Mobil 1 Rally Championship

"The Ultimate Rally Challenge! Mobil 1 BRITISH RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
Official game of the Mobil 1 British Rally Championship. 21 highly detailed licensed cars with fully interactive car damage. Exclusive 2 player circuits. Over 400 miles of photo-realistic stages. A8 Championship featuring authentic World Rally cars. 5 exhilarating race modes: Championship, Rally, Arcade, Time Trial and 2 Player. Stunning real-time weather and lighting conditions"

The Mobil 1 Rally championship consists of six rallies combining a total of 36 stages. After choosing your car you are free to tune it for each rally stage. This is probably more useful for Time Trials if you are going for best possible times but in general gameplay I show that keeping to default values isn't to much of a hindrance. I find it easier just to get used to a cars standard values and exploit it as you are stuck with it the whole championship. The game will automatically set a suitable type before each stage and you are free to change it if wanted. Their are a couple of unlockable extras in both the Championship and Arcade mode. It is important to set at least medium difficulty to get the rewards after winning each mode. For Arcade mode, the reward is the ability to play the tracks in reverse in the time trial mode. Winning the championship unlocks A8 cars for Arcade mode as well as an A8 championship mode.

Arcade mode has you playing through stages against five cars. The aim is to get the most points by getting the highest position in each race. The championship mode is a race against the clock or rather the finishing times of competing drivers. The main difference I noticed between easy and hard modes is that on easy you get an extra 30 seconds or so to play with allowing for more mistakes but no unlockables for winning.

In game, the art style is going for a more realistic look but the important bit is the driving. There are some nice lighting effects although sparingly used and the same goes for the weather. What makes this game challenging for me is that the road is more like a trench. The road is quite thin and you go so much as near the edge it will start to cut your speed, spin your car or claim you hit a hidden rock and stop you dead. Its not easy trying to keep on a narrow racing line. The verges at the sides act like they go from zero to forty five degree incline so it doesnt take much to flip the car. Along the road you can randomly lose grip that can also stop you dead. There is no damage system in the game. Whist you can knock the rear bumper off and get the car muddy, there is no actual mechanical damage to worry about. You get a brand spanking new cleaned up car at the start of each stage. Roadside flags and signs cant be crashed into either. I do flick between the different camera modes during play to show how it plays in the different modes and each car has its own dash. One weird aspect of the chase cam is that it kind of follows the road instead of the car so if you don't turn at the right time you get sucked into the sides and potentially crash. It can be quite jarring when it happens.

In the longplay I open with a quick demo of the replay cam with loading cut out. I don't show any other replays during play. Before diving into the championship I show each of the available cars before selecting signature vehicle. Playing on hard, this unlocks the A8 championship for winning. I proceed to show the A8 cars before selecting a vehicle and going through the championship again which has an added challenge that you are competing against the same driver the whole time fighting you for the top points. It will perhaps come as a complete surprise to no one that nothing is unlocked for finishing this mode. I debated weather I should even bother including it in the video. Upon completion i proceed to show off Arcade mode going through the whole game .. again. The arcade mode difficulty is going to be luck of the draw depending on the cars you are put up against. on the hard setting, you are not likely win every race, especially the short ones but at least the racers mix it up a little so you are not always just racing against one car for the number one spot. The credits are manually selected at the end to close out the video.

Important note: Whilst normally I would play the 60Hz US release of a game, it has a game breaking bug giving the opposing drivers a huge time advantage over you. Even on easy it is borderline impossible to keep up and unless you finish each rally in the top five, you wont get any points. The game is an original pal developed game and the EU release works just fine. I can only speculate that something went badly wrong with the 50-60Hz conversion.

00:00:00 Intro / Demo
00:07:00 Car selection narration
00:17:21 Vauxhall Rally of Wales
00:50:35 Pirelli International Rally
01:24:20 RSAC Scottish Rally
01:56:23 SEAT Jim Clark Memorial Rally
02:23:54 Stena Line Ulster Rally
02:56:50 Manx International Rally
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03:24:50 Car selection narration
03:28:16 Vauxhall Rally of Wales
04:01:12 Pirelli International Rally (A8)
04:34:28 RSAC Scottish Rally (A8)
05:06:00 SEAT Jim Clark Memorial Rally (A8)
05:32:35 Stena Line Ulster Rally (A8)
06:04:52 Manx International Rally (A8)
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06:32:40 Vauxhall Rally of Wales (Arcade)
07:06:44 Pirelli International Rally (Arcade)
07:40:52 RSAC Scottish Rally (Arcade)
08:13:05 SEAT Jim Clark Memorial Rally (Arcade)
08:40:38 Stena Line Ulster Rally (Arcade)
09:13:35 Manx International Rally (Arcade)
09:41:52 Credits