Top Gear Rally

"A good game that you still will not buy even after you read this."

For once some developer has really tried pushing the Game Boy Advance. Top Gear Rally is easily one of the best examples to show to people who think that the GBA is just a Super NES in your pocket. It can do much greater things, and this game proves it. Not only does Top Gear give you a visually pleasing drive through the rally countryside, it also is the best racing games on the GBA. Along with a smooth graphics engine, you have real voice and car sounds during the races. Other than the steering wheel being just too loose in many situations, it still works well. Though not a pick up and play game, TGR proves to be a fun experience.

The main races of Top Gear Rally are in the Championship mode, which has over thirty courses in ten different areas, which is a plentiful amount for a GBA game. All of them features varied landscapes and tracks, which is what rally racing is all about. Depending on the type of track, you would need to change your tires, brakes, or steering wheel speed. For example, it would be better to use hard brakes when on road or other hard surfaces, but soft brakes while on moving surfaces, like gravel or sand.
In Championship mode, each race begins with you starting a second or two behind the other cars, and there are 7 ahead of you. To get more tracks, you need to get ahead of them and get better than third to get to the next track. If you get better than third, you will get points. Depending on what championship series you are playing, you would need 11, 12, or 13 points to get to the next area. The races in general are not hard, and Championship mode is overall pretty easy. The rally cars you are racing against are programmed to go in lines, and even when you hit them, even if you got them crunched from their side, the cars are able to perform physically impossible ways to get back on the road. Even when power sliding, they seem never to go off the track, but they do know how to pass each other though, so they are not lifeless after all. But one of the bigger gripes about racing is that each car, the bots and you, seem to float around the tracks, instead of at least trying to act like the tires on the ground. The cars do not give a good sense of realism, but instead it is like only the track is moving. This does not effect how the game plays though, it just feels a bit off. It gets even worse when you try first person mode, because now it is like your car has been skidding on ice instead of road.
Along with the Championship mode, you have Practice, Time Attack, Quick Race, and if you can find another person with this game, Vs. Since Practice serves absolutely no purpose other than to make you angry for wasting time in it, Time attack is just one of the championship levels, but it can remember your time. You can also save ghosts of your time, and remember the password that they give you to see how you stack up all over the world on Tantalus’ website. Quick Race, strangely enough the longest races in the entire game, are based off a timer. Each race is sectioned off into eight pieces, and each time you pass a checkpoint you get thirty seconds. There are ten different Quick Race tracks, and they can prove to do the biggest challenge in the game.

Graphically, the games look remarkable. Each car is a heavily detailed 3D model, even the AI cars. However, this ends up being negative, because the GBA can only produce 3 AI cars and yourself while keeping at a steady framerate (there are no hiccups), so if you can only keep up with a pack and not pass them, there is no chance for another car in front of them to show up. Small reflections, though just a cheap gimmick and not real time, do give the cars a sense of depth. Also, unlike most GBA racers, the tires actually look like they are spinning. When turning, dust or mud from the road is picked up, and when you go off the main track, it can come off in large amounts. In some tracks, snow and rain can even be seen falling down!
The areas feature a highly detailed backgrounds, but the main track instead is made up of 2D sprites, that look muddy, and when you go down a straightaway, the trees or fence posts tend to warp, making them huge freakishly huge. The tracks look decent enough, but because TGR does not use any type of fog it hide it’s faults, if you look a few seconds ahead, turns can sometimes come out of no where. Everything wrong about the engine can be forgiven, because the people at Tantalus were able to squeeze out a PS1 looking game on the GBA.

Although there is no music during the races, the catchy tunes during the menus are fine. However, there is no music during the races, which I can assume is only because of people needing to know the directions. During the races, a pleasing synthesized British/Australian voice assaults you (well, it does not say anything demeaning, but it gets annoying once you learn the tracks.) When you begin playing, it is a help, but otherwise you can just look at the little map and road signs they show before every turn. During the races, the pounding of rain against a windshield can be heard, along with the humming of a finely tuned engine, waiting to be used. Mud and snow slapping up from the tires is a nice touch as well.

Unless you enjoy doing the same tracks over and over again, once you get in to the Top Gear World Series, the game begins to slow down and boredom seeps in. However, one fun thing to do afterwards is to check out your times online, because it makes you want to do better than that kid in Australia who just sits around all day and plays this game for no apparent reason. If you strive to be Top Gear Rally Champion of the world, be my guest, because you would need some practice to beat the high scores.

Final Score: 8
Overall, Top Gear Rally is an enjoyable game, but a few things, like the cars being just so floaty, makes the game bittersweet. Sure, it’s fun, but you really need to ask yourself a question: Who plays driving games on a GBA anyway?

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/06/04