To be perfectly honest with you, I too would like to know why you are driving around a track collecting flags, while being pursued by other cars. However, there is no story. Oh well.

Sound:

Pretty bland. The music and sound effects are adequate, and nothing more. Quite frankly, I recommend putting the game on mute. You don't lose anything, trust me.

Graphics:

Quite nice for a CE machine, actually. While not exactly Turjah, it recreates the Namco "classic" perfectly. In fact, to compare the two, I went to my local arcade (a four-story tall behemoth of lights and noise) and found the classic games section. I plopped in my quarter (actually, fifty cents. For Rally-X! Is nothing sacred?), and the little opening tune played. After playing for a while, I started playing Rally CE, and saw NO major differences! Besides having a smaller screen resolution, this IS the old arcade game.

Gameplay:

So far, it has been pretty good. However, here is where the game slips up. In it, you drive a car around a large, maze-like track, collecting flags. Meanwhile, there are other cars out to crash into you, taking away one life. You have to get all of the flags. The problem is the cars that are chasing you are WAY too fast. They are much faster than you, and can't be out-maneuvered. The only way to get rid of them is to shoot a puff of smoke from your tailpipe (stop snickering) at one of them. The car will slow down for a few seconds, and then continuing chasing you. However, you only have a certain amount of smoke, and it goes down as you drive, although you can replenish it with gas.

If the cars can be stopped, why are they such a problem, you might be asking. The answer is that, in this game, there are many dead-ends. As you can probably figure out, if a car gets in there and traps you, you have NO way out. And since some levels have multiple dead-ends combined with many enemies, it can be literally impossible to complete a level without losing a life. That is not challenge, that is poor game designing. I do not blame Jimmy for this, because he uses the same maps as the original. However, the fact remains that they are bad maps, in a frustrating game.

Summary: