Hmm. Not many of the 87 jpegs in my Old School Rally screenshots folder convey just how much fun I was having with Frozen Lake Games’ Early Accessible memory stirrer yesterday evening. I blame the fact that I was concentrating too hard on steering and braking to take eye-catching snaps, and, for reasons of practicality and immersion, was awfully reluctant to abandon the first-person views. The absence of replays probably didn’t help too.
Friendly, exhilarating, challenging, and deliciously nostalgic, Old School Rally captures the feel and look of simcade late Nineties rally games nigh on perfectly. Yes, the audio is a tad sparse and generic at present, there’s no wheel support, weather, or AI drivers, but improvements are promised in some of these areas, and the price tag – £7.65 at the moment – reflects the dev’s modest ambitions.
Of the 180 Steam reviews OSR has generated thus far, only eight come with red thumbs. All of the disenchanted grumble, with some justification, about relatively unsophisticated physics. While it takes skill to corner cleanly, use the optional manual gearbox efficiently, and to handbrake-turn and slide like a pro, it has to be said, right now, road surface type doesn’t have much impact on driving style, and mashing the accelerator when one side of your ride is on the verge rarely has consequences.
In the first EA build, fourteen stages spread across seven countries are available. I’ve yet to encounter a dull stage or a stage that takes longer than four minutes to complete, but given the palm-dampening squiggliness of some of them, I’m not missing longer runs.
What I would like to see sooner rather than later, is a new approach to car unlocks and rally results. Presently, in order to win rallies and unlock some of the seventeen rides, you must beat set-in-stone stage times rather than simulated rivals. Some of these target times can feel a tad arbitrary/harsh. Last night I completed a few stages with five or six seconds to spare, yet really struggled to beat others. Unless Frozen Lake alter things, it’s possible less adept drivers may come to resent tough prospects such as China SS2, and may never get to drive certain cars.
It’s too early to say whether the highly entertaining Old School Rally will ever unseat the richer and more realistic Rush Rally 3 as my retro rally sim of choice, but with just three hours’ play under my belt I already know OSR scratches the same itch very vigorously.