MotorStorm had mud. Lots of it. Mud that squelched when you drove on it and glistened in the sun when you scrubbed away its dry top layer. Well, Sega Rally can beat that. The Sega Rally we saw running on Xbox 360 in London recently has real mud in it. It isn't just a graphical trick - the new Sega Rally streams mud directly off the disc and fills your TV up with it. It's Liquid Crystal Dirt and you'll be seeing a lot more of this technology as Sega licenses it to other developers in the near future.
Above: Looks like a render, doesn't it? Well, it really does look this good. Check the mud
No not really. But Sega Rally's track deformation does put Sony's racer to shame. We watched as a Sega representative took us on a drive through a stage set in dense jungle. The cars scrubbed their wheels over hard-baked dirt, leaving it scuffed but still pretty flat. Then they hit soft mud and displaced it, leaving true 3D furrows in the track's surface. After doing this a few times, the furrows started to fill with water which reflected the blue sky and white clouds like rippling glass. Driving across any of these furrows caused them to displace appropriately - and stay like that until you hit them again. This is real next-gen stuff, make no mistake.
