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| Source // Moby Games |
A rallying game set in the French Riviera, where the sun constantly shines and the fact that eight drivers are smashing cars through restaurant seating in an effort to take drastic shortcuts to catch the front-runners isn't worried about? Why GTI Club: Rally Côte d'Azur, you've captured my attention...
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| Source // Moby Games |
Fun Times
GTI Club has a simple premise. Pick your car, dash through the streets for a few laps, come first and impress the chicks. Probably.
It's an arcade racer, and it comes with all that that phrase comes with - over the top driving, flashy graphical elements, a loud soundtrack and plenty of crashing as you come to terms with the inputs and the handling.
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| Source // Moby Games |
What's different about it, compared to other arcade games with 'Rally' in the title, is that the setting isn't a muddy field, but a glamourous mini-city on the coast, and it is not prepared for rallying, to the point where multiple routes through the stages are available to you to risk gaining ground and posting a faster time.
Do you stick to the main road or the side streets? Do you risk the tunnel behind the train tracks, or go through the parking garage? You'll have to make your choices quickly, and face the consequences even quicker, with races lasting a few minutes, no more.
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| Source // Moby Games |
Frustrations
Unfortunately, all of this comes from having watched GTI Club. I've not been able to play it yet. There was a remake for the PlayStation 3, but the key word there is 'was', as the licences have expired and the remake is no longer for sale because of them.
I'm stuck wondering what it's like based on some videos for the minute, which isn't as fun as driving through what we might as well call the original Burnout Paradise - an open city with multiple races to enter and routes to race through.
Well, that's pushing it, but until I can play it, I can dream.
Final Word
The 1001 book mentions that GTI Club was short-lived, even in the arcades, so to see it get scattered sequels and remakes is great, but to see them gobbled up in licensing is less than useful to those of us who want to replay these titles.
There's nothing to it, on the surface - it's a racing game, so what? Yeah, but we all want to cut the corners in racing games, don't we? And if we could get away with skipping an entire chunk of the lap, or at least avoiding a tricky bit, we'd do it, right? There's a time for sportsmanship, of course, but this is an arcade game, not an Olympic sport.
Games are fun. Not being able to play a game isn't fun. The search continues for me, and I hope to see what GTI Club is like firsthand sometime soon.
Fun Facts
One could argue that picking the Bugatti EB 110 sports car - a rather different beast than the Mini Cooper's and Renault 5's on offer - was pay to win, as it would cost players another credit for the privilege of racing it. It'd be a silly argument, as it was a single player car only, but still.
GTI Club: Rally Côte d'Azur, developed by Konami, first released in 1996.
Version watched: Arcade, 1996 (scorpioplasma, Anjasmara Putranto, Adam Kędzior)