If the sight of a Lancia Delta flying through the air, accompanied by yells of “over jump!”, provides a hit of nostalgia, then Rally Arcade Classics could be the game you’re waiting for. It’s a debut title from Netk2, a group of Barcelona-based devs who have been making games since the microcomputer days. It’s releasing on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and PS5. Today, we look at the PlayStation 5 version.
Do You Rally Want To Hurt Me?
As a big fan of arcade racers and dewy-eyed nostalgia, the prospect of scratching this 30-year itch was too much to resist. If you’re a fan of the genre, please let me know which are your favourites in the comments!
Can Netk2 recapture the magic of those 90s-era racers? Or will this one leave you upended in a swamp? Let’s find out!
Gameplay
Rally Arcade Classics is an effort to package all the best parts of video game off-roading and serve them up, just as Sega and CodeMasters used to do back in the 32-bit era. As such, the complications of open-world faff and a plethora of silly challenges are nowhere to be found. In its place, we have arcade rallying boiled down to the core essentials: a roster of iconic (if copyright-dodging) cars, four locations in which to race them, and a slim selection of game modes to keep you entertained.
And while it has the proper credentials, Rally Arcade Classics does not make the best first impression. Typography and UI elements look and feel rather placeholder-y, and the car selection screens do not have the pop you would see from the big hitters of the genre. The overall feeling is one of a Unity asset flip, with generic fonts and some shakily written English.
However, once you are behind the wheel, the quality within becomes immediately apparent. With the constraints afforded to them, Netk2 has focused on car handling, the sensation of speed, and creating environments that evoke a bygone era.
Nostalgia in Top Gear
Additionally, Rally Arcade Classics come loaded with content. It was entirely possible to fly through Sega Rally in a matter of minutes. In contrast, Rally Arcade Classics comes loaded with features to enjoy. You will race 35 cars through the roads of Finland, Catalonia, Greece, and Monte Carlo, each divided into 12 stages. There’s changeable weather, day and night options, each affecting the handling and general difficulty levels quite profoundly.
The four main gameplay modes also do a good job of covering the styles of V-Rally, Colin McRae, and DiRT.
There’s Tour Mode, which combines racing and drifting, and Rally Mode, where you speed through a country of your choice. Time Attack (or Chrono, as it’s named here) is, as you’d expect, you against the clock. Arcade, on the other hand, has you racing against 14 opponents across four stages, in a Sega Rally-style format. Add to this the ever-changing online events that open up even more cars and ways to play, and you will never be short of things to do.
Graphics & Audio
As mentioned, Rally Arcade Classics is the work of the dedicated hands of Netk2, and as such, it would be daft to expect the same graphical fidelity as a game such as Gran Turismo. What we do have is perfectly functional, running at a solid 60fps and channelling a specific PS3-era energy, all while running in 4K. The unlicensed car models are rendered accurately, with weather and night/day cycles looking and behaving as you’d expect. If there was one bugbear, it’s that the car physics lack in a few areas. There is no car deformation, which is fair enough for a game at this price point, but brushing the track side will often result in your car coming to an immediate halt, which cuts into the action somewhat. It’s a tiny nit-pick, but I’d love to see it patched out.
Music is inoffensive enough for you to forget it is there, with the guitar-led tracks sounding like someone downloaded them from a copyright-free music website. It’s a bit of a shame, and slightly damages the retro aesthetic, but it’s not a deal breaker. The engine sounds and other crowd ambiance are also underwhelming, but not so bad that they pull you out of the experience. If we keep our expectations in check, it does the job for a game that isn’t expecting you to hand over a weekly food shop’s worth of money for the price of admission.
Longevity
One of the main failings of the rally game genre has always been the lack of things to see and do. Thankfully, Rally Arcade Classics does not suffer this affliction. It is easy to pick up, blast through a stage or two, and then put it back down after 15 minutes. This simple loop is satisfying enough to keep coming back time and again. The promise of additional events and challenges in the future makes the prospect too compelling to resist. In short, if value for money is what you are looking for, Rally Arcade Classics is the deal of the year.
Final Thoughts
If cosy games went to the races, then the result would not be unlike Rally Arcade Classics. It was familiar and not overburdened with complication. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, and its simplistic approach felt like a breath of fresh air. If you enjoyed these games back in the days when Tony Blair was still in office, then Rally Arcade Classics will bring a smile and a surge of dopamine to remind you why you love video games in the first place.
Certainly well worth a spin around the block and a deserving winner of the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Discord | Podcast