Chris Inglis#DRIVE Rally is an indie rally racing game developed by Pixel Perfect Dude and launched on September 25 on Steam and Epic Games Store. The game has campaign and single race modes and presents arcade-style racing with a focus on speed and precision. It’s a lot of fun with varied biomes but lacks depth of similar games in the rally genre. The game’s trailer gave me an impression there was a story campaign to play through but alas there is none.
The game’s pixel art visuals and vehicle sounds, both in and out of the cars, creates an atmosphere reminiscent of rally games of old. The vibrant colours and detailed environments reminded me of playing Art of Rally, only we’re right down on the track. I really liked the lighting effects when looking into sunlight and the shadows cast by mountains, trees and buildings. The cars themselves are detailed enough with no recognisable official rally markings or stickers. I appreciated the different sound effects when switching views.
There are four championships to choose from in #DRIVE Rally, each with a race caller that has some comedic and stereotypical values to them. Some of their calls get distracting and I feel they call the corners a little too early at times. There are no direction arrows in the top of the screen like in DIRT 5 or EA SPORTS WRC, so you do rely on the race calls at times, but occasionally they don’t announce a small corner, or when they announce, ‘left 2’, it’s a fair distance away and then it follows with a sharp right that sometimes doesn’t get mentioned.
Controls felt floaty at times but not too different from similar rally games, though the 4wd vehicles were much more difficult to control around corners, particularly in the snow maps. I found that I performed better when the viewpoint was inside the smaller vehicles and outside for the larger 4WD style cars. I do have to say the reverse camera is awful, making you completely look backwards both in and out of the car viewpoints, and it’s almost impossible when inside the vehicle. It really throws you off your race and while you should obviously be avoiding the need to reverse, I never got used to the camera change. That’s really the only major gripe from the game.
When you finish a set of 3 races, you unlock vehicle addons like bumpers as well as unlock new vehicles. When you unlock a vehicle, you are switched over to that new vehicle for the next set of championship races and you have no choice but to race that one. I would have loved to have stuck with the first car of each championship given it took me the first three races to get used to the terrain, turning and pace of the first car, but then get switched to a completely different car for the next stages.
You also don’t get to customise your cars within championships. You are unlocking these parts, new cars and earning cash from winning races, but you don’t get to customise anything. Customisation is only reserved for single races. This does create a curated championship package for the game, but I would have at least liked to play around with the aesthetics of the current car at least. I also noticed there was a ghost race that I thought was the fastest track racer and they were miles in front of me, but I still won the time for that race. It made me drive harder but I saw no other significance of it being there.
Overall, #DRIVE Rally is a decent early access rally game with pangs of nostalgia and some excellent environment detail. Controls are decent enough however try to avoid reversing wherever possible as the change in viewpoint is off-putting. The sound design is excellent, and racing is fun for quick races of championship stages, though championships lack the ability to customise your cars. There will be more content added to the game over the early access period, so this is well worth a look for rally game fans.
This review utilised a key provided by Evolve PR and #DRIVE Rally is available now on Steam and Epic Games Store.
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Yonan
