Once in a while comes a game that you simply must own.
Rally Championship isn't that game.
It has an incredibly generic title too, making it difficult to search for
since it sound in part like so many other games that have gone before it - and
behaves just the same too.
You've been here 100 times before. Choose from single or multiplayer modes,
the former having a quick race, arcade and career modes, with three difficulty
modes and driving one of a number of cars including Honda Civic, Proton Compact
and Ford Puma through a number of courses, unlocking as you go.
The graphics are the best thing about the game, moving along at a nice pace
and without any obvious pop-up. Gameplay is fine, but no different as you'd
expect, while the sound has very little going for it, with a rasping engine
as you drive and standard SFX as you crash.
What is disappointing is that the race stops too soon as you run out of time,
not making it to the next checkpoint soon enough, the menus take an age to
load when you're going back to the main menu and, to be honest, things haven't
really moved on from the days of V-Rally 5-6 years ago. It looks a bit nicer,
but hasn't progressed one jot in any other field.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
The graphics are the best thing about the game, moving along at a nice pace
and without any obvious pop-up. Gameplay is fine, but no different as you'd
expect, while the sound has very little going for it, with a rasping engine
as you drive and standard SFX as you crash.
