Rally X - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 44 years ago:

Rally-X © 1980 Namco, Limited.

In Rally-X, the player drives a car around a maze picking up all of the yellow flags, of which there are ten, before the car's fuel runs out. The game-play has a similar feel to another Namco legend, "Pac-Man"; although in Rally-X, the mazes are much larger and, with each maze having only ten flags to collect, is more sparsely populated than Namco's pill-eating legend.

In-game opponents consist of red enemy cars that try to ram into and destroy the player's car, a problem compounded by the fact that enemy cars are faster than the player's. A smoke screen can be activated which trails behind the player's car and causes any pursuing enemies to crash. Each maze also has rock formations which, if crashed into, will result in the loss of a player car. A radar display to the right hand side of the playing area shows the positions of both the flags, and the enemy vehicles.

TECHNICAL
Main CPU: Zilog Z80 (@ 3.072 Mhz)
Sound chips: Namco 3-channel WSG and discrete circuitry for the crash sound.
Screen orientation: horizontal
Screen resolution: 288x224

Players: up to 2 (alternating turns)
Control: 4-way joystick
Buttons: 1 (SMOKE SCREEN)

TRIVIA
Rally-X was released in Japan on November 22, 1980.

The insertion of service coin plays different sound than when a regular coin is inserted.

The special flag reappears in Xevious, released in December 1982. The flag hidden in a few areas there.

UPDATES
In the introduction to the bonus stages, the Namco version misspells 'Challenging' as 'Charanging'. This was corrected in the Midway version.

SCORING
Collected flag: 100 points x the flag collected up to a maximum of 1,000 points. If you lose a life, the points awarded will reset to 100.

Collected Special Flag: doubles points for the special flag and all flags collected thereafter until you clear the round or lose a life. If you clear the entire round without losing a single life, the tenth flag is always worth 2,000 points because it is guaranteed that at some point, you will have collected the Special Flag. However, losing a life will cancel out the Special Flag's scoring effect when you restart.

End of stage bonus: points for remaining fuel (always random).

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Your only goal is to collect all ten flags as quickly as possible. You need to pay constant attention to two things: the zoomed in view of the world that occupies most of the screen, and the radar view of the world to the right.
• The radar view provides you with two key pieces of information: the relative position of the flags in the world and the proximity of the enemy cars to yours. Yellow dots in the radar view denote the flags' locations, red dots represent the enemy cars, and the dot flashing black and gray represents you.
• The method you use for collecting the flags is of utmost importance. It is usually best to try to hop from one flag to whichever flag is closest, but the enemies will make that quite difficult to do. As a general rule, do not reverse your direction unless it is absolutely necessary and completely safe to do. If you have to choose between getting close to an enemy to pick up a nearby flag, and abandoning that flag for a farther flag, go for the farther flag. The more distance you put between you and the other cars, the safer you will remain.
• In general, you will be safe off if you choose a direction to collect flags, clockwise or counter-clockwise, and stick to it throughout the duration of the stage. The smokescreen is an invaluable and incredibly tempting tool to use. But if you use it excessively, you will deplete your fuel supply very rapidly, making it more likely that you will run out of fuel before you collect all ten flags, which will almost ensure your demise.
• Challenging stages occur before each maze change, which occurs each time the round number is one less than a multiple of four (the challenging stages occur on the third, seventh, and every fourth round thereafter. In these stages, you are free to collect all of the flags without being harassed by enemy cars until your fuel runs out. However, you can still crash into parked cars and rocks, so be careful.
• The special flag isn't marked on the radar, so you have to search for it by yourself.
• Easter Egg:

1) Enter service mode.
2) Keep B1 pressed and enter the following sequence: UP(x2), DOWN(x7), RIGHT, LEFT(x6)
3) '© Namco LTD. 1980' will be added at the bottom of the screen.

SERIES

• Rally-X (1980, Arcade)
• New Rally-X (1981, Arcade)
• Rally-X Arrangement (1996, Arcade): part of "Namco Classics Collection Vol.2"
• New Rally-X Arrangement (2005, PSP): part of "Namco Museum Battle Collection"
• Rally-X Remix (2007, Wii): part of "Namco Museum Remix"
• Rally-X Rumble (2011, App Store)

STAFF
Planning: Hirohito Ito
Hardware: Kouichi Tashiro
Programming: Kazuo Kurosu
Sound: Toshio Kai

PORTS
NOTE: For ports released in the USA, please see the Midway version entry.

• CONSOLES:

[AS] Nintendo Famicom (1989) "Jovial Race": by Sachen
[JP] Nintendo Famicom (199?) "Mi Hun Che"
[JP] Sony PlayStation (nov.22, 1995) "Namco Museum Vol.1 [Model SLPS-00107]"
[AU] Sony PlayStation (1996) "Namco Museum Vol.1 [Model SCES-00243]"
[EU] Sony PlayStation (aug.1996) "Namco Museum Vol.1 [Model SCES-00243]"
[JP] Sony PS2 (jan.26, 2006) "Namco Museum Arcade Hits! [Model SLPS-25590]"
[EU] Microsoft XBOX (mar.24, 2006) "Namco Museum - 50th Anniversary"
[EU] Sony PS2 (mar.31, 2006) "Namco Museum - 50th Anniversary [Model SLES-53957]"
[EU] Nintendo GameCube (may.5, 2006) "Namco Museum - 50th Anniversary [Model DOL-G5NP-EUR]"
[EU] Microsoft XBOX 360 (may.15, 2009) "Namco Museum - Virtual Arcade"
[AU] Microsoft XBOX 360 (june.4, 2009) "Namco Museum - Virtual Arcade"
[JP] Microsoft XBOX 360 (nov.5, 2009) "Namco Museum - Virtual Arcade [Model 2RD-00001]"

• HANDHELDS:

[EU] Sony PSP (dec.9, 2005) "Namco Museum Battle Collection [Model UCES-00116]"
[JP] Sony PSP (feb.24, 2005) "Namco Museum [Model ULJS-00012]"
[KO] Sony PSP (may.2, 2005) "Namco Museum [Model UCKS-45005]": as 'Banggor'
[EU] Nintendo GBA (mar.31, 2006) "Namco Museum - 50th Anniversary [Model AGB-B5NP-EUR]"

• COMPUTERS:

[JP] MSX (mar.30, 1984)
[JP] Fujitsu FM-7 (1984)
[EU] Amstrad CPC (1984) "Hold-Up": Different sprites but same game.
[JP] Sharp X68000 (1988): by IT
[JP] PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (nov.28, 1997) "Namco History Vol.2"
[AU] PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (mar.27, 2006) "Namco Museum - 50th Anniversary"
[EU] PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (may.19, 2006) "Namco Museum - 50th Anniversary"

CONTRIBUTE
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