My favorite sports involve engines. One of my all-time favorite sports though is rally. I love rally cars and have always dreamed of racing one some day. Or at least driving one. It has always fascinated me how fast these extremely talented drivers can push these vehicles. Of course, like any rally fan, I love Group B rally cars and would love to even see one in real life.

For those of you that don’t know, Group B was like the wild west of rally car racing. The cars were extremely fast and super light. The courses were super technical. And the crowds were excessively rowdy. This was the golden age of rally. But… It turned out to be a fatal mixture. The cars were so fast and dangerous, the drivers were all one millisecond away from death. One second off on a turn or one unnoticed rock in the road and it was all over. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the death knell for Group B, it was the fans. The fans were somehow more at risk than the drivers. Mostly by their own doing. Back then, fans would stand on the track and see how close they could stand next to the cars as they drove by at 150 miles per hour. They would stand on the jumps and try to touch the cars as they literally flew by. This was what ended up shutting Group B down. The class was banned and has never came back to this day.

So, what would rally look like today if Group B was never banned? That’s precisely what The Art of Rally is about. The game is set in a world where rally was able to evolve to a Group A or even a Group S. A dream for rally fans everywhere. So how does the game live up to this dream scenario? Let’s check out The Art of Rally.

The most striking feature of The Art of Rally is its visuals. The graphics are extremely simplistic. The game is low polygons and simple, cartoon-esque graphics. But, the set pieces are beautiful. The courses and the cars are all gorgeous. They are brightly colored and are truly striking. I love the graphics in this game. It truly shows that you can make wonderful graphics with really simplistic designs.

But all of that means nothing if the game isn’t fun. But, luckily for us, the controls are just as good as the visuals. The cars all feel really tight and control wonderfully. Rear-wheel drive cars handle exactly like rear-wheel drive cars and all-wheel drive cars control completely different. The control differently on ice and gravel than they do on tarmac. It’s obvious that a lot went into the gameplay of this game. I loved how the cars felt and it’s honestly one of the better feeling rally car games.

Which is great because there is a ton to do in this game. There are multiple rallies across six different classes. But, unfortunately, there isn’t much variation across these rallies. That’s where this game starts to fall apart. The main campaign is 221 races. But only has five different countries. Even those these countries all have different tracks, they all basically boil down to the same course. The game says that there are 60 different courses, but each course for a single country all feel exactly the same. So it feels more like five different courses with varying lengths. Which gets pretty old fast. Doing 221 races on five different courses is a joy at first, but quickly gets repetitive. By the end of Class S, I was begging for the campaign to be over. Which, surprisingly, unlocks my favorite part of the game: the free roam. Each of the countries is opened up for you to explore at your leisure. It’s a whole lot of fun and honestly the best part of the game. I would love to see some sort of open-world game in this style. I think this game truly shines when it opens up to the free roam.

And that’s about it for The Art of Rally. Except for one more, tiny, problem… And that is the achievement list. I decided to get every achievement in this game. That really changed my opinion of this game. Sure I was bored by the end of Class S, but it was not that bad. It was repetitive, but the different cars and classes kept it just fresh enough to push through. Just when the game was getting really boring, it wrapped up. It sort of overstayed its welcome for maybe four or so rallies, but that wasn’t too bad. But, the achievements make you play much much more. There are the usual achievements, such as winning every race and unlocking every livery for your cars. These all come with regular gameplay. There’s an achievement for winning a race on the hardest difficulty, a fun and challenging achievement. There are achievements for finding all the collectibles in free roam (my personal favorite achievements in the game). But there is one achievement that spoils the entire experience; an achievement for completing 1,000 rallies. You heard that right… 1,000 of them. The campaign is 221 rallies. And that felt like too much. How about doing 779 more? At this point I was in too deep. I had already decided to get every achievement, and by God was I going to do it. I did maybe 15 rallies every night for two and a half months! I played this game for an hour or so every night for 70 days. It was brutal. By the end of it, I uninstalled the game and I will never play The Art of Rally again.

The Art of Rally is a simple, fun, and quick game. That’s the best version of this game. Play the campaign, but spread it out. just a couple rallies a night and you’ll love this game. The visuals and the controls are wonderful. For sure play the free roam and get all the collectibles. Pick a favorite car and unlock its beautiful liveries. All of these parts constitute a wonderful game. But please skip the endgame. Skip the last 80 hours of painstaking, mind-numbing racing. I really wish I had. I think The Art of Rally shines as a quick, in-and-out game, but truly falls apart when you stick around and start putting in the hours. I give The Art of Rally a 2 out of 4. I’m glad I played it, but I also wish I stopped playing it. It’s a beautiful and wonderful rally game, but it gets boring quick.