WANNA PLAY? TG’S GREATEST RALLY GAMES OF ALL TIME
Sega Rally Championship 1994
Easily the most exciting way to waste your pocket money in 1994, Sega Rally Championship dominated the local Laser Bowl with its silky smooth textured 3D graphics and its beautifully balanced handling. Twin cabinets allowed for head to head races and a single pound coin could carry you all the way to the secret, ultra-challenging Lakeside course. As long as you later went on to become a WRC champ, it was technically an investment.
Colin McRae Rally 1988
Kicking off the most beloved rally game series of all time, the first Colin McRae title on the PlayStation put its faith in the inherent pleasure of pitting yourself against the stage and the clock, at a time when rivals, such as V-Rally, tended towards head to head races. A combination of varied scenery and intuitive handling made it an instant classic and further reinforced the legend of both 1995 champ McRae and his Subaru Impreza.
Mobil 1 Rally Championship 1999
Mobil 1 Rally eschewed the glamour and champagne of the WRC in favour of the sideways rain and stone cold tea of the British championship. The game’s stages were based on authentic rally routes, rendered with such accuracy that the in-game mini-map was supplied by Ordnance Survey, not that you’d have much time to study it. Also notable was the cover car, which was a Seat Ibiza in such a lurid shade of yellow, it could be seen from space.
Richard Burns Rally 2004
The first rally game to really focus on hardcore simulation, Richard Burns Rally was an unforgiving wake-up call to players. The rally school mode that you’d ordinarily skip past with barely a second glance was absolutely required reading here. Hone your skills and you had the option of challenging ghost replays from Burns himself, in what became a poignant tribute to his otherworldly ability when he passed away the following year.
Dirt Rally 2.0 2019
The current state of the art in terms of rally simulation, the only way Dirt Rally 2.0 could be any more realistic is if you played it sitting on a washing machine full of gravel. With cars plucked from six decades of rallying, lavishly detailed stages and the most convincing off-road handling model available, this is absolutely the place to get your rally kicks right now. If you’re fast on this sim, it might be time to hang up the bobble hat and reach for a helmet...