My copy is not working, so I have been looking to buy new one, however haven't found from steam, gog or gamersgate. I have been using Dirt Rally as replacement, but it is bit weird how cars behave at times.
Overall I would say that Dirt Rally 2 is the best rally sim you can get currently. It does a better job than the original Dirt Rally game, and while RBR is great, its not perfect either.
That is piracy. Opinions of that seem to vary quite a bit, some say first was better and second does not offer much anything over, some seem to like second better. Some seem to think that instead of improving problems in physics they have added more issues, it is kinda hard to know then what to believe. I know that my wallet will never pay 50-60 euros for a game, 25 euros is already pushing it and only for some games that offer lot of playtime have been which I have paid so much. With Dirt rally I found out that best FFB was when turning pretty much everything to 0, I left only one force in there, others were just confusing fake/canned effects. Still car seem to be somehow slow to react as well as handbrake at hairpins is really odd, like scripted or something. RBR has lot of issues and it is so old now that I'm afraid it might not get too much hours, unlike when it was new, played a lots of it and with keyboard, can't remember if I did drive it with a wheel at all. If I would get Dirt rally 1 roads to BeamNG, that would be happy days Greece and Finland would be enough already, but there is not many roads that have that flow, Jalkku's rally map and Douglas rally are which I like most as those have some of that flow, then I think Rally forest too was quite nice, but to have hundreds of kilometers real rally stages is what one desires
I pre-ordered the deluxe version (essentially a season pass with early access) through CD keys, so I didn't pay full price. If that reduced price wasn't an option, I wouldn't have bought the game. Since they really were taking the piss with all of the retailer exclusives, and charging for content that feels like it should have been included in the base game. I think the force feedback is fine. It works well enough, I don't have any complaints about it, but its nothing to write home about. I did have to turn it down a lot though, since rally cars don't have heavy steering and I didn't want to be fighting the wheel. Hence the lack of a "master gain" slider did annoy me a little. I think a lot of people have spent so much time playing rbr, that anything that feels different to rbr feels wrong to them. Therefore, for them it's impossible for anything to surpass it. Personally I haven't driven a rally car IRL, so it's hard for me to comment on how accurate either game is. But DiRT Rally 2 is one of few games to make me feel for a split second like I forgot to put my seatbelt on, despite being sat in an office chair. It also does an excellent job of capturing the horror and adrenaline of doing a night stage with no lights. So I think it has the "feels authentic" trait on its side, more so than rbr does. And rbr's age doesn't help matters either, not to say that its aged badly, just that expectations have moved on. Both games are perfectly fun to play though, but due to the above, I prefer dirt.
I forgot I had made this post, with these settings first Dirt Rally FFB actually became quite nice and usable, not sure if it works anything like such in second version though: https://www.beamng.com/threads/dirt-rally-wheel-settings.61625/ I have not driven all wheel drive rally car on dirt (have done that on pavement though), but have driven RWD and FWD on gravel and I don't think any game comes even close in gravel physics, but sure enough Dirt rally gives nice illusions, just nothing alike, reality has so much more response to steering and throttle. Gravel is really difficult for games, when tires are spinning a lot they dig in and that gives lot of lateral support that allows to go fast in corners, but if you are last runners, there is not so much of that as surface is much softer, if you are first, surface can be bit hard for tires to really dig in and so on, it is super complex relation of ground surface and tire, I wish some day Beam gets more complex dirt model as it could come closest to real thing, I think, but it is so complex area that I'm not sure any game will tackle it in near future. RBR with keyboard was horrifying too Dirt rally is also, but also partly because control of car is kinda vague, which is kinda odd, but the sounds, those they got pretty nice and roads are really good, driving is meh at best, but it really does not matter for entertainment purposes, it is a game, not much of a simulator after all.
