Review: Dakar 18 (PlayStation 4)

Based on the world famous annual rally raid organized by Amaury Sports Organisation (A.S.O.) in South America, DAKAR 18 is a realistic simulation of the biggest cross-country rally in the world and features a variety of vehicles, including motorcycles, cars, trucks, quads, and SSVs.

Pros:

• Decent graphics.
• 83.68GB Download size.
• Opens into a tutorial event.
• Official teams and sponsors.
• Three modes- Adventure (story), Multiplayer (online and local) and explore (training and treasure hunt modes)
• Online leaderboards and rankings.
• Can rebind controls and invert axis.
• Brakes, Deadzone and saturation sliders.
• Adventure- Pick a class and do a set amount of events to unlock different classes for later playthroughs.
• Five classes- Car, Bike, Truck, Quad and SXS.
• Five car manufacturers- Peugeot, Mini, Toyota, Renault, and Mitsibushi.
• Four bike manufacturers- KTM, Honda, Husqvarna, and Yamaha.
• Five truck manufacturers- Kamaz, MA3, Tatra, Renault, and Man.
• Quad and SXS has 4 driver/rider/team choices.
• Training- Five lessons.
• Five views- Bumper, Bonnet, In car, Behind and an aerial more TV-style presentation.
• HUD- Shows compass with waypoints, Speedo, Directions called out and distance.
• Can repair your car on the fly and get out of the car to rescue other drivers.
• Big massive race location.
• Day/Night cycle.
• Some really nice locations.

Cons:

• Long start up load time.
• So easy to get terminal damage (instant race over)
• Have to unlock legend difficulty.
• You can fail the tutorial at any point and then have to repeat the whole thing.
• Not the fastest loading times.
• Tutorial actually feels redundant and unhelpful as the pop-ups/prompts are slow, Everything you learn isn’t that important and the training section is a better experience for knowledge.
• Co-pilot is not that helpful.
• Takes a long time to notify you that you are going the wrong way or are lost.
• Chucked in at the deep end.
• Slowdown happens a lot.
• Very bland open space a lot of the time.
• Controls are sluggish.
• Looks like it has a strong physics engine but in reality, it is just very basic and lacks any sort of Spintires level of physics and control on the different land types.
• Not a huge number of racers in a race.
• Does a poor job of directing you.