Death Rally
Released: 1996
Published by: GT Interactive
Developed by: Remedy Entertainment
Author(s): Kim Salo, Olli Tervo, Petri Järvilehto, Sami Vanhatalo, Sampsa Virtanen, Jonne Valtonen, Markus Stein, Scott Miller, Rick Raymo
Introduction
Death Rally is a top-down arcade racer released in 1996 by GT Interactive. Starting with the most basic slow car, rise up the ranks by competing in races over various tracks and beat the competition - any way you like! You can of course cross the finish line first, but you can also take out the competition through a variety of weaponry and armaments too. As you win races, you use the money to repair damage to your vehicle, buy weapons such as mines or spikes, or add optional upgrades such as a beefier engine, better tyres, or armour.
If you don't have enough funds you can borrow money from a loanshark. There are also sponsors and other shady characters who will pay you good money to perform certain tasks, like taking out one of the other drivers or picking up some pills around the circuit. You can also buy 'sabotage' before the race, which will target the highest-ranking driver in your next race, making them start with an already-damaged vehicle!
Buying extras for your car is done pre-race, and is done in two parts. First, 'The Shop' is the official place to repair your car and buy upgrades. After this you go to the 'Underground Market', which is where you buy the things you're not supposed to that will cause damage to your opponents.
When you're ready to enter a race, don't hang around and choose 'Easy', 'Medium', or 'Hard'. You will see your competitors selecting which race they will take part in, and when all four positions are filled for a given difficulty level, you can no longer enter that race. The rankings are being updated with every race, so if you don't compete others will win points and rise up the scoreboard. Hard races are not accessible in the shareware version, as you need to have a minimum car spec to enter these. Of course, the harder the difficulty, the more reward you get but the tougher the competition. Those high up in the rankings compete in those tougher races and have the money to invest in more goodies for their cars.
Death Rally intro (Shareware version with Sound Blaster Pro audio)
Death Rally was released as a shareware title, which gave you a really good taste of what the game offered with access to six of the nineteen tracks - Bogota, Velodrome, Borneo, Rock Zone, Eidolon and Hell Mountain - and three of the six cars. Upgrades are also somewhat restricted in the shareware version.
The full game had a reasonably cheap price tag of $29.95 at the time of its release, and came on a single CD-ROM along with shareware versions of other Apogee and 3D Realms titles including Wacky Wheels, Xenophage, Realms of Chaos, Duke Nukem 3D, and Terminal Velocity.
System Requirements
| System Requirements | Minimum Spec: 80486DX2-66 CPU, 8 MB of memory, DOS 4.0 or higher, 2x CD-ROM drive Recommended Spec: Pentium-90 CPU, 16 MB of memory, DOS 5.0+, PCI VESA VBE 2.0 graphics card, 4x CD-ROM drive Graphics support: VGA only (VESA 1.0-compatible) Audio support: Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16 or AWE32, Gravis UltraSound Peripheral support: |
|---|---|
| Original Media | One CD-ROM |
| Installed Size (MB) | 6.94 MB (Shareware version) 12.8 MB (Full version with minimal install - cinematics stay on CD) 44.6 MB (Full version with full install - cinematics copied to hard disk) |
From where can it be run?
The game must be installed to your hard disk, either by running INSTALL or with all files copied to a directory on your hard disk with all its subdirectories retained. Death Rally requires a minimum of 8 MB of system memory. Because it runs in protected mode, there is no minimum requirement on available conventional memory. Do not run an Expanded memory manager like EMM386. The game requires that you run SETUP.EXE before running the game in order to configure the sound card.
Copy Protection
The full game has CD copy protection - you must have the CD-ROM in the drive for the game to run.
How to Setup
First run INSTALL:
The game will then ask for the destination directory on your hard disk to install to, and proceed to copy the game files. When completed, the readme file will be shown.
Then configure the sound by running SETUP.EXE:
If you choose Gravis UltraSound for audio, note that it requires 1 MB of GUS memory to be installed.
The game's configuration is stored in a file called DR.CFG - it is not text-readable or editable.
After configuring, run the game with 'RALLY' if running under pure DOS, or 'RALLY /W' if running in a DOS shell within Windows 95.
Problems
Symptom: The game hangs on startup, before it changes to graphical mode.
Cause: Invalid sound card configuration or your DR.CFG file has become corrupt.
Resolution: Delete DR.CFG and re-run SETUP.EXE.
Symptom: I get an error after the intro, stating "DEATH RALLY Error: Your VGA-adapter is not fully VESA (VBE 1.0) compliant."
Cause: Death Rally requires either that your graphics card has VESA VBE 1.0 extensions in its BIOS, or these are loaded via a VESA driver.
Resolution: The game's CD-ROM comes with UNIVBE, a software VESA BIOS extension (in the GOODIES\UNIVBE subdirectory). Load this before running the game.
Keys
The controls for Death Rally are simple. You can use either the keyboard or joystick (2-button, 4-button, or Gravis Gamepad). All can be reconfigured to your liking, but by default in the full game they are:
| Car Controls A - Accelerate Z - Brake Left/Right Arrow Keys - steer left/right Left SHIFT - Turbo Boost Left CTRL - Machine Gun Left ALT - Mine Space - Horn Tab - Show/hide status bar |
Other F1 - Help/Info F2 - Music on/off F3 - Sound effects on/off F4 - Textures on/off F5 - Shadows on/off P - Pause |
The shareware version had different keys defined:
| Car Controls Cursor Keys - Accelerate, Brake, Steering Z - Turbo Boost X - Machine Gun Space - Mine H - Horn |
Other F1 - Help/Info F2 - Music on/off F3 - Sound effects on/off F4 - Textures on/off F5 - Shadows on/off P - Pause |
To Quit the Game
When racing, hit ESC to pause the game, followed by 'Y' to confirm you wish to abort the race.
In the game menu, use the arrow keys to move down to 'Exit Game' and hit ENTER.
Supporting Documents
- Original game manual (PDF)
Additional Files, Drivers & Utilities
I have no additional files for Death Rally.
Save Games
The game has 7 save game slots you can use - saving can only be performed outside of a race. After the rankings are shown and you're back in the shop, hit ESC and choose 'Save Game', then choose the slot to save in and give it a name. To restore from one of these, choose 'Load Game' from the main menu and choose the save game to restore.
There is also a quick save option - when in the shop or underground market hit F2 to perform a 'Quick Save', or restore from that single save slot using F3.
Save games are incompatible between versions of the game.
Versions of the game known to exist
| Version | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Early 1996 | Initial release (both shareware and full game) |
| 1.1 | 26th July 1996 | Minor bug-fixed release (both shareware and full game). |
| Patch | 1st October 1996 | Patch to upgrade shareware v1.0 to v1.1. |
| 1.1a | 26th November 1996 | ? |
| Patch | 22nd January 1997 | Patch for full version of the game. If you see the error "You need 8Mb of memory to install...", and you have 64Mb of memory or higher, this patch fixes the INSTALL.EXE file to cater for this error and allow the game to install correctly. |
Original Disc Contents
The Full-Price CD-ROM version 1.1a CD-ROM has a volume label of 'RALLYREG'. Here is its contents:
Directory of D:\
|
Directory of D:\SHARE 26/11/1996 17:14 <DIR> DUKE3D 26/11/1996 17:14 <DIR> RALLY 26/11/1996 17:14 <DIR> ROC 26/11/1996 17:35 <DIR> STARGUN 26/11/1996 17:14 <DIR> TV 26/11/1996 17:14 <DIR> WACKY 26/11/1996 17:14 <DIR> XENO 01/10/1996 12:10 205 README.TXT 1 File(s) 205 bytes |
Installed Directory Contents
Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:
Shareware version 1.1:
Directory of C:\DRALLY |
Full game version 1.1a:
Directory of C:\RALLY |
Review
If you have fond memories of Micro Machines, or looking further back, Super Sprint, then look no further! Death Rally is a top-down arcade racer/battler that you can easily pick up and play for a few minutes or an hour. It's easy to get into with a good variety of cars and tracks, but also has some nice touches that help add more to what would otherwise be a quickly-repetitive title. Each race pits you against three opponents over a number of laps of the course, with the goal of crossing the finish line first, or at all !
Entering the easy race at Hell Mountain
A scoreboard of 20 racers has you starting out at the very bottom, and each successful race gives you points that go on this scoreboard. When you reach position 1, you can challenge 'The Adversary' who is the self-proclaimed Demon-King of the Race.
There are three groups of races that take place in any given round - easy races score 3 points for 1st place, 2 for 2nd place, and 1 for 3rd place. Medium races score 5 points for 1st, 3 points for 2nd, and 1 point for 3rd. Hard races will net you 10 points for 1st place, 7 points for 2nd, and 4 points for 3rd.
The race itself is pretty frantic, so much so that I had to almost entirely ignore the status bar - perhaps as my skills improve I will learn to periodically check this, as it does pay to know your current damage, number of mines remaining, and so on. During the race, some items will appear that you can pick up, including turbo boost (lightning bolt), ammunition (shotgun shells), money (small or large dollar sign), repair (small or large wrench), and then there's the mushroom (avoid this!).
After each race the results of each of the three races is shown and the scoreboard is updated to show the changes in points and the new rankings.
In addition to points that go toward your ranking, you earn money: prize money for winning a race, and bonus income picked up during the race by running over the dollar signs.
Almost all of this money will initially need to be ploughed back into the car through repairs, but as you start to get more coming in that you need to spend, upgrading your car's engine, tyres and armour will help secure victory and even mean taking part in tougher but more lucrative races.
At the beginning of the game you start with the slowest vehicle, the Vagabond (a VW Beetle). It can take a little while to replace this with a faster car, but as you start to learn the tracks you will certainly be coming in 1st place and taking the money and points that come with your success. Don't worry too much about the overall rankings as you start out - there's no time limit or ultimate failure here - just use the quick save option between races that you're happy with and reload if things don't go your way.
The cars - the top three have a single machine gun, the bottom three have dual guns
Once you have enough money you can sell the Vagabond and upgrade to the Dervish, a pick up truck. When buying a new car you can select any colour, which is nice. The good news is that all those upgrades you put onto your old car still have some value when you come to sell it, so you may be able to buy that better car without having 100% of the funds available. Next up after the Dervish is the Sentinel, a fairly boring-looking saloon car, though it's a good deal quicker. The game will prevent you from entering races that are far too tricky for your vehicle, factoring in the upgrades you've installed. The shareware game limits the cars available to just the first three.
The Shop, where you pay for repairs and vehicle upgrades
In the shop, the right hand panel shows the current state of your car and the level of upgrades already installed, and your available funds. The slower cars can only be upgraded up to a certain level, such as one engine upgrade, one tyre upgrade, and the most basic armour. As you progress to faster, more expensive vehicles, more 'levels' of upgrade become available. Buy what you can afford, and then go to 'Continue' to proceed to the Underground Market.
This is where you buy weapons, pay to have an opponent's car sabotaged, borrow money from a loanshark, and get offered other jobs.
The Underground Market where you buy dodgy stuff to install and
enter into
deals with some shady characters
Anything you buy from the Underground Market is only good for a single race, so you may as well use it all in the next race if you buy it. This is ok in my opinion - it means you decide for every race what you want to add, adjusting your play style as you like. What I'm less keen on is that picking up $ around the track is no good if you finish last - you forfeit it all for being so slow ;-) If you agree to some nefarious activity from a sponsor in the Underground Market and fail to come up with the goods, you could be next on their hit list!
When the lights turn green, the competition really will try to destroy you if you get in their path - there's always a frenzy at the start of the race one everyone's clear of the start/finish line, firing their guns usually until they run out of bullets - one strategy here is to hold back slightly, let the other cars go ahead so they can cause each other damage, and once the firing stops, go for it. The other cars will use their turbo boost, ram your car with their spikes, drop mines in front of you, and also drive backwards at times, such as when they missed a money pick-up. I don't know what the difficulty level you choose at the start of the game actually does - perhaps makes the other drivers more aggressive or fine-tunes their AI to perform better.
During the race, there are no points for the lap times you get, but the race is over pretty quickly so don't hang around. Hard races really up the ante - you'll be left in the dust unless you have decent wheels, but the bigger the risk the bigger the reward. Where Easy races will only get you a maximum of $300 in prize money, hard races pay out $12,000 if you finish first. After playing for about 2 hours, I do have some questions: (1) when hitting an opponent, is the damage relative to the speed of impact, so ramming with spikes while on turbo should cause much more damage? (2) what's the purpose of the horn? does it distract the other drivers, causing them to make a mistake?
There is also a multiplayer option, allowing you to race or fight against a friend if using a serial connection or modem between two PCs, or a total of four players if running over a network (Novell Netware IPX/SPX only). I never tested this feature, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun - what I don't know is if it fills non-player spaces with computer-controlled opponents.
Some things I learned:
- You can't borrow money until you have at least the Dervish.
- The last track, The Arena, is only available in the final race against "The Adversary".
- Finishing in fourth place nets you no picked-up dollars, but if any other cars have been taken out during the race, it's not counted (since you crossed the line in third place).
- Ramming an opponent using the front of your car causes you no damage.
- A fully-kitted out car is never as fast as the slowest of the next car up the range, apart from the Sentinel that can get to 90 mph with its two engine upgrades matching the base Shrieker's speed.
- Tyre upgrades help not only in corners, but off the line too!
- If you borrow from the loanshark, pay him back quickly - for each race you let it slide, the interest doubles. If you don't pay him back after 3 races, he'll take 50% of all your money or remove an engine upgrade you put on.
- You can't sabotage the Adversary.
- You get an extra bonus for winning 3 races in succession.
Here are some videos of me playing the game:
| Video | Comments |
|---|---|
| My first race at Hell Mountain - a tight track available in both Easy and Medium races with not many overtaking spots - as you can see, it's easy to get snagged on the rocks too! All those dollar pick-ups were to no avail this time, as I finished last. The base Vagabond really is a dog (my driving too). | |
| The second race was in Suburbia - available in Easy-only races. A much longer, wider track - it's worthwhile in these longer races to hang back and let the others do damage to each other, as you have plenty of time to catch up. Some good pick-ups which added to my prize money on top of the 1st place winnings. | |
| The Toxic Dump is also a nice long circuit with high walled chicanes to navigate, available in Easy races only. Line up for the tunnels so you don't get caught on the edges. For this race I had two engine upgrades, upgraded tyres to Trackmaster 155s and added a second set of armor. Even with all that, it was a close call with my damage reaching 96% - happily, all the other drivers were in the same boat! | |
| At this point I managed to buy the Dervish, and added two armor upgrades. Oasis is probably the tightest of the early tracks (available in both Easy and Medium races), with lots of rocks to get pushed into and no overtaking opportunities. Looking back, this would be ideal for mines! I only just scraped a win here. | |
| By the tenth race, my Dervish had a second engine upgrade, and first tyre upgrade. Downtown is a nice long circuit available in Medium and Hard races only, and is fast but has some tight turns. Good use of mines on sharp narrow corners is a must, as well as a fast car for those straights. This was the second medium track I went for, and it didn't go too well. | |
| Utopia (Medium and Hard races only) is full of corners and a tunnel that kept causing me problems - go wide on the right 180 before it to line up better, and avoid leaving the tarmac - I lost a lot of time hitting the pavement or getting caught on a lamppost! | |
| For my 12th race, we were at the Complex, another city track with lots of chicanes, available in both Medium and Hard races. This was brutal for everyone, getting caught in the gunfire. Fortunately I had bought spikes for this one - the circuit is long enough to have the time to cause a lot of damage. Interesting that Cher managed to catch the back of the Dervish and spin me round toward the end - good physics there. At this point I am 14th in the rankings with 36 points, though I almost have enough money to buy the Sentinel. Still a long way to go though - first place is Jane Honda on 147 points! |
Scoreboard
Sound: With the full suite of Sound Blaster cards supported, plus the Gravis UltraSound, Death Rally has ok coverage. Engine sounds and other effects are done well, including some speech. General MIDI would have been nice to see, though all the music is MOD tracks and they're really good - created by Purple Motion. Different circuits offer up different pieces of music, and sound 'right' for this type of game! 8/10
Gameplay: Death Rally is a great arcade game for short blasts - no long-term commitment and good save options. The tracks are varied enough (the shareware tracks are all very short - the full game has much longer ones), the ability to upgrade your car and add weapons is decent and provides variability in how you play the game, and the opponent AI gives enough of a challenge for all abilities. The controls are done to a very high standard - I met no frustration about the way the cars handled to my inputs - very quick to respond and very clean. There is perhaps not enough variety in the weapons you can choose - Supercars 2 on the Amiga had dumb missiles and homing missiles, for example, and maybe take a cue from Spy Hunter with smoke screens and oil slicks! Oh, and maybe add a Replay feature with the ability to save them. Also, it's a shame you don't know what the next track will be, meaning you can't really plan for a particular track with a certain weapons load-out. 7/10
Lastability: The full game has a whopping 19 tracks, which is more than enough, the 3 difficulty levels ('Speed Makes Me Dizzy', 'I Live To Ride', and 'Petrol In My Veins') and easy/medium/hard race selections certainly give this game legs to grow as your skills improve. It would have been good to see some kind of track editor, though the tracks here are very well rendered and the semi-3D view of the landscapes would have made this very difficult to implement. 7/10
Final Word: All in all, Death Rally is incredibly well put together with lovely graphics, a good variety of landscapes and cars, and the way the competition of 20 opponents is portrayed, no two races are ever the same. It takes a little while to get into some of the better cars, so be patient, hone your skills, and you'll be in a Deliverator before you know it! Don't be fooled by the speed of the game in its early stages - it gets super-fast and frantic later on. Is there a place for a top-down racer in 1996? Yes, yes there most certainly is.
OVERALL: 7.5/10
More Screenshots
The Menus
Borneo - in the full game available as Medium and Hard races only
Rock Zone
- in the full game available as Easy and Medium races only
Bogota - in the full game available as Medium and Hard races only
Eidolon - in the full game available in Hard races only
Hell Mountain - in the full game available as Easy and Medium races only
Velodrome - in the full game available only as a Hard race