Perverts are the sort of people who wear very strange underwear. So, it shouldn't be too strange to realise that rally drivers always seem to forget to mention that they wear asbestos knickers and have a serious line in flame retardant long johns. But perhaps they're not perverted - maybe they have botty combustion problems.
So, why not pull on your black leather driving gloves. As a rally driver extraordinaire, your mission is to boldly drive where thousands have driven before. To seek out new trees and strange rocks to wrap your car around. To chew up the straights like Popeye's Rotweiler on spinach and skillfully (or luckily!) negotiate your way around any up and coming bends. They're intent on mangling you up beyond your own mother's recognition and rendering your car useless for what seems like eternity. But this is not all because, just to add that extra bit of excitement, it's all against the clock.
Maybe that's being a little unfair as Toyota Celica Rally does make an attempt to be different. For example there's the option to create a co-driver. This is a vital part of the game as it enables you to examine a map of the course and mark on it an places of potential danger (strong right hand bend etc.). The computer will then flash the appropriate warning on the screen during the game at the preselected moment giving you that all important foresight of disaster.
Steering controls are very responsive, a little too responsive intact as pushing the joystick even a smidgen left or right often sends you diving into the undergrowth. All very well for would-be Casanova's, but it doesn't do much for you the placings table. Although you are assured in the manual that steering can be customized, you're never given the chance. There are some nice touches in the graphics department. Looking forwards through the windscreen the contours of the course are followed perfectly as you dive down and climb up the hills. Your windscreen even shatters on those all-too-frequent crashes.
The end result? Not too bad a game but not too good a one either, if you're lacking in patience or have a low boredom threshold then steer well clear of this one.
You'd need the temperament of a saint to get anywhere near the top 10 drivers, not to mention a lot of prayers.
Label: Gremlin
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £10.99 Tape, £14.99 Disk
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins