Art of Rally Review

If in doubt, flat out

Absolute Drift, Fuselektor Labs inc. previous game was special. Played from an isometric perspective, it offered an experience far deeper than the casual drifter it could be mistaken for. There was a decent sense of inertia, and the finest of adjustments were required to nail a perfect figure eight, leaving behind a Japanese garden-like trail of skid marks in one’s wake—it was beautiful too, with the seemingly discordant combination of the meditative floatiness of drifting, the vociferous frustration of the rev limiter, the simultaneously soothing and enthusing electronica soundtrack and the minimalist graphical style forming a powerful harmony.

Aesthetically, Art of Rally is even more beautiful, if not so ambitious. The primitivist colours and impressionistic fidelity of the rally stages and vehicles are easy to harmonise with the dreamy ambiguities of the synthwave soundtrack, and the antilag, intake noises, exhaust note and squealing of tyres easily find their niche in the eclectic percussion. In turn, primitivism and impressionism are such obvious stylisations for rally—a motorsport which does not limit its sensations to mechanical marvels and the bravery of the drivers, but also delights in the beauty of the scenery through which they race—that, like all great original ideas, it’s hard to believe no one has made a rally game that looks like this before!

And the world of Art of Rally is indeed gorgeous! Finland is full of lush forests, unless they’re iced with snow; autumn leaves bedeck the branches in Germany while hinklesteins delineate some of its roads; in Japan, the cherry blossoms are in bloom and the touge is filled with the sound of blow off valves; in Italy, the fields of grass alongside the dirt roads are blossoming, and the towns are painted in soft pastels; in Norway, the stages cut through frozen lakes and planes of snow.

But what would a rally stage be without fans willing to die for their love of the sport? In Art of Rally (as they are in reality wherever stewards are lenient) fans are courageous to the point of insanity, blowing brass horns in the middle of the road before leaping out of the way of the oncoming traffic—or, for the more fetishistic fans, bouncing out of the way as they are hit mid-Scandinavian flick by the object of their desire. If real people were bouncy balloons like they are in Art of Rally, how different the history of rally might have been!

The roads which drivers and fans alike brave are gravel, tarmac or snow; the conditions dry, wet, foggy and the time at which this game of rally roulette takes place is the morning, afternoon, sunset and night. Even with the isometric perspective, night and foggy conditions limit one’s field of vision enough that one may need to slow down a little so as not to overshoot corners, and snow and rain mean that in such conditions even the most frictional AWD cars feel like they’re driving on skates, not tyres—though, weirdly, if one drops a wheel off a snowy road and onto the ice of a lake, one actually ends up with a little more grip. Conversely, when one returns to tarmac after any of the more slippery surfaces, it’s as if the ground and tyres are made of Velcro!

Each country has six stages (and each can be reversed), ranging in distance from three kilometers to twelve; there are no longer stages, unfortunately. However, the transitions between inclines and declines, the awkward crests and jumps and deceptive corners tempting enough to cut that actually just drop one into a ditch, while wider, flatter and not as complicated as those found in recent rally sims, are still tricky enough that one must fully concentrate from the beginning to the end of each stage, making up for the lack of any truly lengthy ones. Twelve kilometers dodging panzers and menhirs (like prognosticating gravestones) are just about all I have the nerve for, anyway.

Art of Rally is as much a history lesson as it is a love letter to the motorsport. The campaign spans the years 1967-1996, from group 2 to group a (including group s finally being given a run!), with each group featuring five rallies—each set of five rallies increasing in length until they span several countries in the one championship. Each era is introduced with a short, pithy trivia-style summation, although the tragic end of group b is glossed over both in the era’s summation as well as in the equally pithy descriptions of individual cars. But given how delightfully irreverent and affectionate the lore is, perhaps digging a little deeper into the sadder parts of the sport’s history may have been jarring: the il gorilla e2 (Lancia ECV2) is described as featuring a larger espresso machine and smaller engine than the e1!

Across the 50 vehicles in Art of Rally, there is genuine depth to the idiosyncrasies of handling. Every car from group 2 to group b is a handful: while the older cars are under powered, they are super light with very poor traction and heavy body roll, requiring precision on entering and through the corners to set a fast time, though their lightness makes them a joy to throw around in lieu of the powersliding they barely have the power to slide. But as power begins to creep up before AWD becomes ubiquitous, naturally-aspirated RWD cars have a death wish on corner exit, and turbocharged cars before the advent of antilag—after leaving the corners safely—will torque steer on entering the straights as their turbos kick in! (Few other racing games feature such a gratifying simulation of turbo lag!) Group B cars, of course, are a handful on the beginning, middle and end of straights, on entering, through and exiting corners, up inclines, down declines, skipping crests, over jumps, at starts and probably on the roads between each stage and in the parking lots as they await their turn, too.

The different drivetrains behave as one would expect, with understeering FWD cars correctable by lifting off the throttle and oversteery RWD cars correctable with countersteering and releasing or applying more throttle (depending on what has caused the oversteer!) and AWD cars that are akin to using a cheat code by comparison. It’s a testament to both the driving model and the design of each individual car that basic driving techniques translate into predictable vehicle behavior. The tortoise usually beats the hare in Art of Rally, too: a nine-tenths run without a mistake will be faster than driving flat out but messing up a corner or two—and though this might not be a fully-fledged rally sim, slow-in fast-out, apexes and straightening out corners are still more important than Hollywood-style drifts around hairpins for setting a fast time.

With a solid sense of inertia, mass, traction and friction, yet seemingly light vehicles that slow down under braking very forgivably, Art of Rally is simultaneously enjoyable as an instantly accessible arcade rally fix in the tradition of the early Colin McRae games, as well as complex enough in its driving model and stage design that if one really wants to set fast times to compete with other players rather than the sometimes lackluster AI, there is enough depth to make improving one’s own driving interesting in and of itself, in the same way that Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo manage to successfully straddle the line between arcade and sim—a concept which the Dirt series has flirted with but never consummated. Art of Rally is already halfway through the honeymoon.

From taming group b cars, to the tap dancing of flicking a group a car around a corner with simultaneous acceleration and braking, there is immense satisfaction in mastering a car one vibes with (or even learning to understand a car one doesn’t) and setting a time through a stage that competes with other players trying to drive faster and faster. It’s just a pity the online options are limited to weekly (four stage time trial) and daily challenges (one stage time trial) and that there are no tuning options so that one could take one’s relationship with one’s favourite car to the next level!

But none of this would mater if the chase cam perspective didn’t work. Thankfully, it does. And not only does it work, it adds to the experience. With the ability to see several corners ahead at times, the lack of a co-driver does not matter, and as one rockets down a long straight, or powerslides around a corner, the ethereal perspective highlights the moments where it’s possible to appreciate the beautiful scenery just as much as the marriage between man and machine—and when the camera pans around  a hairpin corner, or aligns itself with the way in which one is cutting through several slaloming corners in a straight line, it elevates an experience that needed no elevation with moments of aesthetic delight which are magical in a similar way to how one’s rubber wake in Absolute Drift was a zen-like history of one’s own ephemeral achievement: in Art of Rally when one is in the zone, one feels as if the earth itself is moving and unfurling beneath one’s feet—or tyres.