#DRIVE Rally

I'm glad I didn't write the game off initially and stuck with it but there's a few things that make you wonder why it's not an early access title. For starters the game has a pretty good art style that oozes a lot of character—it's a real shame that the game does absolutely nothing with it. Sure, you get these beautiful scenic routes, a quirky navigator, and amazing car designs, but there's no story, lore or narration to provide you much purpose. All you're doing is following a checklist of races per biome while being unceremoniously gifted new cosmetic parts per race through a small cutscene that gets annoying after the 64th time you watched it. As you progress, you get swapped between different vehicles, to then the second upgraded variant of the same cars, then a 3rd upgraded variant until the championship is over. There's 6 of these championships with their own unique biomes/maps and 24 courses in each one which, I'll admit, is pretty amazing for a small indie title. Each feature their own set of unique cars to experience them with. However, I think this does hurt the game a little bit. As I mentioned before... I was about to refund this game. I found the driving to be too …

I hate leaving negative reviews on games with a smaller game audience, but I just cannot help myself but mention a couple things: The brake mechanics are awesome; it feels like dirt rally 2.0 but I have a problem with every other part of the car handling. The cars redline WAYYY to quick. This is a gripe of mine, as I am used to more "racing sim"s. So I don’t blame this game for being arcade-y. But it kills any sort of skill expression, as carrying the speed through a corner doesn’t matter if you climb 80 km/h a second. But why do the cars swing side to side like a damn boat on the high seas. It is purely visual, but as someone who primarily plays in first person, it is VERY distracting and downright a hinderance as I feel like I am about to flip over. I could excuse all of that, if the car sounds weren’t so very disappointing. The cars sound like a low hum of a refrigerator. Like you are video game devs, add amazing car sounds, the world is your oyster. A Harley sounds better than the cars in this game.

[b]This is a great racing game for the Steam Deck, running at 60+fps consistently on ultra settings which looks great and stylish.[/b] Controls are great on the Deck/controller and races are quick enough to be played in short bursts. It's an arcade racer, but it has fun and engaging enough physics to not feel like Need for Speed. Visually and style-wise the game is AMAZING. The graphics and art direction are really good and have a nice vibe to them, plus the interiors and co-drivers are done so well that it feels illegal not to play in cockpit view. Speaking of co-driver there are multiple voiced and unique co-drivers whom verbally give you directions, not surprising in a rally game but definitely cool how they gave them so much personality. The game does feel a bit too easy, having me finish in first place by a couple of seconds every race on hard difficulty despite making a few mistakes per race, but i'm still very early into the game so this might change. In any case this is a game i'll probably be playing quite a lot in short bursts, well worth the money!

I think the game has a lot of potential, but I have a good number of issues with it. The driving doesn't feel intuitive to me, I feel like the cars want to slide but can't, and it feels like the cars are very inconsistent with grip in general. "Drifting" feels non-existent personally. E-brake can make the cars slide a little bit, but it slows you down so much that it's only useful for extremely tight turns. The co-pilots are very inconsistent. I can't remember the names, but the girl that's primarily in the snowy part of the map, she's just doing blatantly incorrect callouts. "Left 3" but then it's a right hairpin. Just makes the game very difficult to play and hard to enjoy. When the game works, it's not too bad. But having rally and not being able to slide very well, it's just odd

8.5/10 Easily, The developers are so considerate of the community recommendations and additions as well. This is some what a successor to Art of the Rally one might say, although the physics are siightly hit or miss, can't be said much as I am playing on Keyboard instead of a controller. Overall, the customisation, the voice lines, tracks, gameplay is absolutely fun, if you are looking for a casual rally game then this is absolutely for you!!! Cheers!

I'd definitely recommend this game. The gameplay is smooth. The selection of cars and stages is wide. Such a great nice indy game to play in your free time.