Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: rally games

Old School Rally

Posted on by Viljami

Old School Rally is something for you if you like games like Colin McRae Rally and Colin McRae Rally 2.0 that were originally published for the first PlayStation. The driving feel is very much like in those classic retro games. You get actually to control your rally car using just your plain original gamepad. This seemed to be the norm way back. The gamers actually didn’t have so many driving wheels and pedals. The graphics weren’t as realsitic but yet these games just had something special in them.

I bought my copy of Old School Rally for Nintendo Switch for a bit over 30 euros. It think the precise price was 32 euros. It is a physical copy. The game is also available for PS5 also as a physical game and also for Steam as, of course, a digital copy of the game. With this same purchase I bought Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection. I tried briefly also this compilation of some earlier Mortal Kombat games. It was fun to play the first MK game like it was meant to be played in an Arcade. I got as far as trying to beat Goro. Then I had to give up for that session. Maybe I’ll try again later.

Old School Rally is really nice to play if you are familiar with CMR PS1 games. There are some differences. The cars aren’t official ones. They are fictive manufacturers and models. You also don’t get to fiddle with car settings actually at all. The damage that the car takes does affect the controllability of the car. If you damage your car greatly the driving becomes more difficult although not impossible. Car has breaking and steering functions although I don’t get to see under the hood so much and I think it isn’t actually required. My notes here are based solely on plaiyng this game. I haven’t seen the source code. This isn’t an open source release after all.

Breaking seems to be the critical fact when it comes to how you can handle your car. It isn’t, in my opinion, as accurate as was with CMR games. You also don’t get to fix how the breaks work. Other abilities of the car are the ability to accelerate and also the highest speed you can reach. Also, there aren’t any other competitors. There isn’t a series to compete in. Instead you get a record time that you have to beat on each stage.

Graphics are a bit fuzzy but I think they work just fine considering the clear comparison to CMR games. Actually, if you think about it, the CMR games are already almost 30 years old. This fact brings for me and also for a lot of other older gamers a huge amount of nostalgia. There is actually a lot to play in Old School Rally. I did spent over ten hours playing the campaign of this rally game. The How Long To Beat website states that it takes eight hours to finish Old School Rally.

I could share some tips for a beginner. Try not to completely wreck your car. Try to break in time with the corners. Don’t break too late or too slightly. Figure out which car to buy or not to buy. If you totally wreck your car during a stage consider retiring from the event and starting over. You can easily end up with a broken car trying to desperately beat the record time. This can be almost impossible. At times I found myself in this loop of repeating a stage. The driving is in Old School Rally more difficult with a broken car.

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.