Rally Arcade Classicsis a fun ’90s-throwback racing game

Over the years, racing sims have come a long way. Gaming PCs and consoles have become more powerful, physics and tire models have become more accurate, and after COVID, it seems like nearly everyone has a sim rig setup at home. Sim racing has even become an accepted route into the world of real-life motorsport.

But what if you aren’t looking to become the next Max Verstappen? What if you miss the more carefree days of old, where the fidelity wasn’t quite so high, nor were the stakes? Rally Arcade Classics is worth a look.

Developed by NET2KGAMES, you might think of RAC as a spiritual successor to legendary titles like Sega Rally and Colin McRae Rally. Forget about the Nürburgring or even street circuits laid out in famous cities you might have visited; instead, this game is about point-to-point racing against the clock—mostly—across landscapes that long-time World Rally Championship fans will remember.

There’s Finland, with plenty of fast dirt roads, complete with crests that will launch your car into the air. Or the dusty, sinewy mountain roads of Greece. Catalyuna (in Spain) provides technical tarmac stages. And Monte Carlo combines tarmac, ice, snow, and challenging corners. But since this is rallying, each location is broken into a series of short stages. Oh, and some of them will be at night.

Then there are the cars. This is an indie game, not a AAA title, so there are no official OEM licenses here. But there are plenty of cars you’ll recognize from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. These comprise a mix of front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive machinery, some of them road cars and others heavily modified for rallying. You start off in the slowest of these, the Kopper, which is an off-brand Mini Cooper, a car that won a famous victory at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, despite being many, many horsepower down on the mostly RWD cars it beat.

The models of the cars, while not Gran Turismo 7-level, are close enough that you don’t really notice the Peugeot 205 is called the Paigot 5, or the Golf GTI now being the Wolf. The Betta is a Lancia Delta Integrale, the Fourtro is an Audi Quattro, and the Selicka is the Toyota Celica, but I must admit I’m not quite sure why the Subaru Imprezas are called the Imperial R and the MR Bang STI—answers in the comments if you know, please.