere with the career. Try again after the first major patch.

DChaps said:

There is a pretty detailed review available here in text and video:

Dakar Desert Rally Review

Dakar Desert Rally Review at RSC sim racing museum and news source.

racesimcentral.net

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And a really good review, on every aspects of the game. For the information of other readers, the video is a reading of the article. So, if you don't want to read, just watch, although a voice over reading a text on a video review is absolutely atrocious. The review is positive. The title seems interesting. It seems to be what I expected, with a better handling and new landscapes.

The locked simulation mode is a bad addition imo (I won't spend hours in other modes to play the game the way I expect it to be played, that's nonsense) and the inability to go out of your car is a pity, it was a part of the immersion in Dakar18.

Worse, the cars unlocking have to be done through the less interesting mode. I can forget the inability to go out of the car, but these unlocking processes are a deal breaker for me.

wolftree said:

Unplayable as is.

The basic gameplay, navigation and stages are great, but the game is full of bugs. Performance is okay to poor with frequent slowdowns and occasionally the entire graphics engine bugs out and renders the world as a series of black monoliths. The co-driver frequently gets confused or suddenly stops giving instructions altogether (I only used professional mode) even when you were just following in a fixed CAP direction. At least he should guide you back to the previous control point. They also get confused between 116 and 160, which is just great.

Worst of all, the third event second stage of the career has a bug where all the AI crash and pile up in the first time control, leaving the player stuck and unable to finish the stage nor progress anywhere with the career. Try again after the first major patch.

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How come not any reviewers have mentionned these issues???

roadyroad said:

The locked simulation mode is a bad addition imo (I won't spend hours in other modes to play the game the way I expect it to be played, that's nonsense) and the inability to go out of your car is a pity, it was a part of the immersion in Dakar18.

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The "simulation" mode mostly just disables car resets (which you don't have to use), ups the damage to realistic and increases repair times, and forces you to obey the 170 kph speed limit manually. The "professional" mode is available from the start and is plenty tough for most players. Even more so because the notes it gives you are currently broken.

roadyroad said:

How come not any reviewers have mentionned these issues???

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Because they all just play the arcade mode.

Does not recognize my standalone Thrustmaster t3pa pro pedals using an USB Dongle, Thrustmaster H-Shifter or my button box!

wolftree said:

Unplayable as is.

The basic gameplay, navigation and stages are great, but the game is full of bugs. Performance is okay to poor with frequent slowdowns and occasionally the entire graphics engine bugs out and renders the world as a series of black monoliths. The co-driver frequently gets confused or suddenly stops giving instructions altogether (I only used professional mode) even when you were just following in a fixed CAP direction. At least he should guide you back to the previous control point. They also get confused between 116 and 160, which is just great.

Worst of all, the third event second stage of the career has a bug where all the AI crash and pile up in the first time control, leaving the player stuck and unable to finish the stage nor progress anywhere with the career. Try again after the first major patch.

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I personally haven't experienced any of these issues in ~17 hours of gameplay.
I see what you mean about 116 and 160, although he is saying the correct thing. The way the guy talks just makes them sound the same (this goes for everything between 113-119 and their respective counterparts). I reckon in real life you'd avoid this by saying "Cap one six zero" or something like that.

I do have two issues. I read on Reddit somewhere that you can unlock classic cars on Pro difficulty, by completing rallies with all classes. I've done this on a few rallies but nothing has popped up for me.
And in 17 hours of gameplay, I've won every rally with the cars and won several rallies with some of the other classes too, but I'm still only level 24, which means I can't play on the highest difficulty. This seems a bit broken to me.

Things I like:
Stages are cool and quite immersive.

Wide variety of vehicles.

Physics overall are better than in Dakar 2018, although they could still use some work for people who enjoy a more "sim" experience.

Fun to see the AI driving around, although they can be a bit janky at times.

I personally haven't run into any crashes, audio bugs or other game breaking issues. But judging from what I've read, your mileage may vary.

Some things I don't like:
I also don't see the option to do the full Dakar rally anywhere, which is odd.

Quad physics are absolutely terrible. As in, I can't imagine anyone tested these.

Plethora of unsupported hardware. I don't really understand the desire to add support for hardware individually. This may work for the somewhat limited amount of options on consoles, but for the PC market this would be a far bigger workload than writing a robust system to generically support all kinds of hardware.

Having to re-do a stage if you've finished lower than 8th. This doesn't really capture the endurance aspect of Dakar. (2022 winner Al-Attiyah finished outside of the top 8 in 4 of the stages, imagine if he had to give up because he finished a stage outside of the top 8.)

Being able to absolutely send it everywhere without much worry about damaging the car. For example, since the rally moved to Saudi-Arabia, there is been a lot of talk from drivers about the big stones damaging the tires in a lot of places, or motorcycle competitors having to find a way around all these stones. I haven't come across anything like that in the game.

Being able to drive up any dune without finding a less steep way up.

Headlights/highbeams at night are far too weak.

Only seeing AI vehicles from your own class, instead of also coming up to slower bike competitors etc.


Overall I'd give it a 6 out of 10 for now, partially because I love Dakar so much. It has issues but there is potential.


Edit: Apparently the classic cars can only be unlocked on the easier Sport difficulty. Clears up one issue for me, but it's still silly that I have to play on an easier difficulty I don't care about to unlock certain things...

wolftree said:

The "simulation" mode mostly just disables car resets (which you don't have to use), ups the damage to realistic and increases repair times, and forces you to obey the 170 kph speed limit manually. The "professional" mode is available from the start and is plenty tough for most players. Even more so because the notes it gives you are currently broken.

Because they all just play the arcade mode.

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Thanks for the info. I'm still not convinced reading the next comment / review. Some things have been improved from Dakar18 and other seem a downgrade. There's nothing realistic to have to finish a stage in the 8th first competitors.

I'll just wait for parches and fixes as I did for the previous title.

Can anyone confirm whether or not the Thrustmaster PC Racer wheel and Fanatec Clubsport pedals are supported?

Thanks!