| Carlos Sainz: World Rally Championship | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Zigurat Software Arcadia Software |
| Publisher(s) | Zigurat Software |
| Producer(s) | Fernando Rada Jorge Granados |
| Programmer(s) | José Miguel Saiz Manuel Rosas |
| Artist(s) | José A. Carrera Merino |
| Platform(s) | Amstrad CPC, MS-DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum |
| Release |
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| Genre(s) | Racing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Carlos Sainz: World Rally Championship[a] is a 1990 racing video game co-developed by the Spanish companies Zigurat Software (previously known as Made in Spain) and Arcadia Software, and published by Zigurat for Amstrad CPC, MS-DOS, MSX and ZX Spectrum. Featuring Spanish rally driver Carlos Sainz and themed around rallying, the game pit players with races across various locations to qualify for the next course in the World Rally Championship and modify characteristics of the Toyota Celica to accommodate each courses.
Carlos Sainz: World Rally Championship was created in conjunction with Sito Pons 500cc Grand Prix by most of the same team at Zigurat who worked on licensed sports titles such as Paris-Dakar (1988) and Emilio Sanchez Vicario Grand Slam with co-developer Arcadia, serving as their final release prior to abandoning the video game industry. The game originated during a meeting between Zigurat and Arcadia to discuss future projects, where various ideas were pitched. The idea of creating an accurate rally simulator came from motorsports being a hobby among Zigurat staff, with the programmers finding rally as a spectacular discipline and fitting due to graphic and dynamic possibilities. Zigurat hired Sainz, who had yet to become a world champion at the time, and development of the project started afterwards.
Carlos Sainz: World Rally Championship proved to be a success for Zigurat and garnered positive reception from critics across all platforms since its release; praise was given to the addictive gameplay, sense of speed, controls and sound but other reviewers felt mixed in regards to the graphics and difficulty, while the limited technical complexity was criticized. Conversions for Amiga and Atari ST were planned but never released. After its launch, Zigurat was contacted by Gaelco to work on a arcade game based on the World Rally Championship featuring Sainz before he changed teams from Toyota to Lancia near the end of development, being ultimately reworked and released as World Rally (1993).
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