Mobil 1 Rally Championship
Mobil 1 Rally Championship[a] is a rally video game which is part of the Rally Championship series. It is a sequel to International Rally Championship (1997). The game was released for Windows in 1999. PC version was developed by Magnetic Fields and Creative Asylum and published by Actualize (formerly known as Europress). PlayStation version was developed by Atod and HotGen Studios and published by Electronic Arts. The Windows version is notable for stages based on real-life Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland maps. A sequel, Rally Championship Xtreme, was released in 2001.
Mobil 1 Rally Championship
In real-life British rallying, each rally championship (of which there are several in addition to the one simulated in Mobil 1) comprises a series of individual rallies. A single rally consists of a course divided into several stages, some of which have service areas where damage that a car's taken can be repaired. But these stations aren't like pit stops in a Formula 1 or NASCAR race, where a pit crew's sheer speed can give the driver an advantage; instead, each car is allotted the same amount of time to fix everything that's been damaged over the previous stage or two.
Because rally cars are all basically production cars souped up for rallying, you won't find the sort of mind-numbing array of setup options in the game as you would in sims like NASCAR Racing 3 or Grand Prix Legends. In Mobil 1, you have a choice of tire types, suspension height and stiffness, rudimentary gear differential settings, transmissions (auto, semiauto, and manual), brake balance, and steering sensitivity. Although it might take a few races for you to fully appreciate the differences between the handling and performance of vehicles in the same class, rest assured that these vehicles do indeed have distinct characteristics. I shaved nearly a full minute off my time on the rugged first stage at Vauxhall just by switching from a Nissan Almera to a Renault Megane.
Although the heart and soul of Mobil 1 is the championship mode, which consists of all six rallies in the Mobil 1 Championship, you can also race on a single stage, advance through an arcade mode, and run time trials on single stages. Unfortunately, the arcade and single-rally modes offer little in the way of interest or excitement. You'd think the single-rally mode would be a great way to practice an entire rally before signing up for the season, but the lack of car setup options means that about all it's good for is memorizing the pretzel-like courses that make up each stage. You can memorize them just as easily in the time-trial mode, where you also have the advantage of being able to set up your car the way you like it.
Then there's the arcade mode, which at first seems to be a good way to relax from the rigors of the championship mode, but actually falls short of delivering any sort of enjoyment. It's the only mode where other cars are on the track, which could have made for some nice bumping and tapping to gain an advantage, and also for a fun multiplayer game. Too bad that a multiplayer option isn't even available for the arcade mode, probably because the game's frame rate drops by nearly 50 percent compared with the relatively smooth animation of the other modes, where you're the only vehicle on the road.
Mobil 1 has options for multiplayer support over Mplayer and HEAT.net. Although you never race directly against opponents in rallies, it'd still be a blast if there were an option to start a rally that competing drivers could join all day long. But until such a matchmaking service is created, the rabid fan base that the game will surely garner will certainly come up with its own multiplayer events. Make no mistake: If you're into racing sims and have the patience to get used to this wild motorsport, then you can't do any better than Mobil 1 Rally Championship.
This game isn't a good rally racer, but it would have made a swell slot car Tyco Electric Racing Set game. The steering is terribly slippery. Even gradual turns start spinning the back end to the side, like there is a feud going on with the bumpers over who should lead. When playing with an analog Dual Shock, oversteering is as simple as twitching your thumb.
True, rally racing is all about sliding and controlling your slide for your advantage. But in Ridge Racer, in Sega Rally, and in Rally Cross -- games that put the power into power sliding -- these slides were thick, burly, horse-powered slides. They had momentum. Sliding was a trick, and when a gamer learned to harness the slide, he became king of the road like Roger Miller never knew. Not so in Mobil 1 Rally Championship. Here, sliding just means you are out of control, and since any marginal degree of steering kicks your ass end into a slide, that means you are ALWAYS out of control.
Count also that slides kill your momentum (they literally stop the car dead in a well-taken turn), and you have a very bad control design. Actualize and HotGen Studios (the company behind -- or almost behind -- the Game Boy Color version of Resident Evil) have built a racer that follows no logic. Cars skid just as easily on paved streets as they do in slippery gravel, and car modifications don't help the depth either -- why bother changing to spiked tires when slicks work brilliantly in the snow?
Set deep in the British Isles, Mobil 1 Rally already has a strike against it -- unless you are a real rally fan, the locales of Wales, Scotland, and England just aren't as fascinating and exotic as the international tours of V-Rally 2 and Colin McRae Rally. They could have been. England is a beautiful place at times, and the races there are famous and popular for a reason.
This is the third rally simulation from Magnetic Fields and Europress (now renamed Actualize). This is a very realistic and highly detailed simulation which accurately recreates the Mobil 1 British Rally Championship. 36 tracks are available, all of which have been created by mapping the real life locations to create a highly accurate racing experience. There are also 22 rally cars to race in which have also been created from their real life counterparts. Although the name of the game is Mobil 1 British Rally Championship, it simply says "Rally Championship" on the front of the box and the game manual. Ignoring this little problem this game is an excellent addition to Europress' rally series and possibly the most realistic racing game ever.
The game simulated the actual British rally championship, letting the player compete either in a simulation style "championship mode" that recreates the actual races, or arcade style time trials, single races and split screen multiplayer.
My mind wandered back to this game and now I'm going to try it out. I like rally racers and I kept thinking of that screenshot, plus the reviews saying the stages were not only long, but based off real geographic surveys. I've heard a couple people say this is almost the equal of Richard Burns and Colin McRae Rally, the two big names of classic rally games.
Hi Ross! I'd like to recommend Mobil 1 Rally Championship. If you sucessfully activated your powers of deduction, you'll find this is a racing game, featuring immense rally stages. It was the last game developed by Magnetic Fields, and released in 1999. The main attraction of the game are the super-long stages, created using real-life data from maps from the Ordnance Survey, a mapping agency for Britain and Ireland. They feel like a journey.
Looking back on it, the physics are nothing special, with sound design being quite poor in fact, however it's a game I thought you'd like due to the sheer immensity of the setting. IIRC there's a stage lasting for over 30 minutes (racing pace), with most of them averaging 10 minutes I'd say. IMO it was the best rally game until Richard Burns Rally released in 2004.
The game has three single-player modes: single race, championship and arcade. In single race you choose a car and stage, and race there; championship mode takes you through all the stages and all the rallies, where you compete against the AI's simulated time, and avoid crashing out of the rallies; and arcade mode is championship mode simplified, you race against the AI (this time they're physically there) whilst starting in last place.
Championship mode is the game's main mode. You choose a car and class and compete amongst them through the 6 rallies, with 6 stages each. Damage is on, so crashing or driving roughly will worsen your car's performance, and put you at risk of retiring from the rally. You may only fix, modify your car's setup, and save the game on the service areas, which are spaced out differently on each rally. Points are awarded at the end of the rally, to determine the season's champion.
The game is officially licensed for the A7, A6 and A5 classes of the British Rally Championship, but a fictional A8 class based on WRC cars is also available after you win the championship mode. Afterwards you may replay the championship mode with the A8 class, however, it's much tougher! The cars are really fast, and critically, in this mode only, after the end of a rally your damage ISN'T fixed, thus making reliability an absolute freakin' nightmare. Make sure to keep several different saves for this mode, and good luck!
Mobil 1 Rally Championship (officially called Mobil 1 British Rally Championship, unofficially nicknamed Rally Championship 2000) is a rally video game which is part of the Rally Championship series. The game was released for Windows and PlayStation on 31 December 1999. It is developed by Magnetic Fields, distributed by Electronic Arts and Atod, and published by Actualize. The PC version is notable for stages based on real-life Ordnance Survey maps.
Rain greeted competitors at the circuit on Saturday morning andLeitch was quickly into his work, taking pole position by animpressive margin by Formula Ford standards, .772 of a second aheadof Matt Williams with championship leader Martin Short third.Leitch was happy with changes made to the Zero Fees Stealth andsaid the car was great in the wet. 041b061a72