Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: August 28, 2000

The specialized virtual driving niche of rally racing has been dominated on the personal computer platform by two titles — Codemasters’ Colin McRae Rally and Magnetic Fields’ Rally Championship (also known as Mobil 1 Rally Championship). Both are more than competent releases, but both aspire primarily to be racing simulations. Now Digital Illusions, the Swedish developer of the great arcade racer Motorhead, is releasing through Infogrames Rally Masters (temporarily titled Test Drive Rally earlier in its development), an offering that promises to inject arcade performance into this genre. The real-live annual Rally Masters Race of Champions began in 1988 and takes place in Gran Canaria; it now is a world famous event featuring well-known drivers racing identical cars side-by-side on a special looped figure eight track.

The game Rally Masters contains more than 22 licensed rally car models including the Subaru Imprezza WRC ’98, Seat Ibiza Evo 2, Skoda Octavia WRC, Peugeot 306F2 Evo, Citroen Xsara Kit Car, Renault Megane Kit Car, and Lancia Stratos. Driving them are 30 real-world rally drivers divided into three divisions: Formula 2, WRC and Legends. Formula 2 cars have front wheel drives, 280 bhp, and no turbo; World Rally cars are heavier and have 300 bhp and turbochargers; and Legends from the past have unlimited horsepower and enormous turbos. Only Formula 2 cars are open from the start, and unfortunately you have to win outright to unlock the bonus cars and drivers. While these compact vehicles pale by comparison to huge overpowered muscle beasts in many other types of racing, they are considerably peppier than production models available to mass consumers. Historical statistics for both car and driver help give some depth and context to the racing experience.

You cruise in these vehicles along more than 51 tracks based on real-world locations. There are six diverse settings — Italy, Sweden, Indonesia, the United States, Great Britain and the Canary Islands. Although based on authentic environments, most of the tracks are imaginary. The designs seems perfectly suited for tight head-to-head racing, not so narrow that you barely have room to move and not so wide that you could meander drunkenly from side to side without hitting a curb. There are realistic weather and driving surfaces that affect driving conditions, including gravel, snow, rain, fog, and ice during day and night. You may also race these tracks forwards or backwards. The different environments necessitate very different styles of racing, requiring winners to possess quite a versatile range of driving skills.

In contrast to Rally Championship‘s seemingly endless tracks, the ones in Rally Masters are generally relatively short, taking just a few minutes to complete. Thus those of you whose virtual driving experience consists solely of short bursts of conventional racing will not need nearly as much endurance, patience, and long-lasting concentration here as in other rally racing offerings. Moreover, while in many virtual rally racers you spend most of your time driving alone in the empty countryside, in this offering there is a lot more intense pack racing where you switch places with the nearest car numerous times. As a result, there is never any sense of dull boredom here, and success requires that you stay on your toes offensively and defensively with respect to other drivers as well as careful attentiveness to the curvature of the tracks themselves.