Parking Garage Rally Circuit is an indie Arcade style racing game, made by Walaber Entertainment LLC in Godot, the game was released in 2024 for PC, I bought this game on sale for 12 Brazilians Reais which is about 2 Dollars, and as you can guess by the title I really enjoyed this game, and for how little I payed for it, it was a steal.
Gameplay
There's a tutorial at the start of the game, which is nice even if the gameplay of this game is extremely simple, You can accelerate the car when you press the right trigger, you break with the left trigger, tho I almost never use it I will explain why later, and you can use the e-break to start a drift with the X/Square button, and you can steer with the left analogue as you expect, if you have played a racing game before, you are already familiar with how this game plays, despite that there's something about this game that even after getting all the achievements of this game I still don't understand how this things work , like how you can launch start a race, I know you can start the race in already in fast speeds, instead of starting it at 0 KM, the golden ghost does that every race, but I never figured out how to do it, there were few races where I manege to boost start but it was pure luck, another thing that I never understood about this game is that the breaks sometimes don't work like you expect, especially in high speeds, which is the only moment in this game you would even want to use the break, when I press the break button the car will go faster or steer to another direction opposite of the one you want your car to be in, a really weird behavior I never saw a racing game where pressing the break button wouldn't always make your car slower.
The meta of this game and my main advice for anyone that wants to plays this game is to do as many drifts as you can because like Mario kart depending on how long that drift lasted you will gain a boost in you car, and if you chain drift with the bust, the car will become much faster, it's max speed will increase and the car will become so fast that you might even have a hard time maintaining it on the track.
but doing it will be essential to get gold times in after the first class of vehicle.
The handling model is very arcady, I don't know to what game I would compare to, besides saying it's extremely fun to play, another interesting thing about this game is it sense of speed, unlike other game driving a car at 60 KM feels really fast, the equivalent of driving at 200 KM in other games, and when you manege to get the car at 110 KM using drift chains, the car feels so fast that is scary, because your car could fly off at any moment. or go off tracks, this is probably because of the small driving space this game has and the visual effects that this game adds to the screen whenever you are above 60KM.
The single player structure is very simple and it took me 6 hours to beat it and get all the achievements, but you could finished this game in only one hour if you didn't feel like getting gold times in every level of the game.
the campaign structure is linear, the game has 8 tracks and 3 cars, every time you finish a race with at least bronze metal you can progress to the next race after beating all 8 tracks with a car you repeat the process with the newer faster car, do that 24 time and you beat the game.
Visuals
When you start the game it gives you some option on how the game should play, "OG version" where the game is 4:3 and low resolution emulation 1 by 1 the looks of a Sega Saturn game and the frame rate is limited to 30 FPS, console port where the game is 16:9 , the game is high res, has a 60 FPS frame cap some visual improvements this is the one I choose , handheld dive, where the game visuals is optimized for smaller screen like a steam deck and laptop with smaller screens, and PC port where the visual looks extremely sharp, with adjustable aspect ratio and uncap frame rate, either way I love how this game perfectly emulate the look of a Sega Saturn game, maybe if you are familiar with Sega Saturn game you could tell this isn't a Saturn game, but I am not familiar with it's library, the only thing that made it oblivious this couldn't run on a Sega Saturn is the amount of 3D objects in the background, as you can imagine by the name of this game it has a lot of game in the scenary, and I doubt it could render them in real time.
I love how every stage in this game is memorable and unique looking, it's hard to choose my favorite, I will highlight one of the nights stage were by the end of the first lap, a lighting strike will hit the stage and the lights will go out, so you have to drive in the dark for the rest of the race.
Music:
It fits well with the 90's vibe this game has, I like most music in this game expect 2, those 2 being the only music in the game with lyrics, They are corny and cringe worth , but that's was intentional, however that doesn't mean I disliked them any less.
Pros
- + Fun driving handling
- + High sense of speed
- + Great environment
- + Saturn like Graphics
Cons
- - Breaks don't work when you need the most
- - Cringe music
9
Gameplay
Trying to make your car go extremely fast in small racing environments while making insane is adrenaline inducing , it sounds as fun as it is to play
10
Graphics
It looks like a Sega Saturn game, that was the intention and the 100% accomplished that, bonus point for making the 3D models on Blender
10
Story
There isn't any, and I am not complain.
8
Sound
Even the bad music in this game doesn't feel out of place, in fact that cringe music feels right in place, I can appreciate that even if I don't like to hear it.
9
Replayability
The game is short on content , but with online and local MP, online leader-board and endurance mode and steam workshop support, if you really love this game you can play it for days
8
out of 10
Overall
This game is really cheap on steam even outside of sale, if you love arcade style racing game, you won't regret buying it
