Parking Garage Rally Circuit review – an addictive ’90s-inspired racer

22 September 2024 |

Gaming

I said at the end of my Concord article that the current triple-A malaise might push me to play more indie games, and it wasn’t an empty threat. Astro Bot was a surprise double-A hit, with a stripped-back scope and simple gameplay loop that made it feel like playing a retro game on PS5 steroids. Parking Garage Rally Circuit takes things a step further – it looks like a retro game, too!

Speed and control

While Walaber Entertainment’s official description says PGRC is meant to look like a Sega Saturn game, it still hits the spot for me as a PlayStation kid. The title screen demo mode, the waving chequered flag in the menu background, the music, and the countdown to the race start all nail that 1990s aesthetic.

As the name suggests, the game has you driving rally cars in parking garages. I initially thought I’d made a mistake buying it – the handling seemed simple to the point of boredom, there was no sense of speed, and the ghost cars all seemed to be miles ahead without any mistakes on my part.

Then I realised how important drifting is. Hold X (on a controller) as your car veers around a bend and your tyres will squeal – but more importantly, you’ll build up a charge that allows you to slingshot yourself with a speed boost on corner exit. Chain a few drifts together and suddenly you’ll be pushing 100mph.

After the first few levels, the circuits become more complex and you’ll need to memorise the course to know when to drift around blind corners. Each lap is a challenge in memory and split-second reactions to get – and stay – ahead. It’s an addictive experience more akin to a platformer than a racing game.

Touring the USA

There are eight circuits in total, themed around US cities from San Francisco to Boston. One of my favourites – albeit one of the most difficult to master – is the New York track, which features a jump over the crown of the Statue of Liberty. There’s plenty of variety, and some levels even mix things up with mid-race changes like rolling boulders or power cuts casting the track into darkness.

My only small gripe with the circuit layouts and handling model is how easy it is to roll the car or end up off-course. Sometimes this is your own fault, but it can be frustrating when your entire run is ruined because of a particularly sharp edge or a ramp that launches you into obstacles or beyond the track limits at the top.

To unlock the next circuit, you must achieve at least a bronze trophy by beating a target time. When you’ve done all eight, you’ll unlock the next car class, which is faster and heavier. At the end of all three classes (24 events in total), you’re done, and any additional challenge comes from chasing gold in previous events.

It took me two and a half hours to pass every race, but mastery would take much longer. When you earn a silver medal for a track, you also unlock Endurance mode, which is a checkpoint-based timed run. Again, I found battling against ghosts from the leaderboard to be extremely addictive – not least because this is a rare game where you have a chance at the global top spot if you get it right.

Simple but addictive

And that about sums it up. Parking Garage Rally Circuit is simple, short, sweet, and has enough depth in terms of medals and rankings to keep you playing well beyond your first run through its roster of events. I imagine this will fall into my rotation of fun little games to load up when I have 20 or 30 minutes to spare and don’t have the time to invest in a cinematic title with an elaborate story.

The graphics, the music, and the gameplay all do a convincing job of emulating console games of the 1990s, to a degree where I could easily mistake this for a long-forgotten title pulled from my PlayStation collection. If you’re the kind of person who gets pulled in by “just one more go” games that test your memory and reactions, you’ll easily recoup your investment over a few hours.

4/5