Rally Championship 200 is available for PC and Sony Playstation, with both versions priced at $74.95.
Installation
When I first loaded the full install of Rally Championship 2000 I encountered a bug which required me to uninstall the game. The bug that occurred basically stopped me from seeing the main menu screen correctly, making the game impossible to play. I had played the demo previously and I have a feeling that this may have something to do with it. I recommend that if you have played the demo and still have it on your machine prior to purchasing the full version of Rally Championship 2000, then uninstall the demo first!
I also noticed that while starting the game I could not pick my favourite car from Colin McRae Rally, the Prodrive-inspired Subaru Impreza WRC. This would have to wait till later in the game.
Driving
After having my first go at actually driving, I thought it was quite a lot different to the game mechanics of Colin McRae Rally, one of the greatest rally sims of all time. The main things were a distinct lack of sideways action (except in the snow) and inherent nasty V-Rally-like road handling. These were two things which held Rally Championship 2000 back from being a great and long lasting experience.
The music tracks are pretty heavy dance stuff. If you're into that sort of thing, then you will enjoy it immensely; it has been pretty popular in my household since its debut. In the audio setup, the volume controls can be fun in themselves to play with. You'll notice that the noise of the engine in the car while playing the game is quite extreme. Some would say 'life like'; I suppose it depends on what type of speakers you run on your computer. I found the sound of the Honda Civic engine to be very strange, with a clunking sound through the entire rev range, making me think that I had been driving with a dud engine the whole time.
The engine sounds need to be turned down quite a lot if you are to successfully hear the co-driver's commands. In fact, to hear the navigator's instructions clearly, you'll have to turn the engine sound volume in the audio setup to less than half. It is also easier to understand and remember the female co-driver's instructions under pressure, unless you were born in the UK!
It is impossible to play well in the game and have the music on at the same time; luckily the default setting is 'off'.
A second bug encountered while in single player rally mode: there was a problem with the arrow keys to select different maps and the game got stuck, unless I pressed the key more than once quickly. There is already a patch for Rally Championship, which can be downloaded at www.rallychampionship.co.uk. I found on my machine, which appeared to match the recommended specifications on the box, that running at 1024x768 resolution still caused some game lag to occur from time to time but not enough to put you off your driving. Still, if you really wanted to explore the game's real graphic capabilities, you would want to have a pretty decent machine to make it worthwhile. If you have a computer with the Recommended Specification or less then I would suggest running the game at the 800 x 600 resolution, as this will ensure a smoother game play.
The scenery and environment is an advancement over any PC rally game to date but whether this is enough to make it a better game than the rest, is up to what you feel about the game mechanics.
The arcade mode may be the place to start if you're either new to playing rally or other driving games, or you like to comes to grips with the car controls prior to tackling the entire rally championship mode. It's also an opportunity to race against other computer-controlled cars, head to head.
The game is very unforgiving; even in simulation mode the track width seemed a lot smaller than compared to Colin McRae. Each stage of the game is longer than in any other rally game I have played before. I also noticed that the use of the brakes is required on a more regular basis, than say Colin McRae rally.
To truly experience a game of this quality, do yourself a favour and get a steering wheel. Force feedback may be the flavour of the moment but I find that a good wheel without it will suffice for those who are on a budget.
Computer specs used while playing include:
- Windows 98
- Intel Pentium 3 500
- 128 meg ram
- 16 mg voodoo 3 2000 AGP video Card
- Steering wheel - Logitech Wingman Formula Black
- Sound Card creative PCI 64
Conclusion
In Rally Championship 2000, the rally car specifications and slideshow are the best yet seen in any rally game - showing great shots of each rally car in full action. The tech detail is nothing a fan will not have already learned about their favourite car but provides some interesting information about not so common vehicles from around the world.
Overall, I think the game has a lot of outstanding design. There is never any real feel of the car sliding sideways and the setup of the various options within the game itself, especially the controller, video and sound, detract from what is generally a good game graphically. The narrow and somewhat unrealistic tight corners within the stages combined with a very light handling car create some unrealistic and quite unpredictable driving experiences. This is not to say that the game is not a lot of fun all the same, with the graphics making up for some of the game play drawbacks. If you have an older machine or this is your first time into the world of rally driving on your PC then I would highly recommend getting a copy of Colin McRae first. Otherwise, I'd save my money and buy myself Colin McRae Rally 2.0 when it hits the shelves, which should be by the time you read this.
Score: 7/10, above average.
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