#Drive Rally is an arcade racer with forgiving physics out in Early Access now

rockpapershotgun.com:

I don't know why it's throwback racing game Christmas, but it is. Parking Garage Rally Circuit came out September 20th, Golden Lap is out tomorrow, Victory Heat Rally is out October 3rd, and today - today brings the Steam Early Access release of #Drive Rally, an unfortunately hashtagged arcade racer trying to recapture the "spirit of the 90s".

Ed enjoyed the demo earlier this year, and having briefly played this Early Access release I second his comments about the handling. It's forgiving, with every car I tried having a considerable amount of grip and a short brake distance. It's nice to press the accelerator and not immediately wrap every car around a tree.

This first release already contains plenty of environments to drive around - forest, swamp, slippy slidey ice world, desert - and each one is a large expanse that can then be carved into multiple tracks. Nature tourism is one of the biggest draws of rally racing to me, and I hope at least one of these tracks has a mountain I can fall off.

The developers say they hope to keep Drive Rally in Early Access for a year, with new content and balance adjustments made based on feedback. "This includes the addition of new cars to expand our garage, new maps and tracks to race on, new Co-Pilots to drive with, and additional car customization parts and items," according to the Steam page. Based on my short time with it, co-pilots definitely need some work. They're a throwback to the '90s in multiple ways in that the advice they give you is borderline unhelpful and they occassionally chime in with some mean comment about your driving delivered in a stereotypical accent of some sort.

If you fancy checking out its blocky, cel-shaded cars for yourself, it's available from Steam now.