Developed by Funselektor Labs, art of rally is a new rally simulation game that features a brilliant art design and brings the golden era of rallying back to life in the form of a top-down rally racer. Funselektor Labs is not new when it comes to brilliant racing games as we’ve seen with their previous title Absolute Drift. Now the developer is back with yet another simulator with this time, tackling the difficult rally driving. This is our review of the Steam version of art of rally in which we try to avoid some trees and slide around some crowd-infested corners.
art of rally begins with a quick profile creation where you select your country and other details before it lets you lose in one of the free-roam areas. Here, you are free to explore the area, find some collectibles or just practice driving around while taking some gorgeous pictures with the in-game Photo Mode. Head back to the main menu and you are offered five different game modes that you can come jump in. These include Career, Time Attack, Custom Rally, Online Events, and Free Roam.
While all of them are self-explanatory, you will be spending your initial playthrough hours completing different procedurally generated rallies in the Career Mode which spans over the complete rally history from 1967-1996. Each generation of rally cars is divided into their respective groups and further seasons each year. You will unlock new liveries as well as the locked rally cars in the Career Mode. The Career Mode is pretty linear with little management here and there. You just pick a car and its livery and complete the rally staged to complete the season.
While art of rally features many real-life locations such as Finland, Sardinia, Japan, and more, the locations or stages are not from the real-life WRC. The game has procedurally generated rallies so while the locations are based on the real-world, each rally in the game is procedurally generated which makes every season in the same location a unique one, offering a new challenge. The stages are greatly designed as each stage will test your braking, car control, and your willingness to take risks. The roads are narrow, twisty and some have trees all around that will make you think twice before pushing your car to the edge of the road.
One of the best aspects for me about art of rally is its gameplay. I was extremely impressed by how much meaty each car feels in the car. Depending on their drivetrain, each vehicle handles differently, and you will actually feel the weight of the car as you thrash them around stages. Push the car too much into the corner and you will overshoot the apex line straight into a ditch or a tree. Have the wrong angle at the start of the jump and the car will simply overturn if it does not land on its wheels. Each little bump and stone that you cross over in art of rally will affect how your car performs in the game.
To make the game easier or your word driving challenge, you can further fine-tune the assists such as stability control, ABS, and steering assist. Turn all of them off and even the professional rally driver inside you will need some time getting used to the brutal driving offered by art of rally. Each terrain will make your vehicle handle differently and another pleasant surprise was how good the vibration feedback was for my Xbox One controller. Smaller bumps sent a prompt small jerk while massive jumps or crashes sent a much bigger jerk. I’ve seen very few third-=party games making good use of advanced vibration features offered by the Xbox One controller and art of rally is one of them.
Apart from the amazing gameplay, art of rally is filled with many decent details as well. The synthwave soundtrack is just brilliant and really gets you into the mood. The damage model of the game is brilliant as damage adversely affects the performance. You have different driving conditions as well such as night, snow, and rain. Road sections are filled with spectators that gather around corners and really reminds you of the Group B era of rallying. And then of course there are the cars. You will find some of the best rally cars in the game based on real-world classics such as the Subaru 22B, Lancia 037, Lancia Delta, Porsche 911 SC/RS, and tons of other classics.
As much as I love art of rally, there are a few problems with the game, nonetheless. One, I am not much of the top-down driving fan, but I went in the game knowing this fact and I won’t be taking jabs at the game for having a top-down view. It is something of my personal preference and even with me not liking the camera-angle, I had a really good time with the game. However, it is worth noting here that because of the camera angle, the terrain height is not always very obvious especially during the night stages. Sometimes I thought that there is a jump, but it turned out to be a small bump, and sometimes I went flying off the road thinking that it would be a small jump. It is not something that really breaks the gameplay, but this is one of the problems that come with the top-down camera angle.
Secondly, the car sounds are just the same for most cars. Each rally car has the near same identical sound that is a massive turn off for me. While I can get around the camera angle, car sounds are something that I will consider into account here because, for a rally game, car sounds are extremely important. art of rally features some of the most iconic rally cars from the golden era of rallying but it is a shame that not much effort has been put into the sounds of these rally cars. I understand that getting the officially licensed models would have been really expensive for the developer but at least having a good, identical engine sound would have made it so much special.
Apart from these two concerns, I consider art of rally as the best rally game that I have played in 2020 so far. It is a brilliant surprise and completely hooked me to the game ever since I received the review copy. So far, I’ve managed to complete pretty much all of the Career and unlocked nearly all of the bonus cars. For me, art of rally still has a lot of life left in it for me and I will surely play it for many more days to come. While I am not much of an online competitor, I am sure a lot of players out there would simply grind on the levels just to have the best position in online leaderboards that the game offers.
Final Verdict:
art of rally is a brilliant rally game. Do not allow the art style and top-down camera fool you into thinking that this is some arcade-low level rally game. art of rally is a solid racer and packs the mettle to prove its worth once you start playing it. I was extremely impressed by how accurately the game portraits rally driving that many AAA titles have simply failed to deliver. It is a perfect blend of excellent music, beautiful art design, brilliant rally cars, and a robust track design system. If offers tons of content that could literally keep you busy for months and for a low price as well. +1 score for that cheeky Samir achievement. If you love rally or driving games, art of rally deserves every penny in your wallet.
Final Score: 9.0/10
