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An official screenshot from Rally Arcade Classics
NETK2GAMES
Rally games have an incredibly special place in my heart. My first ever game was Colin McRae Rally on PS1 and I played racing games all the time with my dad growing up.
As well as this, we'd play all the Gran Turismo games, Formula One titles and early V-Rally entires and complete them all. I still love playing racing games to this day and it's right up there with my absolute favourite genres.
So when Rally Arcade Classics received a new update, which feels like a 90s rally game crossover between Gran Turismo and V-Rally, I couldn't wait to get stuck in.
Rally Arcade Classics is exactly what it says on the tin - an old-school style rally arcade game where you can race other rally cars on track, compete in short rally events, earn points in drift challenges and more.
In terms of how it plays and its style, it mostly reminds me of V-Rally, which is incredibly positive as that's my favourite rally arcade series of all time.
It brilliantly recaptures that kind of magic through its gameplay and visuals.
Rally Arcade Classics is a brilliant dose of nostalgia for anyone who has played rally games from the 90s / NETK2GAMES
To start with, you need to get a license and these are the challenges you'd expect - completing different sections of roads and routes as quickly as possible to earn gold, silver or bronze. This is where the Gran Turimso aspect comes in.
You then need to earn stars from tour events, such as time attack, VS, drift and race, to unlock more licenses. Better licenses then unlock more tour events and so on.
You start with smaller, less powerful vehicles and work your way up. These can be bought with credits that are earned by completing licenses and events. They're all inspired by classic rally cars which you'll immediately recognise despite them not being official.
There are 360 tests in Tour mode, 16 different Arcade championships, 60 license tests and 72 Rally championships.
There are weekly challenges too; there really is a lot to keep you busy as you unlock more cars and events.
There's a leaderboard for every event so you can see how you compare to the rest of the world. It's thoroughly addictive trying to better times to be among the best and this is one of the things to have been recently updated.
Rally Arcade Classics has welcomely stripped back styles and mechanics / NETK2GAMES
Rally Arcade Classics has a new Precision and Chase update where there are now manual and automatic modes, a speedometer has been added, a list of friends can be added and leaderboards have been updated to show which mode times were achieved in and can be filtered using different settings.
It would be nice to change between manual and automatic modes on the fly a little easier, as I had to quit the event I was in to the main menu to change this instead of restarting quickly, but that's the only gripe I have with the update.
The speedometer is a welcome addition, particularly with the introduction of manual mode, which can be used as a visual reference to know when best to change gear until you get to grips with engine notes or feel.
I've really enjoyed my time with Rally Arcade Classics so far as it's recaptured the nostalgia of playing some of my favourite racing and rally games growing up. That's what it feels this game sets out to do, recapture the magic of past rally games, and Rally Arcade Classics really does it with aplomb.
I can't wait to see what my dad thinks to it.
Rally Arcade Classics is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. For this piece, I played on PC through Steam on a Lenovo Legion 9i Gaming Laptop with Intel Core i9 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080.
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