Coming from the arcade and Saturn versions of Sega Rally Championship 1995, I decided to try out Sega Rally 2006.
I wasn’t expecting Sega Rally 2 levels of brilliance but this is a rather underwhelming game.
I played the first series (4 courses) of three on arcade mode several times and what really stood out for me - above and beyond the bland and repetitive background visuals - is how workmanlike the course design is. It feels like a bunch of corners and jumps randomly strung together with the defining differences between courses being the road surface. The background graphics being unvaried across the tracks compounds the issue.
Sega Racing Studio did a much better job at capturing the spirit of the older games while at the same time trying something new that worked with Sega Rally Revo in 2007.