Network Q Rally Championship

Haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll note it: The Network Q Rally sim, produced by Europress in the UK, is now available in the US. Saw it Thursday at CompUSA, packaged as "Rally Championship" by *** Interactive Entertainment, $35 US. It appears identical to the Europress CD. Stage fans, start your engines! Andrew E

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> Haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll note it: > The Network Q Rally sim, produced by Europress in the UK, is now > available in the US. > Saw it Thursday at CompUSA, packaged as "Rally Championship" by *** > Interactive Entertainment, $35 US. > It appears identical to the Europress CD. Stage fans, start your > engines! > Andrew E

I just got mine. Test Drive: Off Road claimed to be NFS in an off road environment. It wasn't true. If any game was gonna be NFS offroad, this would be it. There are 28 different courses, 6 different cars, variable weather conditions, night driving, etc. The only things I am dissappointed with so far are the sound effects, the car flips if you hit somebody at speed, and it is nearly impossible to damage your car. You crash to your hearts content, and only minimal damage is obtained. All in all, its a great game.

Hi! This is not as arcadey(?) as some games. (Tho' the "bobsled run" walls can get annoying) The sounds are bit goofy, admittedly, (esp the turbo overrun poppin' on the Cossie Escort), but the crunchy gravel, snow tire crunch, & the distinct rumble on paved surfaces seem pretty sophisticated to me, for instance. (listen on good speakers). This is certainly mellow compared to a lot of more spectacular games, but if you savor neatly performed curves in your motor, this can give you the same satisfaction. If you run the "Championship" stages & don't suffer damage, you must be a very good driver indeed. Flips hitting other cars happens in the arcade modes. Also "damage" is turned off in the arcade modes, so little happens. It is uncommon to find more than a couple of cars at any point on a real rally special stage, as they generally start at 1 minute intervals, & are "seeded" so slower cars & less experienced drivers "shouldn't" overtake faster cars. They race the clock, not fender to fender. Also, they have to be street "legal"(?) cars, so the exhaust noise is not very spectacular. (Few GN V-8's in rally, tho I do know of a Chevy S10 4wd rally truck powered by a detuned Nascar (or whatever) V-6!) Cheers! > The only things I am > dissappointed with so far are the sound effects, the car flips if you > hit somebody at speed, and it is nearly impossible to damage your car. > You crash to your hearts content, and only minimal damage is obtained. > All in all, its a great game.

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>> Haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll note it: >> The Network Q Rally sim, produced by Europress in the UK, is now >> available in the US. >> Saw it Thursday at CompUSA, packaged as "Rally Championship" by *** >> Interactive Entertainment, $35 US. >> It appears identical to the Europress CD. Stage fans, start your >> engines! >> Andrew E >I just got mine. Test Drive: Off Road claimed to be NFS in an off road >environment. It wasn't true. If any game was gonna be NFS offroad, >this would be it. There are 28 different courses, 6 different cars, >variable weather conditions, night driving, etc. The only things I am >dissappointed with so far are the sound effects, the car flips if you >hit somebody at speed, and it is nearly impossible to damage your car. >You crash to your hearts content, and only minimal damage is obtained. >All in all, its a great game.

Damage does occur if you are running in championship mode, I keep damaging my Engine from redlining it too much, and I also damaged the clutch somehow in a race, and for the rest of that stage, my transmission kept popping out of gear! I hope this was as a result of the damage and not just my T-2 acting up. Just wanted to thank the people who were discussing this game here on R.A.S and got me to go out and pick it up, from 3 hours of playing it I think it's a nice addition to my auto racing sim/game library. Cheers. --John -- Note: my real e-mail address is below. Delete the asterisks. ------------------------------+------------------------- Seattle, Washington USA. | [link lost in import: /~jsilva]

Speaking of sound effects, what is that annoying popping sound. I get it at idle revving the engine and during racing. Is it the exhaust system, otherwise its a great game. Btw did my first race in the rain and about jumped out of my seat whe n ligthening struck.Well simulated night racing also.

It;s the turbo of the car you are driving. If you listen to rally cars, the turbos are continuosly banking and popping. Rich ============================================================== Richard Tucker Vices : Noble Air Pilot ----> Manchester Hub AFPer Aston Villa Fan Do you need any more ? ==============================================================

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>>Speaking of sound effects, what is that annoying popping sound. I get it >>at idle >>revving the engine and during racing. Is it the exhaust system, otherwise >>its a great game. Btw did my first race in the rain and about jumped out >>of my seat whe n ligthening struck.Well simulated night racing also. >It;s the turbo of the car you are driving. If you listen to rally >cars, the turbos are continuosly banking and popping.

I thought I was overdriving the motor until I was told it was the turbo backfiring. Fortunately someone else found it annoying also. This is from the Network Q Rally FAQ at http://www.liv.ac.uk./~neilj/rallyfaq.htm ------ Q) 4.4 A Fix for the backfiring noise. I have discovered that if you replace the file RALLY\FILES\SNDS\FXPOP.RAW with a short, but not empty, file the backfiring noise goes away. ------- Works for me!!! A lot more fun without the popping! -=Don=-

Cool feature, huh? For some reason, in the head to head races these are not included. I'm going through the stages, almost done, and I can't wait to get back to Championship mode so I can customize and deal with damage.. I finally did the track with the heavy rain (heavy!) and lightening. Now I know what people were talking about, the lightening whites out the whole screen for a second. Very cool. I'd like to comment on the AI: Aggghh!! I know this isn't a *** sim, but c'mon, I'm doing 130mph and it never fails that the idiot car in front of me makes a point of swerving into my line. The only way to deal with it is to set him up and swerve at the last minute around them. Now, I know that they're blocking, but every car?? Every car is as inconsiderate and suicidal as the Viper from NFS? I really like RAC Rally, it's fun and well made. But I hope if they ever make a patch or sequel, that they deal with this. The invisable walls usually don't bother me too much, but last night I took a corner at over 100mph and literally slid around in mid air on the invisable wall. Thank goodness for those force fields! Ha. It would be cool to have a few trees here and there that you could slam into, but I'm not asking for everything. Back to race, Raevyn

>him up and swerve at the last minute around them. Now, I know that >they're blocking, but every car?? Every car is as inconsiderate and >suicidal as the Viper from NFS? I really like RAC Rally, it's fun and >well made. But I hope if they ever make a patch or sequel, that they >deal with this. I love this game but I agree with this comment. There are times I've longer for an I76 style machince gun turrets so I can show those Rally aomputer carsa what a REALLY think about their driving... Joe

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>> Haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll note it: >> The Network Q Rally sim, produced by Europress in the UK, is now >> available in the US. >> Saw it Thursday at CompUSA, packaged as "Rally Championship" by *** >> Interactive Entertainment, $35 US. >> It appears identical to the Europress CD. Stage fans, start your >> engines! >> Andrew E >I just got mine. Test Drive: Off Road claimed to be NFS in an off road >environment. It wasn't true. If any game was gonna be NFS offroad, >this would be it. There are 28 different courses, 6 different cars, >variable weather conditions, night driving, etc. The only things I am >dissappointed with so far are the sound effects, the car flips if you >hit somebody at speed, and it is nearly impossible to damage your car. >You crash to your hearts content, and only minimal damage is obtained. >All in all, its a great game.

Yeah, I agree - though I was disappointed that there was no Lancia Integrale or Toyota GT4 - is this because those cars are used in the Sega rally championship? R

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> > Haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll note it: > > The Network Q Rally sim, produced by Europress in the UK, is now > > available in the US. > > Saw it Thursday at CompUSA, packaged as "Rally Championship" by *** > > Interactive Entertainment, $35 US. > > It appears identical to the Europress CD. Stage fans, start your > > engines! > > Andrew E > I just got mine. Test Drive: Off Road claimed to be NFS in an off road > environment. It wasn't true. If any game was gonna be NFS offroad, > this would be it. There are 28 different courses, 6 different cars, > variable weather conditions, night driving, etc. The only things I am > dissappointed with so far are the sound effects, the car flips if you > hit somebody at speed, and it is nearly impossible to damage your car. > You crash to your hearts content, and only minimal damage is obtained. > All in all, its a great game.

I take back some of what I said. In the championship mode (which I had not yet played when I wrote my previous post) you can and do accumulate damage. You can't see it on the car, but it definatly effects performance. The only sounds that really bug me are the engine sounds. The cars are pretty tipsy though.

>performance. The only sounds that really bug me are the engine sounds. >The cars are pretty tipsy though. Did you miss the following post? Check out Neil Jowsey's NQR FAQ at http://www.liv.ac.uk./~neilj/rallyfaq.htm He explains what it is (the engine popping sound) and how to get rid of it if you want. Joe

The night stages and snow stages are awesome!!!!! You can tell the difference in grip quite a bit by the road surface, deadly slippery on snow, tyre squealing on tarmac.....great stuff. d:~)) **Peter**

Its meant to be the pop off valves on the turbo system, they are continually opening up and *popping* to prevent too much pressure building up in the turbo system. Now thats what I call attention to detail!!!!! BTW, I think it makes the car sound much more realistic? listen to a rally car the next time you see one in real life, or on TV......Cars do not grunt and roar in real life like they do on Starsky and Hutch? d:~)) **Peter**

> > Now thats what I call attention to detail!!!!! > BTW, I think it makes the car sound much more realistic? listen to a > rally car the next time you see one in real life, or on TV... > **Peter** If they wanted to make it REALLY realistic, they'd have some announcer with a buzz-saw nasal whine like Robin Leach doing a non-stop, high-decibel talkover. I just bought the sim, but haven't loaded it up yet... Bart

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> > Haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll note it: > > The Network Q Rally sim, produced by Europress in the UK, is now > > available in the US. > > Saw it Thursday at CompUSA, packaged as "Rally Championship" by *** > > Interactive Entertainment, $35 US. > > It appears identical to the Europress CD. Stage fans, start your > > engines! > > Andrew E > I just got mine. Test Drive: Off Road claimed to be NFS in an off road > environment. It wasn't true. If any game was gonna be NFS offroad, > this would be it. There are 28 different courses, 6 different cars, > variable weather conditions, night driving, etc. The only things I am > dissappointed with so far are the sound effects, the car flips if you > hit somebody at speed, and it is nearly impossible to damage your car. > You crash to your hearts content, and only minimal damage is obtained. > All in all, its a great game.

If only someone could make a graphic converter like the one for GP2 for this game. Or Europress would make a paintkit to change car paint and wheels. -- "To all you villans out there I say, knock off all that evil!" -The Tick The Rusty Wallace Miller Lite stock car, awsome when opened up! GO#2! Mullins Motorsports Inc. http://www.***tron.com/~ddmj

>Its meant to be the pop off valves on the turbo system, they are >continually opening up and *popping* to prevent too much pressure >building up in the turbo system. [snip] I don't want to be too picky, but the "blow-off" valve is designed to eliminate the sudden reversal in turbo pressure when changing gears. (throttle closes so the engine doesn't want the air) This prevents the turbo from slowing down and keeps the boost higher in the low revs after a shift. (no waiting for it to spin back up to speed) It also protects the turbo from backfiring and detonation in the engine due to a lack of fuel. (like you get when you play with big boost) I installed my own in my Mitsubishi Starion Turbo (Chrysler Conquest for you Americans) and it's amazing the reduction in lag that you get. Most turbos come with these valves factory fitted today. What you're describing is the wastegate which is standard issue on all turbos (AFAIK) and is designed to release pressure in the exhaust snail of the turbo. The wastegate opening is what gives the *kick*. With a couple of valves you can trick the wastegate into opening later and force the turbo boost much higher (but then other things come into play) BTW - the real thing sounds MUCH cooler than the game. Jet Jet (remove *HATES_SPAM* from my address to email me)

Well there you go, I obviously didn't know as much as I thought about cars? But you have got to admit I was close? Thanks anyway for the info, every little helps.... d:~)) **Peter**