International Rally Championship

The Good
The track editor, lots of stages, some authentic cars

The Bad
Lousy resolution (it LOOKS like 320x200, I swear!), stupid graphics bugs (turn on the rear view mirror and half of your screen goes black diagonally!) No handbrakes so you can't powerslide! You can't combine joystick and keyboard commands! There are only two collisions: vertical flip, and horizontal spin. All cars handle about the same, in both simulation and arcade modes.

The Bottom Line
International Rally Championship is a US release by Interplay/THQ of an OLD rally game originally published by Europress in Europe. The game is several years old and it shows. Graphics quality is lousy, even with D3D acceleration. None of the stages are authentic. The cars may be but they sure don't feel authentic either. Graphical bugs abound. Control scheme s***s bigtime as you can't use both keyboard and joystick at the same time. And who ever heard of a rally sim in which you can't powerslide with handbrakes? The "rally" design (where you pick the stages and the sequence) and "course design" editors are cute but you're just recombining existing parts. Alternate game modes are next to useless, much less fun. Even at $14.95 this is a waste of money. Save your money and get Mobil 1 Rally Championship (i.e. Rally Championship 2000) instead. That's Magnetic Field's next product and is MUCH better than this half-hearted effort.