It feels good to nail a rally stage. Just you, the eccentric co-driver, and the car, in harmony, as you aim for the fastest time in the standing, all the precious seconds saved and lost, boiled down to a singular final time. “The fastest in the west”, your trusty Texan co-driver chimes in, because he knows it’s the number one in the world, for now.
#DRIVE Rally just knows what the rally folks want in a game. After some time in Early Access, they finally went onto 1.0, and it shows in how the game looks, feels, and even plays.
So let’s reset our timers, and go from the start.
Presentation
The moment when you open the game and head into a race, you’re greeted with the very poly art style that helps make the stages feel distinct, like the blue hues of the Japanese stage, or the bright white snow within the Finland one. Its style pops out with how the world around these stages is designed quite uniquely with regional differences that you can spot while driving.
In fact, it’s the interior design of the cars you get to drive is mostly accurate to the car that it’s based on. Like the Brick (aka a Volvo) has the dual speedo in the middle, the machine that kinda looks like a Seat kit-car has the same working dashboard configuration and it’s nice to see the devs making it simplified like its artstyle but still useful when say, you do a run in Cinematic mode with no HUD, for example.
The co-drivers for each location are also different, with some of them being someone from that area, and while I do like some flair with how they read the pace notes (those things where the co-driver says to go left or right), they sometimes overcut important notes for their emotional quotes, which does frustrate me at times, especially in the longer runs at 6 plus minutes. At least the option to turn them off is on the menus, but I personally won’t turn them off, since it does add to the charm of the package.
Gameplay
For a racing game, especially a Rally-based one, handling is quite important as since you’re not racing with other cars but the clock, it’s how the car feels and handles as you try to shave off tenths at a time. And the handling is ok.
It’s not really as sharp as, say the latter DIRT Rally type of games but rather something more old-school like the original Colin McRae Rally (yes, I’m differentiating between them) and V-Rally, where vibration isn’t really that heavy but it’s snappy enough that it does feel like Trackmania at times.
Its jumps and bumps are quite easy to manage, and the hazards you would face while racing against the clock don’t really hamper your speed so when you pick up the game, you might see the ghost times taking a bit of a liberated suggestion of a line within a stage, so don’t be too alarmed.
In any case, the career mode does feel easy to pick up and play, you can do stages at your own pace, and if you’re thinking of exploring, there is also Free Roam mode where you can just drive around, finding collectables around the area in your chosen car. It’s not as expansive as the usual open-worlds but with different locales unlocked after clearing the previous area collectables, it ain’t too shabby either.
Content![]()
Most of the stuff you’ll be doing in the game is unlocking new stuff, be it customizable stuff for your car’s exterior and interior, or even new cars that range from a Countach-like to even a Not-86. You can even unlock liveries for some cars that are based on the iconic stuff, like the White Blue of the Jumper or the iconic Yellow Blue for the 95 Clouder, all of which are sleek when you get to run them on the stages.
Besides that, most of the fun within #DRIVE Rally is probably within the global leaderboard, as they build up with drivers trading times in either the most sensible car or like I do, in the Brick for funsies.
Personal Enjoyment ![]()
I actually like the more laid-back nature of this game. It’s still a race against the clock to be the fastest but it’s designed to be more casual, which is fine by me and I don’t see the issue with the handling being a bit disconnected from the car, because since I feel like it’s more like it’s more drivable than even their own sister series back on mobile. Heck, it’s more authentic to that era of racing titles weirdly, if anyone remembers the era of digital inputs only.
But some aspects could be better, like being able to choose your co-driver for all of the stages would have made for some fun interactions. Or having music during the Free Roam stuff, just some niche request that could make the game better in my view, anyway.
Verdict
#DRIVE Rally is quite a fascinating racing title within the indie side, where creativity has no bounds and this is just about getting to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, in cars that you may or may not expect to be fast, which is good enough for me. I do recommend giving this one a go if you want to send it, casually.
Reviewed On PC, Review Copy provided by the developer.
#DRIVE Rally
A fascinating racing title within the indie side, where creativity has no bounds, and this just about getting to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, in cars that you may or may not expect to be fast, which is good enough.
- Presentation 8
- Gameplay 7.5
- Content 7
- Personal Enjoyment 8.5