I'm really looking forward to the console release. I'm also interested to read your opinion on what the missing 10-15% is. Thanks.
Essentially the same stuff I've mentioned before:
1) The liveries are absolute garbage. I don't want to have to bother with 3rd party liveries/mods to have a decent looking car. In today's age where you could easily run a simple competition for user-designed liveries (ala PCars) there is no excuse for terrible lackluster liveries that look so bad.
2) Poor number of stages. While they list "12" stages on each rally, the reality is that it is four stages with reversed layouts and then a couple of stages linking multiple stages together. This is really lame. Easily the biggest upset of the game for me. There are so few stages you can essentially almost memorize most of them if you run a particular rally enough. That shouldn't be the case. I would have supported fewer rallies with more stages...then sell whole rallies as DLC later if you want.
3) Because of the lack of stages there are not nearly enough "real" rallies in the game. Unless you make one yourself for multiplayer you don't run into proper 20+ stage rallies over a weekend. In addition career mode starts you out with silly micro-rallies which are 3-5 stages etc. I don't think we need the hand-holding nonsense like this.
4) I don't particularly like the repair system...using the percentage system is lazy.
5) No tire selection - one of the biggest issues for me. A huge part of rallying is tire selection...and it's completely absent from this game. Because of this there is also no tire-wear present. So it deprives the players of the additional strategic element of picking tires for the next X number of stages - harder for more wear, or go with rain tires because it may rain (and weather is not random in this game, another minor annoyance). This is a huge issue for me.
6) The career and team building mechanic is pretty blase and uninspired.
7) Stages are all extremely technical/tricky. While rallying is difficult it seems that the majority of the stages are 100% technical and difficult the entire length. You don't get into much of a flow. While the game is difficult it seems like they went over-board on some of the stages, particularly in the earlier rallies.
8) No variable weather. While rain/weather etc. is an available option for certain stages it would have been nice to have dynamic/variable weather. Not necessarily changing during the stage - but between stages without telling you ahead of time.
9) Lack of junior level rally cars. There is a severe lack of FWD cars, entry level rally cars, S2000's, junior WRC, junior series cars etc. It's very much of "here are the super-star cars". This hampers the feel of any career progression. There are no small Renaults/Citroens/Opels etc. You cut your teeth on historical FWD cars and jump into faster cars...but none of it represents an actual career in modern rally.
10) Feel of the stages is far too sterile. While the actual layouts are quite good - the trackside elements are weak, repetitive and sterile. We know and acknowledge the graphics are last-gen...and that's fine, you're almost going too fast to notice, but the rallies don't portray much atmosphere from where you are. They could be a lot better done. There is a very limited number of trackside stuff - nothing in the distance, no additional bits to make you feel like you're in a real place.
...and having said all of that the game is still good. But, every single time I put in some hours on the game, I walk away thinking "man this game could have been great..." instead of "wow, what a great game". It's a bit frustrating. They've made leaps and bounds of progress from the arcade non-sense of the 2000's...but they've missed a lot of simple opportunities to put this over the edge.
