Rally Championships
Rally Championships, developed by Inside Team and published by Flair Software in 1994.
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Player's Review
"SO YOU WANT TO BE THE NEXT WORLD RALLY CHAMPION? WELL HERE IS YOUR CHANCE TO DO JUST THAT!
Rally Championships is one of the best rally games yet. Featuring rallying at its best from Snowy Scandinavia to the Dusty East African Bush, from French City Streets to South Eastern Asia, Tropical Rainforests to nerve-wracking Alpine Passes. Battle it out over single stage rallies or a full world series, with ever-changing weather conditions including rain, snow, fog and the deadly desert heat. Try your skill during the day and even at night. Manage your own climb to the top, hire the most experienced navigators, change tyres to suit the conditions and use your prize money to buy the very best rally car, choosing from the Porsche RS, Peugeot 205 Rally, Opel Calibra, Lancia Delta, Ford Escort Turbo and the Toyota Celica."
Rally Championships was released for Dos PC as well a in two version for the Amiga. The 1200 AGA version played here and a cut down version for A500 class Amigas and I'm not talking cut as in just the number of colours, but also content that damages the whole presentation of the game. Published by Flair software this is not too surprising as they seemed to specialise in games that didn't have the commercial quality of games just a year prior.
This is, as the title suggests a rally game similar to Power Drive or if you squint, maybe Drift Out. First off, you can choose between singular rallies differing by difficulty, or go right into the World Championship playing all tracks. The game is just you against the clock. It doesnt matter what time you get at the end but you must finish within the time limit represented by the maximum time at the top of the screen. Reach it, and it's game over. Between tracks you can refuel as well as repair car damage all of which cost money. Money is gained by getting through the stages and can be spent on repairs, fuel and tyres. Damage is costly to repair and it may be better to perceiver and hope you can afford a new car instead which gives you a faster vehicle with no damage. On each track there are pickups to collect which can help or hinder you awarding or removing damage or time as well as extra fuel and money. One nice aspect of some tracks is that you can damage the roadside barriers if you crash into them. before each rally you can also buy a better navigator to help you round the tracks, each one differing in how often they call out the corners. The collision detection can be really bad missing pickups or even collecting when not near. When going down narrow straights you can be pulled into the sides even when there is clearly a gap.
The longplay opens up with the Easy Rally. Possibly the worst opening track of any rally game being a night track in the snow, talk about being thrown in at the deep end. Near impossible to see the track as well as poor car control. Upon completion I move onto Medium, Hard, Expert and finally the full World Championship. In each mode you start off with limited money only affording the basic car. The individual difficulty modes last only for five tracks but I try to show an extra car purchase. World championship is really where you need to decide how your going to spend the money with enough tracks to climb to the top of the vehicle list. The game offers a choice of music or sfx so I have the music enabled for the four single championships, and switch to sfx for the World championship where I really need to concentrate to stay in the game. I am also able to show all cars and the best navigator in this mode. Navigator can really help in some later tracks which have multiple entry points as the roads connect together and it's important to go the right way.
Overall, the presentation of the game is ok and 1994 seems to be where amateur 3d rendered images start getting used for title screens with photo scans thrown in for good measure giving the mistaken impression of being a Public Domain (homebrew) game. There is lots of file loading that takes a while between screens, it's not exactly optimal and this is the trend for game releases right at the end of the Amigas commercial life. But looking past that, the presentation is ok with reasonable music and gfx throughout but once you get into the game, that's where it falls apart. The graphics are nice enough and look good in screenshots but when the car starts moving where in for a bad time. The controls can feel floaty, tyre choice dependant and once you pick up speed it can be difficult to prepare for the upcoming corners as all the gfx blur into each other. The roads look nice, but way to busy and it doesnt help all the pickups change colour depending on the track.
00:00:00 Titles
00:03:35 Easy - Snow 3 (Night)
00:06:42 Easy - Desert 2
00:09:00 Easy - Marsh 2 (Night)
00:12:00 Easy - City 2 (Rain)
00:14:21 Easy - Mountain 3 (Rain)
00:19:00 Medium - Snow 4 (Night)
00:21:33 Medium - Desert 4
00:23:57 Medium - Marsh 3 (Night)
00:25:50 Medium - City 2 (Rain)
00:29:32 Medium - Mountain 2
00:32:54 Hard - Snow 2
00:36:02 Hard - Desert 1 (Night)
00:38:24 Hard - Marsh 4 (Fog)
00:41:09 Hard - City 3 (Rain)
00:44:27 Hard - Mountain 4
00:47:55 Expert - Snow 1
00:50:47 Expert - Desert 3
00:53:43 Expert - Marsh 1
00:57:33 Expert - City 4 (Night)
01:00:05 Expert - Mountain 1 (Night)
01:04:50 World - Snow 3 (Night)
01:07:21 World - Desert 2
01:09:52 World - Marsh 2
01:12:37 World - City 2 (Night)
01:15:18 World - Mountain 3 (Night)
01:18:00 World - Snow 4 (Snow)
01:20:20 World - Desert 4
01:23:23 World - Marsh 3 (Fog)
01:26:08 World - City 2 (Rain)
01:29:02 World - Mountain 2
01:31:21 World - Snow 2
01:34:11 World - Desert 1
01:37:04 World - Marsh 4
01:39:05 World - City 3 (Night)
01:42:20 World - Mountain 4 (Rain)
01:44:45 World - Snow 1 (Snow)
01:47:50 World - Desert 3
01:50:22 World - Marsh 1 (Night)
01:53:08 World - City 4 (Rain)
01:55:22 World - Mountain 1 (Rain)
01:58:17 Game Complete music
01:59:39 Title Music
02:02:32 Game Overs
Rally Championships is one of the best rally games yet. Featuring rallying at its best from Snowy Scandinavia to the Dusty East African Bush, from French City Streets to South Eastern Asia, Tropical Rainforests to nerve-wracking Alpine Passes. Battle it out over single stage rallies or a full world series, with ever-changing weather conditions including rain, snow, fog and the deadly desert heat. Try your skill during the day and even at night. Manage your own climb to the top, hire the most experienced navigators, change tyres to suit the conditions and use your prize money to buy the very best rally car, choosing from the Porsche RS, Peugeot 205 Rally, Opel Calibra, Lancia Delta, Ford Escort Turbo and the Toyota Celica."
Rally Championships was released for Dos PC as well a in two version for the Amiga. The 1200 AGA version played here and a cut down version for A500 class Amigas and I'm not talking cut as in just the number of colours, but also content that damages the whole presentation of the game. Published by Flair software this is not too surprising as they seemed to specialise in games that didn't have the commercial quality of games just a year prior.
This is, as the title suggests a rally game similar to Power Drive or if you squint, maybe Drift Out. First off, you can choose between singular rallies differing by difficulty, or go right into the World Championship playing all tracks. The game is just you against the clock. It doesnt matter what time you get at the end but you must finish within the time limit represented by the maximum time at the top of the screen. Reach it, and it's game over. Between tracks you can refuel as well as repair car damage all of which cost money. Money is gained by getting through the stages and can be spent on repairs, fuel and tyres. Damage is costly to repair and it may be better to perceiver and hope you can afford a new car instead which gives you a faster vehicle with no damage. On each track there are pickups to collect which can help or hinder you awarding or removing damage or time as well as extra fuel and money. One nice aspect of some tracks is that you can damage the roadside barriers if you crash into them. before each rally you can also buy a better navigator to help you round the tracks, each one differing in how often they call out the corners. The collision detection can be really bad missing pickups or even collecting when not near. When going down narrow straights you can be pulled into the sides even when there is clearly a gap.
The longplay opens up with the Easy Rally. Possibly the worst opening track of any rally game being a night track in the snow, talk about being thrown in at the deep end. Near impossible to see the track as well as poor car control. Upon completion I move onto Medium, Hard, Expert and finally the full World Championship. In each mode you start off with limited money only affording the basic car. The individual difficulty modes last only for five tracks but I try to show an extra car purchase. World championship is really where you need to decide how your going to spend the money with enough tracks to climb to the top of the vehicle list. The game offers a choice of music or sfx so I have the music enabled for the four single championships, and switch to sfx for the World championship where I really need to concentrate to stay in the game. I am also able to show all cars and the best navigator in this mode. Navigator can really help in some later tracks which have multiple entry points as the roads connect together and it's important to go the right way.
Overall, the presentation of the game is ok and 1994 seems to be where amateur 3d rendered images start getting used for title screens with photo scans thrown in for good measure giving the mistaken impression of being a Public Domain (homebrew) game. There is lots of file loading that takes a while between screens, it's not exactly optimal and this is the trend for game releases right at the end of the Amigas commercial life. But looking past that, the presentation is ok with reasonable music and gfx throughout but once you get into the game, that's where it falls apart. The graphics are nice enough and look good in screenshots but when the car starts moving where in for a bad time. The controls can feel floaty, tyre choice dependant and once you pick up speed it can be difficult to prepare for the upcoming corners as all the gfx blur into each other. The roads look nice, but way to busy and it doesnt help all the pickups change colour depending on the track.
00:00:00 Titles
00:03:35 Easy - Snow 3 (Night)
00:06:42 Easy - Desert 2
00:09:00 Easy - Marsh 2 (Night)
00:12:00 Easy - City 2 (Rain)
00:14:21 Easy - Mountain 3 (Rain)
00:19:00 Medium - Snow 4 (Night)
00:21:33 Medium - Desert 4
00:23:57 Medium - Marsh 3 (Night)
00:25:50 Medium - City 2 (Rain)
00:29:32 Medium - Mountain 2
00:32:54 Hard - Snow 2
00:36:02 Hard - Desert 1 (Night)
00:38:24 Hard - Marsh 4 (Fog)
00:41:09 Hard - City 3 (Rain)
00:44:27 Hard - Mountain 4
00:47:55 Expert - Snow 1
00:50:47 Expert - Desert 3
00:53:43 Expert - Marsh 1
00:57:33 Expert - City 4 (Night)
01:00:05 Expert - Mountain 1 (Night)
01:04:50 World - Snow 3 (Night)
01:07:21 World - Desert 2
01:09:52 World - Marsh 2
01:12:37 World - City 2 (Night)
01:15:18 World - Mountain 3 (Night)
01:18:00 World - Snow 4 (Snow)
01:20:20 World - Desert 4
01:23:23 World - Marsh 3 (Fog)
01:26:08 World - City 2 (Rain)
01:29:02 World - Mountain 2
01:31:21 World - Snow 2
01:34:11 World - Desert 1
01:37:04 World - Marsh 4
01:39:05 World - City 3 (Night)
01:42:20 World - Mountain 4 (Rain)
01:44:45 World - Snow 1 (Snow)
01:47:50 World - Desert 3
01:50:22 World - Marsh 1 (Night)
01:53:08 World - City 4 (Rain)
01:55:22 World - Mountain 1 (Rain)
01:58:17 Game Complete music
01:59:39 Title Music
02:02:32 Game Overs
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