The races are fast moving two minute affairs over 9 stages against four opponents where you must place in a required position and time to advance the championship. Dakar 09 conveys a nice feeling of racing over dirt and sand with teeth-rattling bumpiness, continuous jumps and sliding through turns. The controls and game speed are good and there are two racing views available, behind and front bumper, although I could never use the bumper view due to the extreme bumpiness. The routes were all nicely laid out, alternating turns with speed-gathering straights along with uphill climbs and down slopes.
The game seemed to be well-tuned at least for my racing abilities as there were several close finishes in advancing the game and the racing was always fun and exciting, especially when overtaking an opponent. I’d rate the difficulty as medium.
There is a nice replay given at the conclusion of each race and although you have no control over the playback, it provides a front bumper, behind and drive-by view of the race that auto changes while viewing. This extends the game play which you may of deducted is rather short. You can blow through the championship with replays in under an hour. After that you can play quick races or time attack, or you can go back to the championship and try to win every race outright which is not a bad idea as I found the racing fun even on a second and third try.
Besides the looping soundtrack there is no SFX in Dakar 09 which would of added immensely to this game. You only have one choice of car which is available in three colors and there is no tuning or upgrades.
I’d describe Dakar 2009 as short and sweet. Definitely not a description you could apply to the real Dakar rally. Fun while it lasts with some great courses, it’s over far too quickly to be crowned “the ultimate rally” and gets 4 stars.
Of note, this game was reviewed on a Nokia N95. I checked out the Nokia N73 version and found the courses to be totally different, in fact, there was no desert racing in the N73 version. It appears EA has released different versions of Dakar 09 for different models of phones.
Reviewed by goyami - Nokia N95 8gb