Rally Trophy


Screen shot courtesy of Holger Siegel.

Although it has been available in Europe for several months (since November 2001), Rally Trophy is really hard to find in the United States. Jowood Productions has been promising delivery for quite some time, but apparently have not been able to ship many copies over at all. And it has some pretty hefty system requirements:

As difficult as it is to acquire, and as demanding as it is for system resources, it sure is fun. The background textures and images are astounding. I received a copy from my wife for my Birthday (How could she have known??? Could it have been the wallpaper image screen shot from the game, that I put on the computer as a background image for the desktop? (Visit the Rallytrophy website for their wallpaper, or "right-click" on the Holger Siegel generated images on this page, and click "Set as Wallpaper") Could it have been the shortcut-icons to the free playable demo that I left on the desktop???) Maybe I talk in my sleep... all I know is that it arrived US-Post, right on schedule. It took a bit of fiddling to install, with more than a few hours spent experimenting with drivers for the video card. But I finally "drove" the red Cortina GT using an old joystick. Real addicts spend the big bucks for "force-feedback" steering wheel setups, complete with foot pedals. Too much for me, though. The joystick works. Sort of. The "driver" can take the cars through various time trials, singly or against computerized competitors. Or one can log on to Relaygames.com and join a network, racing against addicts from around the world. This Relaygames website, by the way, only works with the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, or the very latest Netscape 6.2 browser version...

The game begins with a choice of 11 specific cars, which includes the red MKI Cortina GT. As you progress through the rally stages (awesome scenery from around the world, 42 different tracks in 5 different countries, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Switzerland and Kenya!), driving better and faster (hopefully) and finish in the top 5, you earn the right to drive a factory car, and can choose a genuine Lotus Cortina. (There are "cheats" for the impatient, which allow you to jump immediately into the factory car.) It should also be mentioned that as you drive, as you inevitably run off the road and sustain damage, the car responds appropriately, affecting both performance and handling. On the longer rallies, you can stop at checkpoints and "repair" some of the damage, but this of course, takes "time".

Also, there is an entire community of people around the world just waiting to help with technical problems- from official on-line help to bulletin board help, to emails from the Jowoods Productions people themselves. As mentioned, I had trouble with my S3 video card (see above) and was able to use the on-line forum to figure out how best to make the game work on what I have installed in my computer.

The Lotus Cortina that comes installed with the game is not quite right. The exterior is okay... but it could be better. The interior shots show a GT dashboard layout. The car "feels" a bit soft. To improve it, you can download a better "physics" package (giving more accurate handling), and also you can download other exterior "skins" from the Relaygames.com site. No one has designed a better interior for download yet. But LOTS of different exteriors are available, different colors, different themes, etc. I communicated with one independent designer (Holger Siegel) who creates these "skins" as a hobby. I sent him a few scanned images of the real 1966 RAC rally winner, and he made some improvements to his MKI Lotus Cortina "skin" which was based on the Detailcars 1:43 scale model. The improved download is now available to all at the Relaygames.com site mentioned above.

A few more screen shots of Holger Siegel's improved MKI Lotus Cortina skins:

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