96 Flag Rally Longplay (Arcade) [QHD]
113Game Info
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Developer: Promat Co.
Publisher: Promat Co.
Year of Release: 1996
Game Review & Impressions
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Once again, I dived into the darkest depths of the arcade obscura, and landed upon a 96 Flag Rally, a game that's fascinating for all the wrong reasons. The core game is a blend of Namco's Rally-X and Pac-Man; you drive around a maze-like city grid, collecting flags and avoiding other vehicles on the map. The lack of originality extends far beyond the game's concept, for virtually everything about this game, other than perhaps the code which drives it, has been borrowed or stolen from elsewhere.
Starting with the glaringly obvious, all of the building graphics have been stolen quite brazenly from classic PC strategy titles popular at the time. Gleaming skyscrapers of Simy City 2000, Roman amphitheatres of Caesar II, and stone castles and wooden shacks of The Settlers II are shoehorned into a game which, on reflection, look completely out of place.
It doesn't stop there, however. The billboards which adorn the periphery of the city grid feature advertisements, logos and promotional materials for real-world products. There's an advert for what looks like Citizen Promaster wristwatches, Welch's fruit jam/jelly, not to mention the Vermont Pub Brewery; a quick Google image search for the latter confirmed the source, because the logo is absolutely identical. These have obviously been scanned in from magazines or other sources, and were in no way officially endorsed sponsorships from the brands and businesses from which these were stolen.
All of this begs the question, exactly how much of the game is original content? I have my doubts about the authenticity of the anime girls who pop at various points throughout the game, and some of these have almost certainly been sourced from external media. I have to wonder whether any of the people who worked on this game also worked on Air Attack, another arcade title released that same year which equally brazen in theft of graphic assets from classic PC strategy games.
Moving away from the dubious nature of the artwork, I guess the game is functional enough to offer a few minutes of enjoyment if you happen to like Pac-Man. Of course, this was released over a decade after the yellow pill muncher's arcade debut, which makes this all a bit hard to swallow in 1996. It's also got some weird bugs when using the turbo boost, which can occasionally send the game into a glitched-out mess, which is the final nail in the coffin for the game.
Related Longplays & Videos
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Air Attack Longgplay (Arcade): • Air Attack Longplay (Arcade) [QHD]
Chapters
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TBC