art of rally

I love this game! I was looking for a nice-looking, low-effort casual driving game, as I'm the complete opposite of a petrolhead. Long story short: this game got me hooked on rallying. I'm now reading articles on the historical vehicles that inspired the game's cars, I've turned my driving assists down almost to zero, and I'm practicing advanced driving maneuvers like the Scandinavian Flick. I'm even working on improving my lap times by a second or two each run. This has also become my go-to comfort game for when I just want to relax and take my mind off everyday stuff.

I wanted to wait until I got to 100% - game and achievements, before making this review, which will be seen by 7 people. Tops. I first played this on Xbox, low frames and heavy steering and all, but I enjoyed it a lot. The graphics look basic but the game is somewhat surprisingly beefy, 720p with everything on low-mediums. I'll get to that. This plays awesomely. By default it's very heavy, which suits earlier gameplay, but later on I recommend dropping the assists to 0, and countersteering ratio to 100% or thereabouts. There's decent variety in the 6 classes (2, 3, 4, B, S, A) and you'll probably recognise some of the cars here. Rallies are super satisfying to blitz through, but present a proper challenge if you're trying to send it. If (when) you do flip there's a reference to the car underneath, which is usually amusing. Each car is cutesy and minimalistic, the "lore" is quite amusing and I think they're designed really well. The soundtrack is spectacular. I was sold within a few hours of playing it on Steam, as was the soundtrack as I went and bought it. I listen on motorway drives and in town driving, or country roads and in traffic - it's just awesome. Car sounds are usually about what you'd expect. They're fine, if repetitive when you've been playing for a while. The environments are pleasant and honestly do look quite varied. There's quirks to each, but Japan was probably my favourite for the cherry trees. All the different weather options are nice (I'm on fire when it's a night rally, somehow I'm faster than daytime), but the game can look beautiful at sunset. Pair the purple sky with the cherry trees and you have a great backdrop. The open-world collectibles are very much appreciated. The core gameplay loop might be a bit repetitive for some, with repairs every 2 rallies, but knocking out a bunch at a time was fun. I strongly recommend this, in several departments. It's a blast, and it's a soundtrack with a free game, so you know both are good. With one exception; if you're an achievement perfectionist, that final achievement, grinding 1000 stages, is asinine. Get anything Group B or above, go to germany's Gossenweiler (not R), hold it in 4th above 90mph and crash into the fence. It's way faster. Otherwise, awesome. --- [u] Technical stuff: [/u] This has a native Linux version which I used. Worked the entire time. Had missing textures for a split second on rare occasions in hours 28-31 of gameplay where mountains in Japan (Mount Haruna's area) would go white. Never happened again and it didn't impact gameplay, but it was odd. Other than that it was plain sailing.

Beautiful and interesting game but driving physics feel awful.

this game is like when cutting wrapping paper and the scissors start to glide

I really wanted to like this game, the art style is amazing and the physics engine is consistent. However, the controls are just too finicky for a rally game, especially at low speeds. I shouldn't have to fight to control my car on a small curve at 15 mph on a paved, or even dirt road.

I don't recommend this game if vehicle handling feel is important to you. And i'm not on some rant because i hate the game or its developers or because i'm being biased, i bought this game because i saw it a couple of times on YouTube and saw it recommended to me on the steam store page, i tried it, didn't like it and now im giving my criticism.- -having enjoyed many arcade-ish racing games with some experience driving rally games and simulators, there is a fine balance between realistic and arcadish handling physics in games that either make or brake them, the handling and physics in this game are utterly counter-intuitive -the cars simply brake too well for dirt gravel snow or let alone ice -the grip on ice oddly feels better than on asphalt -the grip on rain feels like its ice -the lower horsepower cars feel less stable than the high power ones -cars feel like they are constantly trying to drift on their own -the controls feel sluggish and unresponsive on keyboard, especially on controller (steam deck) -cars are unrealistically and frustratingly unstable and want to spin and snap oversteer at very low speeds -the guardrails on some stages are like magnets, if you come too close to them, the car clips something invisible and either tanks a whole load of damage for something that should have realistically been just a bumper scrape, or the car slows down from 120 to 0 and takes terminal damage... -graphics are not that well optimized and if you are playing on a handheld and want to run max graphics the game will suck up battery life like no tomorrow, which i'm a little upset over considering its a low poly game... -apart from that, it constantly feels like the game is lacking something to add weight and meaning to the whole campaign and as such is being overly reliant on its artistic visual appeal... -as much as i love syntwave and vaporwave, the tracks felt monotone enough after a while that i just turned the music off Overall i feel like the game is not really well polished and is a mishmash product of already available assets the developers used from their prior projects to make this game. I firmly believe that 25$ is too much for this game and i strongly advise to not buy it at full price if you want to try it out...

This game is so fun I was begging my parents to get it for me and they finally got it for me and since then (yesterday) I am so happy and. I even got a picture in the game by pressing the menu button and I got it so it will be my background for my computer and also I really like rallying I want to be a rally driver actually so I will rate this game a 11/10 because its so good and if you just like arcade like games this will not really be for you because at first it looks like a arcade game but its not because its really hard to do the controls. oh and there's these people that actually move. but DO NOT I MEAN DO NOT TOUCH THE ANIMALS THEY ARE ALL ROCK SOLID DONT TOUCH THEM, THE FIRST TIME I TOUCHED THEM I LOST THE RACE I REAPEAT DO NOT TOUCH THEM anyway now that's out the way like I said 11/10 its so good.

First 3 or 4 hours for me was trying to understand and get the hang of the car physics and controls. I dialled the controller sensitivity to my taste, turned assists off but left ABS at 10%, and kept struggling HARD. But then all of a sudden, I realise I'm chaining turns together, I'm hitting the straights hard, braking last second and flowing through hairpin turns - the bass drops and an insanely delicious beat kicks off and absolutely everything clicks. Absolute zen. My god, when it clicks, it all comes together in a harmonious symphony of pleasure. This is a music and car lover's orgasmic orchestra. I don't know how else to explain it. I've never played anything that quenches my thrist for rally, cars, video games and music all this hard.

Art of rally is the most beautiful racing game I've played. It has also served as a great introduction to the world of rally games for me. Highly recommend for everyone to play this game. One important note: I was experiencing significant lag spikes for the first few hours of playing. This was fixed when I changed the vegetation renderer, so if you are experiencing similar problems, try changing that. [Update after 50 hours] Pretty fun game