Rally Trophy

The Good
Here we have one racing game that's all about classic monsters of the 60's and 70's. Older racing maniacs and racing educated youngsters will love this one as it packs every little (NOT!) old rig that you could possibly want to get it going sideways! Here we have the hilarious Fiat "Topolino" 500, the Lancia Fulvia Coupe, the majestic Alfa Romeo Julietta Veloce, The Volvo Amazon for starters among others. The actual treasure of the game is when you get to drive the damn things!!! They are behaving as true rear wheel drive cars, with tons of torque pushing from behind waiting for you to make the slightest mistake and flip your face where your behind was! It will take a lot of practice before you will run your first mile unflipped and intact. The car physics are quite OK, although a bit "boatie" but if you're a real hard core fan of these oldsters you'll always come back for more, trying to master every little aspect of their merciless behavior. Graphically the game is OK. Good enough to keep you there, but don't expect any jaw drops here. It certainly could be pushed a bit more. They surely create a nice retro environment to suit those old leaded petrol drinking rigs. One of the things that I really liked in the game was the Lens effect when your face comes against the sun. I though that this had such a great retro feeling in it, coming from the old movies or something!

The Bad
Now that we had the pleasure of having the chance to taste a bit of old time racing in all those beauties, here comes the disappointing bits. First of all, no matter if you play the game with keys or a steering wheel, the game is SO hard to get into!!! Just try and turn the damn things!!! The cars either won't face the right direction of entrance or they will flip you!!! it takes a lot of practice to even begin to grasp what reactions needed in their bad attitude. And not all cars in the game are rear wheel drive (it's time I use the RWD for short!). Take the mini cooper S for example. I really haven't got a clue why they made the mini behave like a RWD vehicle. The same applies for the Saab too. C'mon guys!!! If you gonna make a game with such special and unique features in it you gotta make it right and be fun also. Okay, there's no point in putting so much realism in a pc game since you don't feel the g-forces, thus you cannot "read" the car's movement and have a feel about it. Make it a bit more fun to drive at least!!! Regarding sound there's nothing special here too. Every car has it's own unique buzz (which in my opinion does not resemble to the real cars - Fulvia and Giullietta Veloce DO NOT sound like this!!!!). As for setting up the cars for the race, the settings are in the simplistic vein, having only to play with 5 gearbox settings, equally numbered suspension strengths, basic tire selections and finally 5 settings of turning radius. Get your Escort mexico down here boy and I'll have it race ready in one minute!!! Back to driving, one true fan would want to control the car from inside it's cockpit... Here we go again then... the work for the cars inertia is simply poor. My personal preference regarding driving views on this game is the "on the bonnet" view. The game allows some multiplayer modes, but I wouldn't know about these as I haven't tested them (I never play multiplayer games anyway lol!).

The Bottom Line
In general the game is good fun, once you get the hang of it and stop spinning and having your tail flipped to the front, there are further cars to be unlocked (an Escort mk1 and a Lancia Stratos among others) but I cannot see really how one will unlock them with ease, since I'm having the game for two weeks now and I still haven't managed a podium standing... It's a pity really, this game could go far more if at least the physics were a bit more on the fun side! Have a try and see if you like it for yourself, to be honest, although being so tough, I loved it! I kept going on and on! Re-run after Re-run, but that's just me: an old nuts and bolt gearhead who's obsessed with these old rigs! I will recommend this game only to the hard core fans of the old classics, since there's nothing around like it. Put it next to your copy of "Driver" so you'll have both sides of the Atlantic in that specific (and beautiful - in my humble opinion) era!