World Rally (1993 video game)

Gameplay screenshot.

World Rally is a top-down rally racing game reminiscent of Thrash Rally and Carlos Sainz on ZX Spectrum, where players observe from above and races across various countries by participating in a single race under a sixty second time limit.[3][4][5][6] Every location, composed of three stages each, has its own weather conditions and hazards that change how the car is controlled through the track, as well as shortcuts to gain time advantage.[4][5][6] A direction indicator appears during gameplay, allowing players to known about an incoming turn.[5] Players move into the next course by completing the race under sixty seconds, however, failing to do so results in a game over screen unless players insert more credits into the arcade machine to continue playing.[4][5][6] A second player can also participate by alternating turns.[4]

World Rally was created by most of the same team that worked on previous projects at Zigurat Software such as Carlos Sainz for ZX Spectrum, with members of the creation team recounting the project's development process and history through multiple publications.[7][8][9][10][11] Jorge Granados stated that the team wanted to make a racing game about Carlos Sainz and the World Rally Championship.[12] They opted for an isometric perspective, their first attempt at this graphical style. The team's Fernando Rada said that coding the perspective was a major challenge, although it was made simpler by the new technology that the team was working with. Previously they had coded only for the 8-bit Z80 processor, but switched to the 16-bit 68000 for World Rally, programming the game in assembly. Rada said that the new setup was "much easier" to work with.[13]

Near the end of development when the game was ready for testing, Sainz changed teams from Toyota to Lancia.[12] Granados later said that the game had been in production for almost two years, and that the technical chore of changing its assets to fit the new branding would have been "crazy".[13] The car, which was a Toyota Celica GT-Four, was a scale model created and painted by the team before being digitized into the game,[12] using 360 photography.[13] As a result, Zigurat instead chose to drop Sainz from the game. Granados later said, "What we did was leave everything the same, and on the cover where Carlos Sainz appeared, we planted a gigantic helmet."[13]

World Rally was first released in Spain and Japan by Gaelco and Sigma on July 1993, before being launched in North America by Atari Games on August of the same year.[1][2] Prior to its launch, it was first playtested at the Sants neighborhood in Barcelona.[14] The game was distributed on two variations; a standard upright variant and a deluxe variant.[9] In a 1995 interview with Spanish magazine Hobby Hi-Tech, Jorge Granados claimed Zigurat Software were in talks with Sony about a potential conversion of the title for PlayStation, however this version was never released.[15] It became notable in recent years due to being extremely difficult to play on emulators like MAME, as the arcade hardware implemented an advanced anti-piracy system until Gaelco co-founder Javier Valero provided unencrypted keys for the PCB in 2008 at a Spanish gaming conference, allowing it to be emulated and played.[8][9][10][11][16] Gaelco later made its ROM image available as freeware.[17]

While Gaelco's previous titles Big Karnak and Thunder Hoop had been commercially successful, researchers Manuel Garin and Víctor Manuel Martínez cited World Rally as the studio's breakthrough title across Europe, where it attained "mass success".[19] The game sold around 23,000 units in Europe and according to Jorge Granados, it achieved similar response worldwide.[11][12][20][21][22] It remained Zigurat's biggest hit ever by 2014.[13] Summarizing World Rally's performance, Granados remarked, "I won't tell you that we became rich, but we made money".[13]

Electronic Gaming Monthly regarded the game as "endurance racing at its finest".[4] In Japan, Game Machine listed the title on their 15 September 1993 issue as being the twelfth most-successful table arcade unit of the year, outperforming titles such as Saturday Night Slam Masters.[23] French magazine Consoles + regarded the gameplay positively as "exemplary".[5] Gamest awarded it in 1994 with the 75th "Annual Hit Game" prize.[18] In recent years, the game has been played in tournaments on gaming-dedicated festivals in Spain and has since gained a cult following.[13][24][25]

A sequel, titled World Rally 2: Twin Racing, was released in 1995 by Gaelco but proved to be less popular than its predecessor.[1][8][9][15][20]

• World Rally at GameFAQs
• World Rally at Killer List of Videogames
• World Rally at MobyGames