Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: rally

Going Back To Art of Rally

Posted on by Viljami

My details indicate that I have played Art of Rally for over fifteen hours. I noticed this matter as I went back to playing this rally game again. I wanted to play something new on my Switch 2. So, I bought Hades II maybe a week ago. I didn’t buy it right when it was released. I also noted that it is a tough season to buy video games from web stores since it is Christmas very soon. They don’t have enough time to deliver fastly these basic items that I very regurarly need and do order from these web shops.

Art of Rally is a very good rally game. It is very original. The game is called “art” for a reason. You actually don’t so much compete in the campaign mode but you actually enjoy this game – its graphical display, the unique gameplay and the pleasurable audio or should I say music. In order to progress in the game you need to figure out the style of driving. Graphics are nice but, I have to say this, they also aren’t that realistic. The game isn’t trying to compete with games like Dirt Rally or WRC series. Instead it brings you a very inspiring gaming exeperience. I must also say that Art of Rally is definitely an indie game.

There are options to adjust the difficulty or AI cleverness of opponents and you also get to adjust the level of damage that crashing causes. The driving style is a bit different with every car. Now, I don’t get so much, in this blog post, on about how the car acts and how the actual driving experience is programmed. I do not have a clear view on how this is achieved inside the lines of code that has been written. Driving the car works nicely and after some hours you get to understand how you can handle the car better.

It is actually very nice to come back to this game. I already finished playing this, I played the campaign through once, and just installed it again to my Switch 2. I had the game installed on my old Switch 1 console. The Nintendo account holds all saved game information and data so I didn’t have to start playing the game all over again. What I did was I continued playing with every track unlocked and kind of actually went to playing this game again. The game asks if you want to race the season and all tracks involved again. After you anser “yes” you get to play the season once again.

After all these Switch 2 games that I have already acquired I am currently enjoying very much playing, again, Art of Rally. We are going to see, soon, some more games released for this console. Yesterday Metroid Prime 4 was released. We are going to see the new Terminator video game in this month. There is also the Mortal Kombat collection going to be available soon. Also I am waiting for Resident Evil 9, or Requiem, that is going to get released next year in the end of February. I think right now that I am going to buy the Generation Collection that features Resident Evil 7 and 8 also for Nintendo Switch 2. They cost pretty closely the same amount of money. So, why wouldn’t I spend maybe ten euros more for the collection?

Actually the version of Art of Rally I have is “Deluxe Edition”. I also have this game for PC. I bought it from Steam a while ago. This game looks and feels amazing on a 4K display. It can be called, and actually is called, Art. Also, the Switch 2 Pro Controller works fine with this rally game. The controller is a bit expensive but I think it was well worth the price. It costs right now actually about 90 euros.

V-Rally 4

Posted on by Viljami

I just started playing V-Rally 4. I got it for a cheap price of three euros. This was a digital purchase through Steam store. I made the purchase a bit over two weeks ago. Seems to me that I was very lucky because I just checked and the price for V-Rally 4 is now 30 euros on Steam. I am playing this game with my brand new Windows 11 desktop computer. I also have a 4K display. So, the graphics of this rally game look really nice.

This is the latest game in V-Rally series. The game was first released in 2018. This means that it isn’t the newest rally game available. It also although indicates that any patches that would fix any gameplay or performance issues have been probably very much solved. I have to admit that I am only in the beginning with V-Rally 4. I have played it for only about half an hour. I do find it a pleasant video game about rally racing.

Some earlier releases in the series that V-Rally 4 belongs to can be detailed as retro games. I think first two games were released already on the first PlayStation 1. I somewhat  remember trying to play V-Rally 3. This game, I think, was current in the era of PS2. After a quick fact check through a search engine I found the information. The third V-Rally game was actually released in 2002 for PS2, Xbox, GameCube and Windows (PC). So, there seems to be a gap of sixteen years between V-Rally 4 and the previous game in the series that is V-Rally 3.

I don’t have a clear memory of playing any V-Rally game on a PS1. I am quite sure that I did never own a copy of V-Rally one or two. I might have played V-Rally 3 for a while but I don’t remember that also so clearly. I do remember games that belong to Colin McRae Rally series. I also recall clear memories of the WRC rally game series. Also, I have to mention a very good, but a bit old, rally game series that was released in the 2000s for original Xbox. This series is Rallisport Challenge one and two. Especially the sequel is a very good game. When it comes to conversation about the best rally games of all time you have to mention also Richard Burns Rally every time.

So, I am yet to experience probably a good rally game. V-Rally 4 is promised to have content for a decent 21 hours. This information can be found from the “How Long To Beat” website. This website and also a database can be utilized or at least I use it to determine a duration for any game be it retro or new. V-Rally 4 provides racing but also some strategic decision making. You have to have a complete team and you are managing a budget. You have to have a manager, a technician and an engineer or possibly several. The career journey begins with a moderate vehicle. You have to make smart decisions all the from the beginning to the end.

I am expecting V-Rally 4 to be at least an entertaining experience. I hope it has enough challenge to keep me interested in the game all the way to the finish. It seems to me that you have to keep your eyes open when it comes to Steam. They actually have an autumn sale coming very soon. After another fact check I can confirm that there is a sale on Steam from 29th of September to 6th of October. Besides all the games that are going to be on sale I am also very much waiting for Silent Hill f to drop. This game has a price of 80 euros. This is the standard edition and there is also a “Digital Deluxe” edition that costs 90 euros.

The Pure Joy of Rally Driving

Posted on by Viljami

We have seen many rally games that you can play on Xbox Series X. Out of three first games in this series of Dirt rally games Dirt 3 is compatible and fully playable on the latest Xbox console. It was released in 2010. So, its been a while.

I have now driven in Dirt 3 for a bit over ten hours. You can see the number of hours from this rally game’s stats that can be accessed directly through the menus of the game. As you might already know you cannot track your time that you have spent while playing an Xbox 360 game title on the Series X. Luckily we still can have stats provided by the game itself.

These aren’t my first touches to this rally game. Actually it’s quite far from it. I first got into Dirt 3 back when the only video game console that I had hooked up to my television back in the day was PlayStation 3. I was eager to play this game. I bought it as soon as it was released. I remember buying it for something like 60 euros. Games really used to cost much less in that moment.

This was also the first game that I played with a wheel and pedals. The game can also be operated with a game pad. The latest sessions I’ve had with this game I have utilized solely the controller. The difficulty level can be adjusted. You can aim for a more realistic and harder style of driving. The options are broad.

I have played Colin McRae Dirt and Colin McRae Dirt 2 also. It is a bit sad that out of these very fine rally games Dirt 3 seems to be the only one that is compatible with Xbox Series X. As I checked if this game would be available digitally from Xbox Store I found that it is not available. The only option, if you want to play it on your Series X, is to get yourself a physical copy. The game doesn’t really take so much space on your hard drive.

It is also today very easy to run also this game in an emulator. So, you don’t have to check every Xbox 360 title to see if they are actually compatible with your Xbox Series X. There is actually a list available online that presents this information. You can find it easily utilizing your favorite search engine (DuckDuckGo?).

Running Xbox 360 games on an emulator requires a heavy PC setup. I for example couldn’t get the Xenia emulator to run on my current PC. I am going to buy a new PC soon. This is because of the forced Windows update from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It can also be an option for you to install Linux. It depends very much of the software you need to run on your PC. Games, today, can be played with a Linux operating system. Even the newest ones. I actually think that most Steam games do run on Linux.

I have lots of music production software that I am not so sure if it can run on Linux. Mac really isn’t an option for me. I need a Windows 11 PC. There is some music software available for Linux and lots of this software is free or “open source”. It is just a hell of a job to set things up in Linux. I am not confident with this. A part of me would like to enjoy the freedom of Linux but something tells me that I need Windows 11. This means that I have to spend lots of money for a new computer since my current PC isn’t compatible with Windows 11.

Anyways, thank you, if you are actually reading this. I hope you enjoy this blog. Dirt 3 is one heck of a rally game. I hope you find it satisfying if you end up acquiring it in any way. You can play Dirt 3 on an emulator, like Xenia, with your own Xbox 360 console or the way I played it (on Xbox Series X).