art of rally

[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.