Power Drive Rally

Gameplay screenshot showing the first Rally Cross event in the game.

Power Drive Rally is a top-down rally racing game where players observe from above and races across various parts of the world by participating in several events. There are a total of 34 stages to race along, each having their own weather conditions that changes how the car is controlled through the track and two modes of play. Progress is manually saved after completing each race in either of the three slots available via the cartridge's EEPROM and they are allowed to resume their last race saved at the main menu by pressing C on the controller. The internal memory in the game cartridge also saves high-scores and other settings made by the player.

In the single-player mode, players have to compete in a racing season across multiple regions and countries around the world such as England, Finland, Italy, Arizona, France, Sweden, Kenya and Corsica by facing three types of events at the beginning such as special stage, rally cross and skill test in order qualify for the next race and earn funds to keep competing. Special stage events pits the player racing against time while facing multiple obstacles, each one consisting of three-laps, while rally cross events are races against a CPU-controlled opponent and they also consists of three-laps as well. Skill test involves the player testing their driving abilities to start and stop, backing up and other skills in specially designed courses with obstacles against time, which can be penalized if any traffic cone is dropped. Endurance, a fourth type of event is introduced later in the game and involves the player in five-lap races before the time runs out. Failing to qualify for the next race results in the player paying a re-entry fee to try again and the game is over once they run out of money. In some tracks, there are items available to pick-up such as money, stopwatches that freezes time for five seconds and nitrous that gives the player a boost in speed. On night tracks, players have to turn their headlights by pressing 2 on the controller's keypad. Returning from Power Drive is the damage system, where if any component of the car takes too much damage will lead a change in the vehicle's in-game behavior, increasing the difficulty to race on the track and after finishing the race, players can choose or not to repair a specific part of their vehicle. There is also a practice mode where players can test their driving skills on any of the four selectable tracks, each with their own pre-set obstacles and a multiplayer mode where two players race in a head-to-head match on any of the single-player tracks but items are not available.

Unlike its predecessor, Power Drive Rally was developed exclusively for the Atari Jaguar by a small team at Rage Software's Liverpool division.

Power Drive Rally was first showcased to the public in an early playable state at SCES '94 under the name Rage Rally.[9][10] In a 1995 preview article by Computer and Video Games magazine, it was revealed that Power Drive Rally was in development since February 1994 and at the same time as with Power Drive for both the Super NES and Mega Drive.[11] It was later showcased in a near-finished state during WCES '95 and Spring ECTS '95.[12][13][14][15][16] French magazine Consoles + reported that the game would support two-player simultaneous multiplayer via the JagLink peripheral,[17] but it is unknown if the final release still features support for the accessory.[18] It made its last trade show appearance at E3 1995.[19] It is also the only game in the Jaguar's library that features an alternative packaging design for other regions.[20]

In an interview with Philip Nixon, sole designer and artist of Power Drive Rally, he and the game's programmer Peter Johnson contacted the Liverpool offices of Rage Software and were offered to convert the SNES version of Power Drive to the Jaguar. Philip was responsible for all the art and tracks in the game, while he reused and upgraded the original art files, in addition to the increased resolution to scale down the sprites for improved gameplay view.[21] While in a March 1995 interview with online magazine Atari Explorer Online, Peter stated that all of the game's programming relies upon the system's Blitter processor and that it runs at 50 frames per second, in addition of having a lesser number of tracks compared to the original game, among other features.[22] It was created by a small team of four people in total.[23]

• Power Drive Rally at AtariAge
• Power Drive Rally at GameFAQs
• Power Drive Rally at MobyGames