Overdue Reviews is an occasional series in which I pretend to be a videogame journalist. This week: Network Q RAC Rally Championship on PC.
Prior to the rallying revolution that was 1998's Colin McRae Rally the nineties was a bit thin on the ground for decent rally games. The overly named Network Q RAC Rally Championship was therefore quite an exciting thing, particularly as it featured a stage near where I grew up.
It turned out that it wasn't a particularly good recreation of it; there were trees and a ford, but otherwise it could have been anywhere. Fortunately that wasn't a problem because the game had everything else my younger self could want: techno music, FMV of real rally car action, a hilariously bad two-frame gear change animation (with a great 'clunk' sound effect), a choice of real cars, and a driving model that allowed sort-of proper powersliding around corners.
Unfortunately all of this was slightly marred by the invisible wall problem, which on some stages was right at the edge of the road, rather than several metres off into the undergrowth. This meant that experienced drivers like my Dad, who approached corners at the correct speed and angle, would be frustrated by novice drivers like myself who would just point the car in roughly the right direction and bounce round at full speed, with a minimal speed penalty. It was a lot of fun.
Amazingly, thanks to the wonders of the internet, you can play it for yourself in a browser, right now. Forget you've ever played any other rally game for a moment, and go jump feet first back into the mid-nineties. I heartily recommend it.