art of rally

Overall I'm enjoying my time with the game. I wouldn't call this relaxing racing. I've seen that said a few times and I strongly disagree. This is a game where you have to put in some time to get used to the car and understand it's limitations while picking your points where to break, drift, and when to lay of the throttle a little bit. The art style is fine. One thing I REALLY like about the game is that you can just jump right in and start racing. I hate that I even have to point that out, but it's 2026, and there are far too many games that want to make me trudge thru menus while trying to sell me something along the way to playing the game. The controls are something that is a double edged sword to me. Once I realized how the cars handled, I was able to get thru each race no problem. However, if you're going into this thinking this is a drifting/simulation racing game this is not it. Every car feels like you're driving on ice. So the controls can be a little twitchy. It takes getting used to. Don't expect to blow through the game like it's Sega Rally or even a more recent hybrid arcade/sim experience like the Dirt series. It has it's own style of control. Once you figure it out then the game is a breeze. You get the illusion of harder courses like racing on wet or snowy roads, but honestly, those roads felt no harder to control on that the paved roads. Hence, the reason at the end of the day no matter what you're driving or what you're driving on, it always feels like you're driving on ice, but once you understand that and get the hang of it, the game is pretty easy. I do like the sense of progression and the races themselves aren't that long. You can finish a race between 2.5 to 4.5 minutes depending on the course. So you can knock out a few races or even sit down and get through a series pretty quick and move on with other things in your life. So as a busy parent and husband, playing a game like this is great because I don't have to devote hours of my time just to get through a little bit. Overall, it's a fun game if you're a racing fan. I'm not a drifting racing fan, but I did enjoy my time with it for it's quick play, fun esthetic, and easy to progress formula without it becoming too frustrating. I have seen some people get way too frustrated with controls, and they aren't wrong. If you're used to arcady racing games like NFS or Forza Horizon this may not be the game for you. But if you've gone down the indie racing hole, and you like something quirky, this might be for you.