rally games Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Waiting for Forza Horizon 6

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Viljami

Forza Horizon 6 will be released 19th of May this year (2026). It will be available at the launch for PC and Xbox Series S/X. There have been some very unofficial discussions about this game getting released also for other mainstream gaming consoles. This just seems to be the viewpoint today. There might be such things as exclusive releases soon as every PlayStation title seems to be getting released for PC and now also for Xbox.

So, what I have been up to lately, one might ask. Mainly I have been working and keeping myself busy in that way. There seems to be less time for video games as I get older. However I have played some games and this blog post deals with that part of my life now. I have played Crash Bandicoot 4, Doom – Dark Ages, Half-Life 2 and also more and lately Dirt 5 which seems to be a nice racing game to start to get ready for Forza Horizon 6.

Dirt 5 was originally released in 2020. It isn’t the newest game that has been developed by Codemasters but it still remains as a part of this legendary series of racing games that might even been started by Colin McRae Rally already back in the end of the 90s. There have been many great games in this series. I especially want to mention Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and Colin McRae Dirt 2. Those might be the best games out of this series.

Dirt 5 has a lot to offer. I have already spent a bit over 7 hours playing it. You get to drive with several different vehicles and there are several types of driving you will get involved in during playing. There are many camera options to choose from. You can set the camera to the surface of the road or then set it to display the whole car from the back. I chose to set the camera so that I can see the whole car I am driving. This makes it somewhat easy to play Dirt 5. You do have to control the vehicle precisely. I have played this game with a game controller. I really don’t know how a driving wheel and pedals would make the game seem to feel like.

Dirt 5 is a nice racing game in overall. It is almost unfair to make a comparison between the earlier games in this series because they are just so good as racing games. If we put it into this perspective Dirt 5 is a good game. There might have been some issues early when the game was released but I think that in 2026 this game is still a fun one to play. It has received the “metascore” of 79 out of 100 on Metacritic.

I originally picked up Dirt 5 just some weeks before the upcoming release of Forza Horizon 6. It currently has a price tag of 21 euros on the Xbox store. So, it is a cheap game that can help you to better deal with waiting for Forza Horizon 6. This time I bought a game as a digital copy. Although I decided to order Forza Horizon 6 as a physical copy. There will be a long installation process since the game takes a bit over 130 GB of space from my Xbox Series X. Do remember that there is also a PC version available.

With having already made the purchase I am waiting to get my hands on the new Forza game at next Tuesday. Today I am having a day off and I am currently enjoying it an drinking some coffee while I type this post that you are soon able to read. I really have nothing else to say right now. So, until next time my dear readers.

Old School Rally

Posted on February 11, 2026 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 December 5, 2025 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.