Rally Trophy

Following close on the heels of Rally Championship Xtreme (RCX) from Actualize and Warthog, comes Rally Trophy (RT) from JoWooD and Bugbear.  In many ways RT is better – menus aren’t cumbersome, the cars are easier to tweak, and an adjustable difficulty level can accommodate novice drivers.  But it also falls short in some areas that RCX excelled in such as damage modeling and wide-open races.  Of course, some will argue that comparing the two is unfair, because although they are of the same genre, RCX concentrates on new cars with all the latest gadgetry to assist in driving while RT gives you a load of classic rally cars that, well, handle like something without power brakes, steering, or windows.

RT gives you cars like the Mini Cooper S (This was a rally car at one point?) and the Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA.  (RT has a variety of options open right from the beginning, and depending on which you chose, you may or may not have most of the cars available – three remain locked until success later on no matter what mode you're playing in.)  In Rally mode you have to earn the right to access the bigger, more powerful cars, but in Arcade mode you can try 8 of the 11 cars.  Tweaking various aspects of your car is easy to do – more so than RCX, because it actually tells you 

The most important aspect RT taught me was steering into a skid to regain control.  These cars are definitely a different breed.  Even a moment’s lapse can send you careening into trees.  But the early races do prepare you for what lies ahead.  On the more difficult tracks I found myself responding instinctively and wondering, “How the hell’d I get out of that?”  More importantly, RT has a difficulty setting.  If you’re getting your butt kicked on Intermediate, cranking it down to Novice does make a difference and will allow you to make progress and avoid too much frustration.

The biggest fault with RT’s tracks is that they have a tendency to funnel you in a specific direction.  RCX let you take massive short cuts as long as you didn’t stay too far from the main road for long, but with RT a plastic tape is enough to protect spectators from your wild driving.  Everything is aimed at keeping you on the beaten track.  Cutting corners, so essential to RCX can’t be done easily in RT.  In Arcade mode you race simultaneously with five other racers on a traditional track, and there aren’t many shortcuts available.  Rally mode offers Championship, Single Rally, Single Stage and Time Trial.  They’re all self-explanatory and it’s just you and open road, racing against the clock instead of other racers.

Graphically, RT is good, although in Arcade mode it runs like a snail.  Choppy, chop, chop, chop!  Scaling down detail settings and the like, improves things in Arcade mode.  In Rally mode RT runs much better and (even on my computer) with most of the bells and whistles turned on it ran at a good clip.  There are several different views to race with and if you’re looking for challenge chose the drivers seat.  This is a real challenge as most of the time the world goes by sideways and getting turned around is very easy.  One of the outside views serves up the action better.  The ambient animations, like cows running across the road, are few and far between – unlike RCX which has them all over the place.  Music is reminiscent of No One Lives Forever, a definite ’60s bent that works well.  Sound effects are serviceable.  There’s nothing that will leap out at you – nothing that will encourage you to go out and tell friends about a sound effect you heard.

Leaps and bounds in front of RCX, are RT’s menus.  If you’re screwing up a rally badly, just hit escape and select restart.  Moving back and forth through the menu screens are easy in part because everything is laid out well, unlike in RCX.  The menus may sound like a small point, but as they are the entry to actual gameplay it’s good to see some thought went into them.

While it doesn’t have the same level of damage modeling, wide-open racing, or interesting tracks as RCX, Rally Trophy is a solid rally game – it’s got just about everything you could want: fast action, classic cars, challenge, garage function, easy menus, multiplayer, and some fun.

- Omni