art of rally

Este juego es una pequeña maravilla. Tiene unos puntos fuertes muy claros y sencillos: 1. Una estética adorable y visualmente ligera, relajante, me atrevería a decir. 2. Unas físicas, si bien, no de simulador, por lo menos sí a nivel "simcade", donde puedes percibir de forma coherente las diferencias de comportamiento entre los diferentes vehículos, categorías, etc. Desde luego es un reto ser rápido en el juego. 3. Un evidente cariño hacia la historia del automovilismo y el rally en particular, con multitud de guiños. Obviamente no es un simulador profundo, ni lo pretende. Pero si te gustan los rallys y/o el automovilismo en general, es difícil que no te vaya a gustar el juego. Por cierto, recomendado jugar con mando :)

1. The visuals are stunning. Even with simpler graphics, the game looks absolutely gorgeous. The cars and liveries are iconic and look sharp, while the landscapes and weather effects are just breathtaking 2. Surprisingly tough. I didn't expect an arcade racer to offer such a solid challenge. On max difficulty, it’s brutal, one tiny mistake and you're done It’s such a shame, but the constant lag spikes have completely killed the vibe. I really wanted to love this game, but it's just unplayable like this

Everything about this game is good except the gameplay. Graphics are excellent. Soundtrack is amazing. Gameplay is exceedingly arcade-y.

really fun game, had to get used to the steering of the car at first, but when it clicks it is really cool :D

[h1] "art of enjoying bad physics - an art of rally review" [/h1] "Why's the review positive when the title seems negative?" Well, cause the game is a good game. It's a nice parallel universe where Group B was never banned and Group S was never cancelled, it gives a calm cute vibe which a lot of people enjoy nowadays, and it's overall a pleasing experience. It's just not a good car game, not at all. This game is usually described as having "good, realistic, deep" sometimes even "simcade" physics. Since I don't know how the game works under the hood, I don't know if the basis for these physics are good, but certainly most emerging behaviours are very bad, not just from a realism standing point (which again, is not the main point of the game), but from a gameplay point of view. If you're just chilling, physics seem fine, but if you try to seriously push (like, I don't know, people do in racing??) they start to fall apart. The main thing that's wrong is grip, and damn that's a big one. Grip seems to be proportional to spring compression, which is a simplification sure, but creates a lot of issues: every time springs decompress (over a hill), grip decreases by an absurd amount; conversely, any spring compression causes an absurd increase in grip, giving you unreal grip in corners (corners you would take in high 2nd gear on flat terrain suddenly become 4th gear corners in compression: no, just no). Sure, this is not a simulator, but this causes a very erratic feeling, because the slightest elevation change will, and I mean [b] will[/b], catch you off guard. Cars feel unpredictable, and that's not that fun. The fact that grip seems proportional to spring compression also means that heavier cars will [i] systematically [/i] have more grip than lighter cars and be faster in slow to medium speed corners (below 90 km/h). And you know what's the side effect of this? Group 3 cars are faster than Group B, S and A cars in very slow and twisty corners: cause Group B cars are very light and, since grip is just compression, heavier Group 3 cars have the upper hand. Group B (and above) cars only win the grip fight on the faster stuff thanks to aero (> compression > more grip). This issue is exacerbated by a very binary grip state: you are either gripping or sliding. Cars are overall lighter than they should, which makes for big air on jumps (which is by design), but since grip is proportional to compression, it means all cars have lower overall grip than they should. And lower grip means you easily go over the grip limit and suddenly start sliding. In fact, grip is so low that it's very rare to see cars understeer or oversteer, because the entire car loses grip with no effort, entering a perennial four wheel drift state that you can't recover out of (because grip when sliding is so low you can't do anything to exit the slide except wait). Sometimes I forget what drivetrain the car I'm driving has, because nearly all of them feel the same, with weight and power being the only differences within any one group [i] (few exceptions are present, like the Group 3s Stratos and 911, but the majority of cars feel equally neutrally slidy). [/i] An additional gripe I have with this game's physics is the existence of a very strong self-centering torque applied to cars when they are gripping. First of all, it seems applied to the entire car as a whole. Secondly, on nearly all cars it's way too strong, so much so that releasing the analog stick causes the entire car to twerk in the opposite direction of the turn, leading you wide and out of the corner and into a tree. Thirdly, it's at full strength when gripping, but suddenly disappears completely when sliding. All of this means, the car is actively fighting your inputs when gripping - which [i] feels [/i] very bad and unsatisfactory - and then it's suddenly a hovercraft when sliding. There is absolutely [i][b] no [/b][/i] room for play, something that is actually very real in cars and, most importantly, [b] very fun[/b], because it tests your reflexes and precision and interpretation of the car. There is no such thing in this game, at all. Before you say "ugh, skill issue": I've played the entire career once with good results and then, to figure out if I was doing something wrong, I chose a reference stage (Haapajӓrvi, that has low mid and high speed sections) and placed in the top 1% with every single car class in the game, and I place consistently in the top 5% in any one stage when driving it in time attack (no fear of damage). So no, the skill issue card doesn't work this time, sorry. So, overall, the game is fun, and you should probably go play it (I'll definitely be playing it: I'm even redoing the career one more time). Go feel the cars and try them out, have fun your own way. Just don't expect to drive cars, cause these are not cars - or, they are a bad implementation of cars, full of artificial tankslappers and never-ending mind-numbing neutral drifts. People are either too focused on cute graphics and electronic music or ready to compromise on these erratic, inconsistent, unfun physics for the sake of enjoying the game - which I wholeheartedly agree with, I just cannot do it (now [i] that [/i] is my skill issue). Just choose what you're looking for before buying this game: a game? yes. a racing game? yes too. a car game? maybe. an enjoyable car experience? no, I don't think so.

In one word: atmospheric. I bought quite a while back but never really dived into it, until I started on some project of mine and wanted to play through this one, since I use it as a reference. And boy was I missing out for leaving it on the shelf for so long. Hooked up the PS5 controller, entered the career and started the first season - just amazing, the colours pop, flowers, trees, the lighting, the cars and the driving, everything fits together like a well put bombonier (or box of chocolates), that you buy in some beautiful, luxurious shop near the town square. People who love casual racing games will enjoy this, whil more experienced or sim racers should know that this is a casual racer, you won't find well developed or "in-depth" driving physics in this game. Some minor nitpicks: - Certain tracks have really weird "out of bounds" (reset to the track with 5 sec penatly) zones. You can cut some corners by a lot, while in some cases, god forbid you are 2 meters off the road. I haven't experienced it many times though. - Some areas or tracks have some stutters - the FPS is still managable in my case, but it seems like there is something happening in the background? Shader compilations? I don't know. It's just something to be aware of. Although I don't agree with the "do not recommend" comments that compare this to Dirt and other triple A tittles when it comes to performance. Optimizations can be hard and if you are a small team or even a single dev, it's even harder, so comparing that with a full company of engineers is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Yeah some optimizations are low hanging fruits, but then you have things where quite a lot of time can be spent, before a good result is achieved. - Vehicle sound is "so-so". Especially certain cars with turbo's can get a bit annoying. - ... There are a few more, but overall a really amazing game. I mostly play it on medium difficulty just to unwind and have some fun and whenever I need an extra challange, I go for the : time trials + online challanges.

Driving feels awful and the physics are completely bonkers. I went flying off the ground going up a 12 degree slope at 40km/h. Drifting is so counter intuitive in this game you're countersteering half the time. 2/10 would not recommend this game to anyone, not even people I don't like. Go play Super Woden: Rally Edge instead or Rush Rally Origins or a slew of other Rally games available.