Top Gear Rally

About Top Gear Rally

Top Gear Rally (1997) is Boss Game Studios' Nintendo 64 rally racer with a working suspension model, changing weather and a six-season championship.

Top Gear Rally in Depth

A follow-up to Kemco's original Top Gear, it mixes road and off-road surfaces on relatively open tracks with hidden shortcuts, raced in sun, night, fog, rain or snow. Before a race players can paint their car, choose tyres, set suspension stiffness and steering sensitivity and pick manual or automatic gears. Cars differ in acceleration, top speed, drivetrain and engine placement, which together with road and weather conditions change their handling: engine position affects how a car lands after a jump, and four-wheel drive cars grip better on gravel. Cars can be damaged, but without affecting performance.

Championship mode asks a single player to complete six seasons of two to four races, each against 19 computer opponents, scoring enough points to advance and unlocking cars and tracks; finishing first in every race of the last season reveals two bonus cars and a hidden track, and mirrored versions of each track can be unlocked. Arcade mode races an opponent against checkpoint time limits, Time Attack pits the player against a ghost of their best time, and Practice allows free driving, with Arcade and Practice supporting two players in split screen. Next Generation called it "a fabulous off-road racer with tons of bonus cars, courses, and replay value" that surpassed Sega Rally.

Making Top Gear Rally

Boss Game Studios began work in July 1996 after its demo, built on workstations far more powerful than the N64 with 15,000-polygon cars, persuaded Nintendo of America it could make the game; Sega Rally was a major inspiration, though Boss wanted something that felt different. It spent two to three months building tools, including a physics engine with working suspension, and lead designer Colin Gordon said "no car [drives] like another". A planned level editor and a Mario Kart-style battle mode were dropped. Midway published it in North America on 30 September 1997. Reviews were generally positive, praising its crisp graphics and fluid but challenging play, while criticising weak sound effects and limited multiplayer.