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Boss Rally
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
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If SouthPeak's racer Boss Rally was released as a coin-op, the machine would demand a lot of maintenance. The dented panels and boot prints that frustrated customers would inflict on the cabinet would keep a repairman busy for months.
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Boss Rally is an eminently-kickable PC port of the popular N64 title Top Gear Rally that offers higher resolution screens, improved audio and serial/modem, network and Internet multiplayer competition for up to eight and a handful of extra cars and tracks. The fictional vehicles are based on familiar European and Japanese sedans used in actual rally competitions, but the tracks are nothing like their real world counterparts. Instead of using rally style point-to-point "stages", the racing in Boss Rally takes place on multi-lap closed circuits.
True to its console heritage, most of Boss Rally's six tracks and nine cars are unavailable at the outset and can only be unlocked with successful race results in the game's six championship seasons. I've never been a fan of this approach and the sadistically tough parameters used here only reinforce my resistance. I'm good at racing games, but it took an entire afternoon before I was able to amass enough points to advance past the inaugural two-race season and earn my first bonus track and pair of cars. (Unfortunately, the game's difficulty level is not scalable).
Ouch! Still five seasons to go.
The big problem here is that the 19 AI cars begin each race well spaced out along the road, and in order to earn the requisite amount of points you must work your way past all of them in only a handful of laps. Most of the AI cars are noticeably slower than yours, but begin with such a huge lead that you must drive a perfect race and make use of every available shortcut to stand a chance at victory.
Hindering matters is a flawed driving model. Smooth movements of a wheel or joystick have no effect on the steering and you must saw away viciously at the controller just to get car to turn at all. The powerslide cornering technique demanded by the game can be entertaining at times, but the effort required to maintain it is not.
The accelerated 3D graphics in Boss Rally (D3D or Glide) may represent an improvement over the N64 original, but, when placed alongside comparable PC titles like Need For Speed: High Stakes, they are well below average. The detailing on each vehicle is sparse and the background scenery-- although smooth and seamless--is bland. Assorted weather effects are employed to good effect but the lack of a proper cockpit view hurts and the game imparts absolutely no sense of discernable speed when you're hurtling along at 100mph (which feels more like 40).
The console-inspired carrot-on-a-stick approach of locking away cars and tracks is supposed to make people stick with a game longer in order to uncover them. But after my ninth successive race at the same track in Boss Rally, I didn't really care to see them all that badly.
In fact, if I had been playing the game as a coin-op, I'd be one of those people delivering a few well-placed kicks.
