Rally Shox Japanese PS2 Gameplay at 60fps
Welcome to Shox... or Rally Shox, as Japan would know it.
Shox is an interesting rally racing game that came out rather quietly in late 2002 in the US and Europe before making its way to Japan in January 2003.
The main gimmick of this game is the car purchasing system and the Shox Zones where you can earn money to purchase said cars. It's quite an interesting concept that actually encourages you to learn how to play a track effectively. This game also features a damage model - and a dirt accumulation model, which was pretty nice for the day.
Besides that, I actually dig this game. I'm not one for rally racers, but there's a lot to like here. The controls are nice and slick, this game runs (and plays) really nicely, the audio processing is nice and the actual gameplay is solid. It looks totally fine graphically, overall. Too bad this game did poorly overall, because it's a game that's more than the sum of its developer (in which this wouldn't even be their last racing game rodeo) and the release period it came from. It was overshadowed by Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, to say the least.
One funny thing to note about Shox in Japan: this game was released as an EA Sports Big title in the US and Europe, while in Japan, it was released as an EA Games title - like Def Jam Vendetta, actually. This specific copy also comes from one of the few EA Best Hits double pack they did out in Japan, which also includes Freekstyle... which I oughta try out at some point.
Otherwise, enjoy the video. I opted not to force a 480p output on this game because of its rendering resolution of 512x448; I simply prefer to not deal with that when it's not worth making an issue out of, just because I don't feel like stretching the video just for that purpose.
