"Terribly, Terribly Butchered"

Imagine you are the Godfather with a great close family that is as good and bound by strong traditional ties. Now imagine that you fast-forward a few years and your family is a mess due to a member of that family going out of control. Well that’s what we have got here with Sega Rally for the PC. Back in 1994 Sega Rally in the arcades was special, an innovator with the best second best arcade driving multiplayer mode ever (only Daytona USA beat it with up to 8 player frolics). Then the outstanding conversion in 1995 to the Sega Saturn. Made all the more special as the Saturn was considered not able to hack a game as complex and 3D as Sega Rally and while cuts were made (mainly in the framerate) it played even better than its arcade cousin. Then in 1997 Sega PC announces that it would be converted to the PC with Empire Interactive to publish it. Bad, bad Sega. Firstly and perhaps most importantly Sega must of thought it would be a good idea to convert the Saturn version with virtually no effort to make it PC-friendly. Installing the game is a doddle, but if you get no sound or have graphics problems then good luck, the layout is so bad that it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Configuring a controller to the game (which you must for the game to be playable it’s a joke trying to play it with a keyboard) it slightly less fun than pulling your own teeth out. You can get this on budget now for less than £5, but really you’d be doing the legacy of Sega Rally no good at all. Go and visit a seaside arcade and play Sega Rally as it was meant to be.

PRESENTATION – 1/10 I’m being kind giving it a one for the arcades menu screens in the game, everything else… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! My sides have split!!!

GRAPHICS – 8/10 Okay so for their time they were good but so what it was ported to the PC so, so badly.

GAMEPLAY – 8/10 (2/10 with a keyboard) The handling from the Saturn version (which as good) is still here, butchered, but still here. You have to play this game at least once with a keyboard to show how bad it is using it.

SOUND – 7/10 Arcade perfect, not great by today’s standards but still, not bad.

LIFESPAN – 3/10 Four courses (one hidden) and three cars (one hidden) means not much play time here.

OVERALL 3/10 Note to Sega: Never, ever port your games from consoles to the PC…ever. They never work properly; it’s wasting our time and your money. Oh and on the subject of this game, don’t buy it. My recommendation, find a Sega Saturn and play that version or play it in the arcades, as it was truly intended.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/04