When it comes to Rally Games, Europress were in charge with the Rally Championship games in the mid-1990s, marked out by their trademark dance-influenced music soundtracks before Codemasters with the then-up-and-coming Colin McRrae and Nicky Grist arrived to rule the roost and the rest has been history.

That's why Euro Rally Champion, on its way from Oxygen Interactive, will be an interesting development- most post-Colin games have taken the arcade route to differentiate themselves from Codemasters' all-conquering franchise. Oxygen promises a sliding scale of arcade fun to screw-turning simulated realism.

There is a tenuous link to Codemasters as Euro Rally Champion will be powered by a variant of the Indy Car Series Engine, so whether Euro Rally Champion is successful or not, we're sure the licensing fees will make the Codies very happy.

The game is due for PC and PS2 release on September 10th and in keeping with Oxygen's low price policy, the RRP is intended to be £19.99.

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