Richards

Richard Burns Rally
$29.99
There's nothing quite like this game out there. Yes, it is extremely hard to get even decent at, but the experience is more fun than frustrating, and after it you might find yourself bored with both arcade rally games and circuit racing simulators.

You choose between 6 cars from the 2001 rally season and race on 36 or so tracks across 6 countries (UK, Japan, Finland, US, France, Australia)--four gravel countries, one snow, and one tarmac. The tracks are from real life and are well-detailed, which makes the game seem really authentic. They are also realistically long, which is a rarity in rally games. Furthermore, they are really narrow and treacherous, which both makes them difficult to navigate and create a sense of speed. Real weather effects add a lot of depth to the experience, as driving through rain or snow feels completely different.

On the downside, they are all from obscure regional championship and, except for Japan, not the tracks used in WRC Championship. The variety could also have been greater. There are four gravel countries, but no mud tracks. Also, although half the WRC season takes place in Mediterranean countries (Spain, Greece), none of these countries is here. The selection of cars is limited as well. Altogether, this detracts from the presentation, especially if you wanted greater immersion into the rally world.

Nevertheless, this game is all about driving dynamics. The physics are incredibly realistic, which make this a truly intense driving experience. You have to master steering, acceleration, breaking, and hand braking to execute difficult techniques, get good times and prevent crashing. And you will learn a ton about car physics and driving from this game. In fact, since it is so complex and requires knowledge, instincts, and technique at every step, just DRIVING is what makes this game great. Powersliding around corners, keeping your car from going sideways on straights, correcting spins, drifing through hairpins, and avoiding obstacles and gutters is incredibly satisfying in this game. Once you get good enough to compete on normal difficulty (took me three weeks) and crash 0-1 times per course, it will feel like you are literally surfing through the courses in one smooth motion. It's hard to master, but definitely not impossible. I abandoned several circuit simulators, because I couldn't make a single turn without spinning out for, like, five minutes, and thought the difficulty was unreasonable to have fun. But in this game, it never really felt like that. Furthermore, here, when you drive better, you can FEEL the benefits--you stay on the narrow road, avoid obstacles, prevent damaging your car, sustain speed, etc. In circuit simulators, whether your drive perfectly or sloppily, you will still go fast, stay on the wide track, and not hit any obstacles, so there is no visibly perceptible reward for having better technique.

Most importantly, for a rally game, where you don't race against the competiton, you NEED it to be hard to drive to keep it fun. When I played Colin McRae afterwards, where the car is easy to control and the roads are wide, I did not understand why anybody would have fun playing it--it just felt like driving the the grocery store on an empty road.

However, the driving does have some serious flaws. The game is not as polished at it should be, which seeps into the gameplay. Brushes and small trees are modelled as solid objects, so instead of riding over them, you can get stop cold in your tracks. You can only go several yards to the side of the road before hitting an invisible wall. If you ever end stuck perpendicular to the road against this wall, you can't just do a U-turn--you have to back up and turn around. Finally and most importantly, weight is modelled really poorly here. The cars flip at the slightest bump. This is not only cheesy, but prevents you from driving like rally drivers do. You can't cut across rough terrain or over a rock at 80 km/h--whereas in real life your wheel would jump up 10 inches in the air and land back down, here, you'll do a 1080 flip, land upside down, call for help, and loose 10 sec off your clock.

So if you think you can handle the challenge, even if you aren't into simulators or rally racing, definitely get this game. It is like no other racing game out there.

One word of caution--variable inputs for gas and break (i.e. you control how hard you accelerate/break) are REALLY important to this game. However, the PC version doesn't allow you to program that into a gamepad. Hence, you'd be better off playing this with a steering wheel on a PC. If you want to get it for a console and play it with a controller, PS3, Xbox, and Xbox 360 allow variable input, but PS2 doesn't.

Richard Simmons Sweatin' to the Oldies [VHS]
$9.98
A blast from the past but a good way to work up a sweat to some oldies

Emotional Remains (Amazon.com Exclusive) [CD on Demand]
$10.98
After rediscovering Richard Marx about a year ago, I was excited to learn that not only did he continue making albums all these years but he was also expecting to release Emotional Remains. I bought this album via his website about a year ago and absolutely love it. It definitely has more of a rock flavor than some of his other albums and like the other reviewers, a few songs stand out more than the others. Yes, his songs are good and some great, but what I find impressive is his voice. His voice has matured since the 80s, but he still has the great qualities. I went to his concert a few months ago and he sings his old songs just as good as before. Another reviewer is interested in hearing Richard Marx sing his old songs. I recommend buying his Duo album, a collaboration with Matt Scannell. In it Richard sings about 4 of his old classics with just his and Matt's guitars.

MI-5, Vol. 7
$59.98
Just finished watching Season 7 (purchased from Amazon UK) and it was so good, every minute was packed with so much tension you really cannot turn away.

If you cannot wait for the US release purchase a region free player (search on Amazon for one, I use the Philips that cost ~50.00 and it great) and get this dvd, yu will not regret it.