One thing this game is certainly not lacking is a pretty face. I like rally racing and I think Africa sounds like a cool place to race, and sure enough it looks wonderful. You can have the experience without all the bugs and lions and warring nations right from the comfort of your own couch with GTC Africa. The lighting in each level is nice, and the level of activity you'll see is positively distracting. The car models aren't as detailed as some games, as in you won't see brake plates heating up or heat waves rolling off the pavement, but you can see dust and mud (although not on the cars) and, well...you'll see a lot of really pretty scenery. When will manufacturers realize that letting us dirty up their cars is really part of the fun? Rage, the company behind this game, did a great job of representing damage and dirt in their first racer for PS2, Wild Wild Racing. Me and the other guy who liked that game enjoyed the level of detail in both tracks and cars, but there's a fake quality to cars that don't get dirty or busted when you run them in a very unskilly way around the track. So, at center stage for design and good looks is level after level of compressed African countryside, each track complete with most of the landmarks a country has to offer, to give you the impression you saw (and drove) it all. Pleasant, African-sounding music helps set the mood, but there isn't really enough variety in tunage to complete the audio side of the game. What really would have been a nice companion to the great visuals would have been music for each level appropriate to the musical style of that particular country. But maybe that's expecting too much.

As a rally game, GTC Africa falls flat on its face, rolls off a curb and into the way of a speeding truck. As a racing game, GTC Africa gets backed over by the truck and then we realize it's a garbage truck and big stinking pieces of garbage start pouring all over--- ah! Okay, I was slipping into a sleepy daydream there, fantasizing about what I'd like to see happen to this game during the more frustrating moments I spent playing it recently. I mean, there just isn't much under the pretty exterior to recommend GTC Africa. Each track, as far as single-player action goes, is an exercise in frustration. Sure, the multiplayer could be nice, but CPU AI isn't the issue here. What really falls apart from the moment you hit the first track is any sense of this being a driving game. The engine can't have possibly gotten worse since Wild Wild Racing, so either I'm a complete chump or...the engine HAS gotten worse since Wild Wild Racing. Hoping to avoid chumpiness, I'll vote for the latter.

Many modes are available, but very few cars are at your disposal from the beginning. A Championship Mode offers 19 tracks spread over different areas of the continent, broken down into 3 divisions. East and North-South Championships split the total tracks down the middle and the full Championship combines all of the tracks. You'll choose a team, which affects how your car is decorated, and you stay with that team through the Championship. A Single Race or Practice allows you to race any car on any track for any team you've successfully raced and won. Multiplayer is the same, but for you and a friend. Multiplayer is not Championship compatible, although you can race a single Championship track. Shame, that. Finally, Challenge Mode is a group of unique tracks that pit you mostly against the road or make you drive for some objective. Uphill and downhill tracks that test handling and straight-out fast tracks or challenges against other racers would make things very interesting, except for the fact that your car controls like crap.

And, even though in Africa we might expect a few of the cooler European manufacturers to show their faces, GTC Africa only includes 'cool' cars from Ford and GM. Wow! And I thought having to see that ugly Pontiac Vibe driving around in real life was awful, but now they're invading my videogames! Apart from the Subaru, which is like the McDonalds of rally racing, the cars in GTC Africa feel more like product placement distraction than cars you'll really be salivating over before, during or after playing the game. I guess if you're a Ford or Pontiac person, this may not hold true, and I'll admit that these companies do show a rally presence out in the real world, but somehow the slim choices for cars point out the fact that this is mainly a vehicle (heh) for a few companies to market their goods instead of a bona fide rally game with lots of neat cars. But, my guess for why these cars end up being so uninspiring is that the sad controls and pitiful handling make this a game that would feel bad regardless of what you were driving. Too bad.

Mind numbing, bone chilling, controller throwing difficult. Trying to control these cars and making progress means you are seriously damaged, and I discovered that the mechanics behind controlling a GTC Africa car are about the same as controlling a boat, airplane, snowmobile or Chocobo. Yes, there's almost no feeling of realism here, including things like the rails that take you from 100 to 0 in 1.2 seconds, the off-road sections that somehow slow your car, but aren't discernible to the naked eye. Sure, there's some different color on the side of the road, but these are rally cars! Just because I'm not on hard, packed dirt doesn't mean my top speed should suddenly be 30mph. Little things like this conspire to rob all the fun out of this game for me, and any challenge the game might offer is overshadowed by the unwanted demands of these weak controls.

After seeing such a serviceable engine for Wild Wild Racing, I'm puzzled by why GTC Africa couldn't be better. For a racing game, it's always nice to have the little extras like special modes, realistic scenery and lots of nice car choices. Rage does a fine job on the scenery, comes through with all the interface options and the variety between different modes, but the cars and how they handle on the road leave so much to be desired. Not to say that you won't go through several races in the hope you'll be able to earn upgrades and feel some better performance, but your hopes will be dashed when you see how random AI and car performance seem to be here, as well as how difficult it is to earn new cars. So, where things might have been patched with upgrades, special options (even weapons) or vast expanses of game to explore and open up, GTC Africa ends up falling very short of the target. The best I can mention is the interface jingy that shows you upcoming twists and turns in the track, done in sort of a disappearing ink style, illuminating sections of track and then blurring them again as you move around. This and the good looking replays are all fine and well, but we would have vastly preferred a racer that really performed. And about 20 more cars. And tracks that don't feel like a giant oil slick mated with a vat of super-glue. Okay, that's all I can say...I'm outta here.