Speed Rally

5/10. A racing game where your accelerator is glued to the floor, but fear not you still have a brake. Ergonomically this is an improvement as occasionally tapping the brake is a lot nicer than getting a cramp in your hand holding the accelerator down (almost) all the time. But from a gameplay perspective the modulation of acceleration is a big part of what makes a racing game fun or skillful. And at least in this implementation, it doesn’t seem like the brake really gives the same level of finesse. That’s not to say that there is zero challenge or skill, but that success mostly hinges on memorizing the track layout so that you can oversteer or brake in anticipation of what is not yet visible on the screen. This is a fine dynamic for 40 minutes, but it’s hard to imagine wanting to play the game for much longer. It’s hard exactly to put your finger on why, since it seems to be competently made, but there are some hints that it may be leveraging quite a lot of assets to achieve its competency. For instance there are a number of power ups that you can pick up on the track, but they don’t seem to do much for you in a lot of cases. For instance there’s a gear icon suggesting car repai…

Fun game. Better than expected. It's pretty well-made and brings some engagement that you want to play new lap better and better. But price is not competitive, tbh.