Finally, a title to emphasize the old times of arcade racing. Old School Rally is here to bring back some memories.
I am not sure, but racing games have shifted in a manner of realism and competition around 2010. Everything suddenly needed to be more and more realistic and game companies had to push forward online racing to a point where it became more or less the main part of the game- take a look at Gran Turismo 7 for example. With titles like Forza Motorsport, Asetto Corsa, and iRacing, racing games are more serious than ever.
But initially, we had the racing games winded down for more casual audiences. Even games with embedded “realism” would feature some arcade mechanics that would make racing games more personalized and fun. From 1995 to 2005, we had a good run of racing titles across many platforms and those games are still dearly missed.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, an online lobby with drivers with equal skill would create an absolutely golden experience. However, online experiences usually bring more pain and frustration than people expect.
So, what would a person who wants to play quality racing games? The answer might surprise you, but checking old titles could be the right call. The 3D era of racing games, starting from the late 90s especially, has a welcoming aura along with great curves to let drivers enjoy their own settings. This, however, changes a bit once we include rally titles because many of the developers tried to bring the best rally experience for the players of that era.
Codemasters’ Colin McRae series, Magnetic Fields’ Mobil 1 Rally Championship, Electronic Arts’ V-Rally, Evolution Stuidos’ WRC Rally Championship, and many more tried to draw people’s attention and it worked so flawlessly.
Every single rally game of the late 90s and early 2000s had its own way of portraying the offroad as they wanted. Let it be realism or arcade, all of them played well in their own league.
To play those games, you need to actually find your way to grab a copy as they have quietly turned 20 years old recently, and tracking a copy of these games isn’t as simple as you think it is. Understandably, emulation and file sharing are required, but we really needed some new blood to compete with those titles. Enter: Old School Rally.
I had seen this particular title while mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and immediately falling in love with it. The enthusiasm to craft such a game in the current year seems a bit dull as players have moved to more serious and difficult titles.
But Old School Rally is made with the people who yearn for the past and want to relive those days- which is completely fine. I have been feeling terrible because there is no way Evolution Studios is coming back to make the official WRC games again, therefore a simple throwback title would do just fine.
Before diving deep into some other aspects, I would like to mention that Old School Rally is currently in Early Access, therefore it is currently being developed further with feedback given by the players and the community.
So far Old School Rally only offers five championships, time trials, and around 10 tracks from countries like Greece, Finland, Sweden, and China. No worries, as the developer Frozen Lake Studios shared a roadmap of things to come and it includes new cars, a track creator, a replay system, and much more.
Old School Rally is a throwback to the old days, sure, but which game does it actually want to portray? It is obvious, that it is the mix between Sega Rally and Codemasters’ Colin McRae series. The game is built around more in an arcade way with only runs through single or double-stage rallies. It doesn’t actually follow any fixtures or limitations like actual rallies, and championships are separated depending on difficulty.
One of the biggest aspects of the rally games is the cars, obviously. Nowadays the rally machines have died a bit with a hot hatch versus a hot hatch competition, but back when the rally was thriving, manufacturers would just use their newly created models to compete on gravel and asphalt-coated roads.
To evade copyright, all cars have been altered in some way from their real-life counterparts, such as names and some headlight fixtures, but other than that, you can pinpoint which model is supposed to present which car and era they are from.
I know that Old School Rally isn’t there to portray the real-life simulation, but unfortunately, despite the graph of different stats on each car, driving felt pretty similar between different eras of cars. Group B monsters would feel exactly the same as a kit car or WRC-grade vehicle.
Not to mention, the engine sounds have different pitches according to each car, but since they have the same base sound, almost all cars sound the same. Despite all of that, Old School Rally tries its best to include important vehicles from each era which shouldn’t be disregarded.
Having played a lot of rally games in the past, Old School Rally was easy to get into because of its arcade physics model. The stages are short, ranging from 2 to 4-minute sprints and they don’t pose much difficulty once you get used to the layouts.
Course designs are actually great and feel like authentic roads that were chosen deliberately for rally racing. Though it’s odd to feel no difference in grip on snow, gravel, and tarmac surfaces. Developers need to bring some grip differences on surfaces and we should be able to choose specific tires built for specific surfaces.
For myself, I was considering myself with the general “Tarmac Specialist” title. Some rally drivers are great with gravel and some are great with tarmac- which is another fancy name for asphalt. Seeing tarmac featured very small compared to gravel made me sad, it is best to add some stages from the world that do only include tarmac rallies like Germany and France should be included at some point.
Let’s talk about the other mechanic that does rally games what they truly are: physics. So far the best models of physics existed in the Evolution and Milestone’s rally series and Old School Rally is lenient towards more arcade-y steering models like Sega Rally and Colin McRae once again.
It is a bit hard to explain but the driving physics in the Colin McRae series felt like it was on rails rather than your car had the freedom to steer. Old School Rally is away from the on-rail feel, but the weight mass seems to be in the middle of the car, which means the car turns around like a ball rather than where the steering is pointed towards.
The sharp turns and many other directions that you need to be turning can be easily done thanks to inertia stated in the middle of the car, though sometimes your car gets a bit of free movement during the jumps, so it’s advised not to go fast on jumps. By the way, another decision given by the developer is to cut the entire power of the car once you let go of the throttle, which is very confusing.
Most drivers would stop the throttle to steer the car through a turn because giving power during a turn would cause a heavy understeer. But in Old School Rally, cutting the throttle just stops the car like normal brakes would. Very strange.
One little gripe- that can totally improved by the way- is the callout and page readings. As you know, rallies include co-pilots to help drivers navigate through the stage as there are no signs that they should follow. Every corner, jump, caution, and water puddle is indicated by the co-pilot and it is a bit slow on the Old School Rally, unfortunately.
They went with the Sega Rally style where co-pilots only call “easy right” or “hard left”, there are no numbers attached to how hard turns are going to be, and with the late callouts, it is hard for someone to act accordingly if they aren’t used to the layout of the stage.
The selling point is obviously the approach of classic, PS1-style graphics that Old School Rally includes. They are truly faithful to the Saturn/PS1 era and along with the techno/drum and bass soundtrack, it gives the best vibes of the late 90s. The game even includes a damage model, but it needs some work to be done before being more realistic and close to what classic games include as their damage system.
So far Old School Rally has showcased a big promise on what to bring on its future. The project is leading in the right way and the developers are very open to feedback on what players want. Therefore, you can try out this little nifty game, find something that could be improved, and forward it to the developers.
I feel like I have done my best with this review and hope they can take some of the ideas from here and deliver us the proper experience too. Old School Rally is a real showcase of wanting to remember the old days and actually being able to do so, and it is highly recommended if you see it happening in front of your eyes too.
