Master Rallye

The Good
What makes this rally game stand out of the crowd are two things : Cars and tracks. The cars are Paris-Dakar kind of vehicles. That is buggys or trucks. The trucks are slower than the buggys, but still fun to drive. I really like the realism of how the cars behave when on the ground. I recommend a steering wheel or joystick though, they tend to want to skid around a lot.... The tracks are your average rally game tracks, but with one difference : you don't have to follow the road! Remember, these cars are off-road vehicles and are not much slower in the terrain than on the road. You can cut corners and sneak around small waterholes to gain a few seconds. Fun! The AI cars actually do this as well.

The graphics are nothing special, just ok.

The Bad
There's one big flaw with the physics in this game, and you'll notice this as soon as the car gets airborne (as it will sooner or later). The behaviour is very far from realistic, and tipping the car over is much harder than it should be. One thing is quite strange, and that is the fact that all damage your car receives during one stage is automagically repaired for the next stage. Perhaps this kind of rallying allows for more repair time, I don't know.... Still seems weird. The visual damage on the car looks ok, but wouldn't rolling the car over make it a bit more damaged than a dented bumper?

What I miss in all rally games are a realistic point awarding system and a career mode. The way it is now you have to race with the slower cars first to "unlock" the better cars, which makes you bored of the game once you get to the best cars. Also, the "time trial" option... Who plays it? Why is it there at all? Developers of rally games need a little more fantasy, this is getting old!

The most annoying thing is that the game feels unfinished. You sometimes crash into invisible objects, you can't turn off the in game music, the time trial signs are there all the time, and they make a sound when you pass them even if you are playing a single race and not time trial etc etc. Some more time spent on details and realistic physics would have made this MUCH better.

The Bottom Line
An ok rally game with some unique features, but after a while you find the flaws annoying enough to prevent you from playing.