Parking Garage Rally Circuit is what happens when you cross Sega Rally with Fast Ans The Furious: Tokyo Drift. So, it’s a good thing that I think both of those things are the peak of their genres. This modern day retro arcade-style racing game is fast, furious, and full of enough challenge that any speedrunner/leaderboard chaser is going to love.
The game is a simple one. You pick a ride and complete against three other ghost cars in order to come in the top three in each race. The ghost cars feel a little strange at first, but because of the nature of the tracks they work to keep the challenge high. This happens because you are racing in very tight parking garages, each based on a different location across America.
If there were other racers then it would become a kinetic mess. The ghost cars allow you to still race against others while giving you enough room to drift.A lot of games would have simply had you racing to beat a time trail, so having the ghost cars really helps Parking Garage Rally Circuit still feel like a competitive racer.
The real highlight here are the stages that you get to race on. They are tight, cramped, and built to take full advantage of the drift mechanics in the game. It’s a simple system that takes a lot of inspiration from Mario Kart. Drifting is mapped to a dedicated button and has two stages, each of which can give you a bigger boost coming out of the drift.
It’s a blast replying tracks in order to try and find that perfect line in order to get a better score. And because the leaderboard system in place that allows you to race against the players slightly ahead on you, you will always be challenged as your skills increase. There aren’t that many games, let alone racing games, that allow you to always feel like you are in the hunt against real players. This really helps in having you come back over and over again.
This is a pure arcade-style racer and one of the best in the genre in ages. But once you get into it you’ll see why more and more players are loving the experience. Add in the amount of visual options and a classic cheat system, and you have a retro racer that understands what made games like Sega Rally so much fun in the first place. Walaber Entertainment have done an outstanding job on this one and I only hope they can expand on this one.
I’d love to see more cars get added as they are pretty limited. I’d also love some DLC tracks to expand the experience as you’ll probably be able to 100% the game in around three or so hours. One thing I do really love is the soundtrack that feels ripped from the ska-era of the time and is a DLC that you can pick up for a couple of bucks. I hope it gets a limited vinyl release sometime down the line.
There’s not a lot to complain about for the $10 the game is asking for, and if you can grab it on a sale you’ll be scoring an incredibly deal. This is an easy recommendation for any arcade racer fan. And considering it’s October, there’s a good chance Parking Garage Rally Circuit makes a few best racing game of the year lists!
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