I'm not a huge fan of niche racing games. While I can appreciate the aesthetics of games like NASCA 08 and F1-Formula Racer, they just don't appeal to me. But there is one exception: Rally racers.

I'm not sure why I like Rally racing games, but I do. One of the Collin McRae titles was what initially got me hooked on the genre, but it's certainly not the only Rally racer I enjoy from ultra-realistic to an arcade Rally racer like Motorstorm. Sega Rally Revo seems to fall somewhere in between McRae and Motorstorm.

I first got a good look at this game last week in San Franisco during Sega's Gamers Day and was very impressed with what I saw. But they didn't let us actually play the game, so I had my doubts about how it would handle and look once I was driving around in that mud.

Fortunately, it was on hand this week and completely playable and it didn't disappoint. You can indeed perform so many donuts in an area that you not only create ruts, if you're in the right place you'll hit water and that water will mix with the dirt to form mud.

When racing in the Alpines, the moisture turns to slush and then snow as you make your way up the mountain, that snow sticks to your car and when you drive back down it melts away. This is all stuff I saw, not just something someone was telling me.

The handling took a bit of getting used to, but I've found that's common with Rally racers. While I thoroughly enjoyed the game, I'm sure hardcore Rally fanatics will probably give this game a pass because it puts fun before realism on a small scale. For instance, there's no damage modeling for the cars and the tracks are all creations of the developers.

But for me it was a whole lotta fun to play. Brian Crecente