On the Nintendo 64, Top Gear Rally features a realistic physics model with functioning suspension. At the time, this was an impressive new gameplay development. Road surfaces, including their imperfections, were accurately modeled to give the player the feeling of actually driving a car. The performance of each vehicle in the game was unique. Not only with respect to engine power, but also areas such as tire grip, suspension stiffness, steering tightness, and between different drive-trains such as front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive. The game also features the possibility of damaging the vehicles, although the damage does not affect performance. The game features a soundtrack consisting of tunes with a sort of trance-style. The electronic XM music was composed by Barry Leitch, who also worked on Super Nintendo Top Gear releases.
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The odd one out of the original trio of childhood games I had on my N64, which still functions today thankfully. Mario 64 needs no introduction, Wave Race 64 wowed me with it's realistic water effects and attracted me with it's ocean scenery, and Top Gear Rally was kinda just over there chilling and not bothering anyone. Absolutely a dad pick if I had ever seen one.
Very much feels like Nintendo's unofficial secret answer to Sega Rally Championship, with a ton of care obviously put into the weighty movement of the cars, realistic suspension systems, and actual damage modeling. Using the control stick to steer of course means the handling becomes about as touchy as me on a bad Saturday morning with no caffeine. This is where the customization before each race becomes crucial to making or breaking how the driving feels on the course under certain weather conditions. I feel this is where most people give up on this game, but with such a small set of options to experiment with it shouldn't take much time to find your favorite setup. I definitely don't recommend the default steering/handling 1 for beginners, it's quite a tight endeavor~
What Wave Race 64 did with water and sea for me, was what Top Gear Rally tried to do for me with land and dirt. The depiction of the jungle track under rainy conditions looked simply remarkable to me in 1997, the N64's infamous ability to utilize fog to hide draw distance was done masterfully here and coming back to it as an adult reminded me of that along with realizing the little things like the headlights blaring from the front of the cars. It was something I hadn't seen quite yet even on Playstation or Saturn, and this game along with Wave Race really showed off how powerful the N64 was. It's a small wonder what would happen if the console were not held back by the storage capacity of it's cartridge format, but alas...I just wish I could've used the paint tool option, because I never had a memory pack growing up. ;-;
The crown jewel of the package however is Barry Leitch's soundtrack. I'm not sure if some prohibition era gangsters held his family hostage to force him into making one of the most beautiful menu themes I ever heard or what, but it's a drop dead gorgeous piece that I remember listening to for ages as a kid. Meanwhile PAL/JP got this insane energetic piece that has the exact opposite energy. The actual course themes are nothing to sneeze at either, the music for the Jungle course is crazy good with a side of crazy bread, and really gets your adrenaline pumping for racing in the rain. It really brings me back to realizing how good we had it for music during this era for all kinds of genres. These days if you boot up a mainstream rally game on Steam nine times out of ten it would blare some forgettable licensed garbage at you, which I would turn off near instantly and start playing my own stuff on Spotify.....or perhaps start playing music from Sega Rally, Top Gear Rally, etc...
sighs
I miss game composers man...
Very much feels like Nintendo's unofficial secret answer to Sega Rally Championship, with a ton of care obviously put into the weighty movement of the cars, realistic suspension systems, and actual damage modeling. Using the control stick to steer of course means the handling becomes about as touchy as me on a bad Saturday morning with no caffeine. This is where the customization before each race becomes crucial to making or breaking how the driving feels on the course under certain weather conditions. I feel this is where most people give up on this game, but with such a small set of options to experiment with it shouldn't take much time to find your favorite setup. I definitely don't recommend the default steering/handling 1 for beginners, it's quite a tight endeavor~
What Wave Race 64 did with water and sea for me, was what Top Gear Rally tried to do for me with land and dirt. The depiction of the jungle track under rainy conditions looked simply remarkable to me in 1997, the N64's infamous ability to utilize fog to hide draw distance was done masterfully here and coming back to it as an adult reminded me of that along with realizing the little things like the headlights blaring from the front of the cars. It was something I hadn't seen quite yet even on Playstation or Saturn, and this game along with Wave Race really showed off how powerful the N64 was. It's a small wonder what would happen if the console were not held back by the storage capacity of it's cartridge format, but alas...I just wish I could've used the paint tool option, because I never had a memory pack growing up. ;-;
The crown jewel of the package however is Barry Leitch's soundtrack. I'm not sure if some prohibition era gangsters held his family hostage to force him into making one of the most beautiful menu themes I ever heard or what, but it's a drop dead gorgeous piece that I remember listening to for ages as a kid. Meanwhile PAL/JP got this insane energetic piece that has the exact opposite energy. The actual course themes are nothing to sneeze at either, the music for the Jungle course is crazy good with a side of crazy bread, and really gets your adrenaline pumping for racing in the rain. It really brings me back to realizing how good we had it for music during this era for all kinds of genres. These days if you boot up a mainstream rally game on Steam nine times out of ten it would blare some forgettable licensed garbage at you, which I would turn off near instantly and start playing my own stuff on Spotify.....or perhaps start playing music from Sega Rally, Top Gear Rally, etc...
sighs
I miss game composers man...
Top Gear Rally was loved so much by N64 Magazine that they dropped Multi-Racing Championship’s score from 81% to 71%, claiming that it was scored high because it was first. As much as I wanted to love this, this just felt like it had the same kind of “early days” bias as it’s still another arcade style racer where you work from the back of the pack with very few tracks.
The racing itself feels pretty decent with a lot of options to change to alter the handling of your vehicles, and the graphics are very nice for their time, with some nice water effects. In championship mode, you play through a bunch of seasons as you race across the same four tracks multiple times. The weather does change and, while the effects are quite lovely, the rain and slow just make the handling a nightmare. In total, you play across these four tracks a total of 21 times – and then again in mirror mode.
There are some nice touches to the game, for example, you can create custom paint jobs for your cars in a surprisingly nice (for the time) image editor. There’s also “arcade” mode where you can have a 1v1 race against the CPU or another player. The music on the jungle level is also absolutely lovely, although the rest of the music is quite poor. There’s also a hidden track.
If you play through the whole 21 track season and win every single race, you’ll unlock the final track. You can’t race this in the main mode, only arcade and practice. When N64 Magazine wrote their review, they knew it existed but had no idea how to unlock it, it’s that much of a pain to do. Yet it’s easily the best track of the game, with a ton of interesting shortcuts. It’s strange how the best 20% of their game is locked away so hard – another fun vehicle would have been much better, and would allow for a bit more variety in the game’s main mode.
One other thing I noticed is that it doesn’t feel like the other racers have any kind of AI – it just feels like they’re on a set path. They don’t react to you and if you get in their way, they’ll barge you away without slowing down. If you try to crash into them, they’ll be unaffected. They’re more obstacles than opponents.
Top Gear Rally is a fun game, but shows its age with its arcade nature and lack of content. At the time of release, it was definitely the best car racing game on the system.
The racing itself feels pretty decent with a lot of options to change to alter the handling of your vehicles, and the graphics are very nice for their time, with some nice water effects. In championship mode, you play through a bunch of seasons as you race across the same four tracks multiple times. The weather does change and, while the effects are quite lovely, the rain and slow just make the handling a nightmare. In total, you play across these four tracks a total of 21 times – and then again in mirror mode.
There are some nice touches to the game, for example, you can create custom paint jobs for your cars in a surprisingly nice (for the time) image editor. There’s also “arcade” mode where you can have a 1v1 race against the CPU or another player. The music on the jungle level is also absolutely lovely, although the rest of the music is quite poor. There’s also a hidden track.
If you play through the whole 21 track season and win every single race, you’ll unlock the final track. You can’t race this in the main mode, only arcade and practice. When N64 Magazine wrote their review, they knew it existed but had no idea how to unlock it, it’s that much of a pain to do. Yet it’s easily the best track of the game, with a ton of interesting shortcuts. It’s strange how the best 20% of their game is locked away so hard – another fun vehicle would have been much better, and would allow for a bit more variety in the game’s main mode.
One other thing I noticed is that it doesn’t feel like the other racers have any kind of AI – it just feels like they’re on a set path. They don’t react to you and if you get in their way, they’ll barge you away without slowing down. If you try to crash into them, they’ll be unaffected. They’re more obstacles than opponents.
Top Gear Rally is a fun game, but shows its age with its arcade nature and lack of content. At the time of release, it was definitely the best car racing game on the system.
A very competent rally game in the early life cycle of the Nintendo 64. The key to continue progressing through the game was to either get new rally cars with better stats and/or upgrade the components of your vehicle such as suspension, tires, engine, etc.
One of my favorite features in the game was the livery creator that allowed you to customize the looks of your rally cars. It was very well implemented and it had enough options to come up with detailed designs.
One of my favorite features in the game was the livery creator that allowed you to customize the looks of your rally cars. It was very well implemented and it had enough options to come up with detailed designs.
Nunca será Sega Rally
Good circuits , bad controls.
This soundtrack came with a decent racing sim game!