This Game Could Have Been PERFECT - Dakar Desert Rally Review 

What are your first thoughts about Dakar Desert Rally? 🤔

Shame about those performance issues...but I still hope they find a solution to fix them. 🙏 Good review as always.

New game will have optimization issues. I'm not too bummed about that. Honestly, this game had a good base to start from which is the unique but very underbaked Dakar 18. The fixed nearly every complaint I had with that game and will fix more when the customization DLC come out. This is a truly special experience. A Proper off road racing game, and I'm extremely excited we have this to enjoy

Great review! I never knew much about Dakar but always have been intrigued. Gotta check this out

Looks promising. Think I'll hang on until a sale or after the first game update.

Great video, note thou, there is a actual issue with the unreal engine itself, stutter in any game on the unreal engine can happen.

I think this game is worth exploring. I love Off Road games.

I found that sport mode was really bad but professional mode was a lot of fun . I'm happy with my purchase . It has room to improve but it is a cool game in my opinion . And yes i agree quads are needing some work . Helps to run low tire pressure

I can't wait to get this game. Hopefully a content & performnce update will be out by then, looks like there isnt much vehicles

If Saber could deliver a game like Dakar Desert Rally but more better in the future (maybe World Raid Rally Championship Game? FIA and FIM merge Dakar with other Cross Country rallies across the world.), I'll happy see it as the redemption. Come on Saber! Don't give up yet. Because no other game dev making something similar like this.

I was hoping for more of a sim look, this looks like crash bandicoot :( Great race IRL tho!

Purchased. I've been playing Dakar 18 for a few weeks to learn how to navigate. This should be even better.

just bought the game and instantly loving it, the graphic is great, the weather effect is fierce, the particle effect is beautiful, the damage effect is crazy! the handling is not the issue I guess, IMHO that's just the handling of vehicle runs in sand and dunes (based on my limited experience driving cars/motorcycle in sand that is). Heck, maybe i will play this game even more than FH5 now....this game reminds me the 2001 Paris-Dakar game too, also the Baja Unlimited game. And their DLC is US map is not helping my excitement either

6:33 "Ambient noises that are just spot on" Dude you hear no rain hitting the car at all. How is this spot on?

Mentioning motorstorm sold it for me. Gonna wait for a sale then defo gonna buy

I haven’t had those issues on my series X while playing this game at all so I don’t know if that’s just on PC but I’m glad I don’t have that problem. I’m sorry for those that do.

legendary commentary

"Samy, what are you doing, man" 😂👍

2:57 Opinion discarded.

Sabre ported the witcher 3 to switch. so yeah they are skilled.

Simulation mode is just the same as Professional mode. Same navigation, just longer stages. The pain in the a** is speed limiter - shame that you can't floor it and have electronic limiter as it would be in normal/real dakar... Wish there was an option to enable it.

If I had to bet the stuttering performance issues are due to Unreal Engine 4 shader compilation stutters. Especially with the size of the environments in the game and the AA nature of the game it seems like a prime candidate for a game to suffer from that issue. It's more common than you think

Dakar rally is definitely a exciting fun Racer there's a lot there's a lot more new experiences I feel like it definitely runs into more of a arcade style game It is fun and challenging. I'm really glad to hear other people are having problems and it's not being my old system I'm running it on. But try to mention one big title in the last 10 years that didn't come out with a bunch of bugs. Quality testing just isn't there anymore with with anybody but I will say with sader they do attend attend to fix all the problems that are complained about With my experience with snow runner. So I feel if you like this game with dealing with the bugs it's only going to get better!

I mean to be fair some slight performance issues are to be expected for a game that's just come out, especially with unreal engine, and I hear you say some sacrifices have been made to make such a huge map, but I'm not sure what you mean by that. For me (on ps4) it feels damn close to perfect, never had a bit of lag yet and no weird glitches, the only thing I do not like is that you can't repair your headlights and without them you can't see a damn thing at nighttime and you're almost forced to restart, perhaps realistic, but I'd say keep it in sim mode. Other than those points I loved the video!

Still enjoying the heck out of the first Dakar Rally game from a few years ago. Though as nails and a real lesson in Roadbook navigation.

I wish progress did not follow vehicle/bike. Besides that they need to make the physics come alive especially on the bikes, because they are very much on or off now. They also need to make the AI actually try to overtake you, instead of riding through you, because when it's this apparent within the first hours of playing, I'm sure I'll be rammed over and over in the following days and weeks as well.

whats also nice is that it has not only ultra wide, but also proper super ultra wide (32:9) support.

This game could have been much much better, the cars don't have a realistic contact with the ground, you can't drift round bends or even correct and handbrake turn with oposite steering lock. They just seem to be floating about randomly and as for the AI, they ram you and you can't correct the spin. We need better road handling and free roam and a route editor and then this could be a keeper.

yea this launch felt like the movie "Holding Out" (2008)

Enjoying this game not had any problems on ps4 loving it

I play on ps4, can't get the thrustmaster t300 calibrated, if I turn 1cm to the right te game thinks i'm turning 100%. disconnecting my wheel and connecting it again it works but no force feedback. If I try to change the force feedback settings it jumps to the first problem no right now unplayable for me on my wheel

I hope they fix the saving issues and frame rate issues

for some reason, the game gets "fatal errors" whenever i play career mode, but then it plays really well again after a reboot

Sounds like we’ll spend more time installing updates during launch weekend

stuttering performance is a well known U4 issue

THE WORST MISTAKE of this game is that coming from Saber, it does not use the snow runner/spin tires physics engine, but adapted it to something more realistic, like for example when a car is buried in the sand (something very normal), in very soft mud (like snow runner), etc.., I'm so disappointed, what a wasted potential, especially coming from Saber... wtf -.-

Never experienced those performance problems.

I'm not sure how you could say ramming other cars is a sign of good ai

Love the game. I just wish bikes were a bit more like in MGXP or Supercross.

Sport mode finished professional mode finished After the weekend i start with the Simulation mode 😀 my wheel is not supported right now hope it comes fast

Out of curiosity, what is a state-of-the-art pc to you? Thanks for the review!

Another issue I've run into is that the roadbooks seem to be exclusively auto-generated. The landmarks on the tulip are often stacked on top of one another. A lot of the symbols in the index also go unused, most notably the wadi symbol, which is made worse by the fact that they don't otherwise distinguish a wadi from a track. There's also its very poor definition of 'valley,' railways aren't properly marked, it doesn't mention embankments or ridgelines (would be useful when following dune crests), and all the acronyms and abbreviations are French regardless of language pack.

Performance issues aside, this is a very fun game, even with just a controller it really sucks you in after you the first few minutes and you cannot let go

On controllers it’s really hard to steer anymore the ai is really fast is there any settings to fix

Love this Game! Sure it has some issues, but nothing serious. I play on PS5.

I’m very sad. I preordered and I have to wait till tomorrow to play. Everyone is already calling it a fail

4:43 "Man i wanna do thin no more"

Sami what are you doing man!

It's like MotorStorm!

2:59 excuse me? I mean have your opinion, but motorstorm was the best.

What is up with the wheel support for Thrustmaster T300? It sucks man, it doesn't work right (PS5)

The trailer for the game said that I could create my own team and make custom liveries for the vehicle. How do I do that? Also "Open-World" is not "Open-World" with out free roam...

Triple monitor support and telemetry out?

Is the wheel support really that great? Because when I look at the footage it seems that you played only with a gamepad.

Why this is not VR... Whats the point of creating this king of game without VR mode. So much effort...

I think that in sport mode the ai its too agressive and i would put an option without ai in that one and yeah the quads are literally undrivable you seriously have to take your time making a setup for it.

Pre-Order two weeks ago, released today (my birthday) refund requested after spending a morning trying to find something to control it with! (CSL Elite owner) failed to get anything to work!!! So utterly disappointed, the Dakar very much my bag!

Wait, you actually have you CAP heading on your Roadbook?!?!? Can I have those because it doesn't tell me s***!

God the stutter on pc is insane. Patch this shit asap

I found it a bit like a PlayStation 3 game to me. nothing to write home about.I turned on g-sync and some low latency thing and the frames getting stuck problem seemed to be gone so far. on a high powered pc.

i agree cars best than trucks and quad - bikes are undriveable!

dont disrespect motorstorm like that

can we race with triple screens?

Has it motion control on the dualsense?

Force Feedback is not working at all. T300 on PS5. Am I missing something?

I absolutely HATE the handling. The car is swerving as if its on ice, they need to make the cars feel more grounded and connected to the terrain!! also, i hope that when my ps5 arrives in 5 days, that the game will perform better on my ps5, cause im playing now on ps4, and there are some noticeable frame rate drops throughout stages.

I just love the fact there are more sim racing games on PC. I will take that over anything.

what the hell? I have to reach level 25 to actually play the game I want? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

So a rally game has murderbots. The piss has been taketh.

I think you got it spot on performance issues on xbox series are terrible & the handling is far too twitchy. Not as good as Dakar 18 which is a pity because the game looks amazing

Baja Edge Of Control (ps3) and the ps4(HD remaster) is a closer relation

The problem is having to grind for hours to unlock the actual Dakar rally, the reason most people bought the game.

Good review but you got the thing wrong, on any vehicle with a co-driver you should not read anything, just hear :)

Simcade? But more like SIm or more Arcade?!

No force feedback

Where is the FFB setting? I don’t understand how a new game in 2022 can be missing this very important feature 😡🤬🤯

From what I've seen in videos and streams, the game is far from ready. I've seen the helicopter that is following the field in SNOWSTORMS or heavy weather with lightning. No pilot would even think of starting the engines in these kind of weathers. The countdown for the start is also not right. You get counted down and between "1" and "GO" there is a 2 second pause where you automatically accelerate. It always looks like an early start. The AI is, for some reason, always in a pack. It is like they get released from the start in a couple of seconds gap instead of minutes. The world feels also more narrow than the predecessor, with all the rock formations on the side. And from what I've seen it is a lot more "follow the track" than Dakar18. The Co-Drivers voice is also not "in the car" anymore. In Dakar18 he shouted a lot more and told you off, if you took a jump to much. In Dakar Desert Rally, it is like he is sitting in a comfortable chair, that is not moving with a bit of filters applied, so it vaguely sounds like it is coming out of an intercom. Not to mention the timing of some calls. It was sometimes frustrating in Dakar18, but now it is really bad. And they tried to make it better, by having shorter distances between calls. That doesn't feel so good. I would rather play Dakar18 again in Simulation than Dakar Desert Rally now. Maybe if Saber adds mod support in a year or two, the game would get better.

trashcade physics lol

I played it yesterday on PS5 and it was very no force feedback at all it was boring

also this is the free game on epic this week.

looks pretty good , rain physics meh and not dirt or sand on windscreen meh , performance bugs ,probably better then that other dakar game but nothing special.

Overly aggressive AI? This doesn't sound good for any game where you're supposed to compete with professional, real-life inspired, drivers. And if it's a game about rally, it becomes absolutely absurd.

i dont know why but i think the co-driver is better in dakar 18

So happy that I waited for the video to be finished before seeing it the first time..SAMIR TRIPPPPLEE CAUTION!!!! TRIPLE CAUTION! i loved it lol

Please fix the ps5 steering wheel players!!

stutter = delete

Keep in mind its not a big developer

Too bad the game has no TV cams replay and after the stages,like the last few minute.Or highlight.If ACC and the moto GP games can do it why not here?They using the same game engine.Whe have only a few seconds from the start and few seconds from finnish.Dissapointed.

Looks arcade game and the speed is ridiculus,looks like 300kmh always

Mostly negative on Steam lol

The framerate on series x is shit. I have it and its all over the place. Unplayable

This game doesn't touch even Dakar cars real handling. Jumping like in Forza game with full arcade mode that's correct. Short tracks and every kilometer of the track driving by the heavy truck you can just pass in just 6 seconds! Yes 6 second every kilometer that's faster than Bugatti Veyron. Mud, deep sand, water, snow doesn't change handling and speed even riding a bike same full arcade attack on full speed. Animations low quality plus frequently framedrop even on Series X with performance mode. Someone who was watching real Dakar event should perfectly know how tricky can be these road conditions and how unrealistic they are here in this Dakar parody game. Well they simply target for marketing and sales no matter if this includes tons of lies. So don't let me wrong but Dakar it's a good arcade game for 10 years old players. But again even Wreckfest game have better handling and far way more realistic damages with lots of fun even for kids or older gamers. So for better longer off-road adventures I'll stick with Snowrunner or older The Crew game.

It looks very easy compared to Dakar 18. The handling of the vehicles appears to be extremely forgiving. Just hold down accelerate and you’re good to go. In Dakar 18 you really had to concentrate on the terrain so you didn’t hit a bump which would send you flying. Also damage is reduced a lot since the first game. Or maybe that’s just because it’s in easy mode. Finally, the graphics are not as good as the first game. The colours are very overblown and it looks like a PS3 game and lacks the realistic matt look of the first game and is instead very shiny. Overall, I think this is a step backwards from the first game in every way. Where the first game was brave and unique - this game shies away and tries to please the lowest common denominator. The co-driver is American (can this be changed?) and he is weirdly calm and a bit condescending. Why aren’t you getting stuck any more? That was the best part. Why take it out? Because this is just another racing game now with all soft edges like Forza. There’s nothing of interest here any more. The first game would put you out the race for slamming head long into a boulder. That’s why it was fun because you had to pay attention. This is just a bog standard driving game now with none of the excitement or unique charm of the first game which seems destined to be the high point in this series.

"game of the year" - really? Seriously? Review bought and paid for? It's fun, but game of the year? please.

I'm not paying to endure that co-driver and not have electrically limited speed. 😄 did they think people would fall for this game? It's pretty but it doesn't make me feel like you're doing a Dakar. Yet another AAA game that's all sizzle and no steak. These are our games now. They're "planning" a replay function too. Nice. Just release incomplete games and disguise regular things we should EXPECT as standard as cool new features they kindly added. 🤨 this game gets a slap out of 10 for me. It's part of the problem.

Graphics are terrible!

Anti clickbait spoiler to save you 8 minutes of your lifetime: waypoint system and some graphics issues

Bad controls, no driving assists, too high difficulty, stupid AI, terrible framerate (on consoles). Do not buy - it's a brilliant looking but mediocre game.

Guess I have to wait. FIX THE STEERING CONTROLS. MAYBE PUT AND ARCADE MODE

Can careless about Sim mode