Rush Rally Origins is a lot of things. It’s a remake of a ten-year old iOS game, the latest in a long line, and very solid port that will have you questioning whether graphics actually matter. The once mobile is now out on PC via Steam thanks two-man developer team at Brownmonster Limited. Its price tag is nestled nicely in the sweet spot for purchases, and the abundance and depth of content cannot be overstated. There’s so much to play and replay. Rush Rally Origins will have you experience a bygone era of racers with renewed enthusiasm.
Rush Rally Origins goes back to basics for its presentation and design. From the start you’ll have your choice of using a retro isometric camera that rotates as you traverse a track, or helicopter chase that’s behind the car at all times. Both are from a top-down view, and equally capture the nostalgia of rally racers from generations gone by. Now, it’s hard not to make comparisons to art of rally, but they’re aesthetically doing different things. Rush Rally Origins goes for a more realistic approach that helps set it apart from the rest.
Three modes make-up the single-player offering. Championship is probably where you’ll spend most of your time, competing in series of levels known as stages to have the fastest time at the end of it all. Time Trial is the stages minus the championship points aspect. And Race actually puts you on a point-to-point track with other drivers in a mad dash to be the first across the line. All of these modes are great, and offer opportunities to earn medals, gold through bronze across each. There’s a Multiplayer component to the game that offers the fourth and final mode. You can play local or online, and while the player pool is shallow, can be a blast when populated.
As you race, you’ll earn points that can be spent on upgrades to your favorite vehicles. There’s opportunities to find a car you like, and stick with that for the duration of the game. You can start off with the D class vehicles, and if you spend enough time with it, can upgrade it to the B class. I really like how the upgrade system works, albeit a simple one, it is easy to understand where everything is going. Since you will be driving, having the unlock criteria not only for new cars but upgrade points be based on miles driven, just makes sense.
Admittedly the handling takes some getting used to, as it strives for realism over arcade. With different surface types like mud, gravel, snow, dirt, and tarmac, there’s lots of surprises to be had as you transition between types or have to deal with a downpour or snowstorm while racing. There’s 36 unique stages to race on, sometimes during the day or night, and each with their own weather. It’s unfortunate you can’t select the exact type of stage and conditions you want, but that’s hardly a problem. Any control concerns you have on any given course is almost always fixed by upgrades. Starting vehicles just don’t control great, but it won’t be long before you’re blazing through S-curves without hesitation.
While Rush Rally Origins is good game, I found it a little hard on the eyes. Like hurts to play at times. Now I do have a field of view sensitivity, but that wasn’t the case here, as far as I could tell. I just couldn’t find myself playing more than an hour at a time because of either the extremely high framerate, or way the game is rendered. I only say this as a word of caution, this may be a non-issue for most. It’s not that this game is visually unimpressive, because it has a really strong art style and look to it, so much so that it’s very retro and feels of another era.
It wouldn’t be a rally game if you didn’t have a co-driver giving you information for what to do ahead. What Rush Rally Origins does different is instead of placing HUD elements to indicate turns or hairpins, actually puts them on the track themselves. It’s so clever, I wouldn’t be surprised if I see this used in other games going forward. Another smart design choice, was that the UI colors match the mode you’re in. For instance, you’ll have yellow outlines on everything for the UI when in a Championship, and blue outlines for the Race mode. The little details is where this game excels the most.
Rush Rally Origins shows its roots in rally games of yesteryear while also bringing modernization to the table. I found that neither camera view made it easier to play for long periods, I still was compelled to come back regularly. I had an absolute blast while playing, and continue to do. There’s a ridiculous amount of content to be found here, that play sessions could be as little as a few minutes or whole hours at a time. I look forward to the developer bringing their traditional and mainline rally games to PC and consoles. Rush Rally Origins embraces its origins to be an accessible, dense, and just plain good rally racer.
A Steam code was provided by the publisher for review purposes
