I got the game as well, just haven't had much time to post here.
Nice game, though it feels almost like a hybrid between rallysport 1 and Colin McRae 04 now. It's wierd to see an arcade racer with more car tuning options than I care the mess with at first. I kind of don't see the use of toe-in and toe-out options, for Rally because I'm not exactly knowledgable about what that means in Rally racing(since the rules kind of change). I tend to have more ideas about what they do in Street racing.
Beautiful game, though they tend to have more difficulty levels for both the easy and tough sessions. Amateur is uber easy, but you do unlock stuff with it. I hear the two higher levels are a good challenge, so I can't wait to get to those. But first, to unlock skins and tracks and such. Funny enough, I think the time attack and single race sections will probably where the real replay is whereas the career is just a fun way to unlock them all.
I think the Sim folks (that is, ones only into sim) might have more issues with this game than the first one. Not because of the fact that it still stays towards arcade, but the fact that at times it seems so close to becoming a sim, but it doesn't. I put that in the "The closer it is to *certain style* but not becoming it, the higher the disappointment" pile of thought.
Of course, being the huge arcade rally fan, I'm quite fine with Rallisport, though Colin 04 has made me a fan of the Sim aspect, as well. Especially since nowadays the overall fun-level between the sims and arcade have gotten so darn close, now. Advanced Co-pilot is where it is at, but I would say I have 2 complaints about the game. Or sort of, hinges from the super solid package I felt with PGR2.
1. The loss of the co-pilot on HillClimb events. Now you have to settle for maps. Sure, Rally is the only racing supposedly with Pace notes, but I miss that little addition of having hillclimbs support it too, in the last game. Given that Rallisport is the only series that have these race features, that's about the only one I can compare it to. (What does a good job of making up for it? The Downhill events. Perfect stuff to have my Initial D soundtrack on.) Hard to say if this removal makes it less-solid as a package, but just a change from the first one. The scrolling short-distance minimap is ok(and is a new feature), but I love being able to not pay attention to HUD visual cues and just listen for my turns.
2. The one issue where it doesn't quite save the exact HUD options per racetype. In my case, I have to always go to HUD options to switch back and forth when I go between certain events. Like turning on Pace Notes in Rally will somehow turn off the Map option in Ice racing and Rallisports(and turn off that minimap in hillclimb). I guess the idea is that you turn off the map option in Rally for the Pace Notes, but in regard, it turns off Map for all events. Not that it hurts the game as a whole, since you spend so little time adjusting the HUD, but it does seem like an unnecessary extra interface step.
