Parking Garage Rally Circuit is a tightly-designed shot of drifting, PS1-era graphics, and ska music straight to the veins

GamesRacingParking Garage Rally Circuit is a tightly-designed shot of drifting, PS1-era graphics, and ska music straight to the veinsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

A rally car hitting a sick drift in Parking Garage Rally Circuit.

I didn’t have my expectations set too highly forParking Garage Rally Circuitgoing in. I like the PS1 (or, as the Steam page invokes, Sega Saturn) style of graphics a lot. I find them charming, nostalgic, and pleasing to the eye. But it’s also very fashionable at the moment, which means there’s no guarantee that a game using them is going to be interesting.

I’m pleased to report that Parking Garage Rally Circuit (which I’m gonna start calling PGRC for my own sanity) is, however, really quite good. It’s a very stripped-down racing experience: there’s eight tracks, each of which you can go through three times via the three weight classes of car you can unlock. You have an accelerate button, a brake button, and a drift button. That’s the game.

The meat, which I was starting to feel even after just an hour of blasting through it, comes in how you use those tools. You nudge left or right and push your drift button to start drifting. Then, you can choose between one of three options—turn inwards for a sharper turn, turn outwards for a larger turn, or let ska take the wheel (the game has a ska soundtrack) and don’t turn either way. There’s a little bit of leeway, so you can adjust mid-drift if you’d like.

PGRC then dangles a carrot on a stick in front of you—see, if you keep a drift going for long enough, you gain a speed boost. A little longer, and you’ll get a bigger jump to your MPH. Chain these powered-up drifts together, and you startflying.Sometimes literally, as your car starts dangerously yeeting itself off every slope like it’s a ramp.

Image1of5(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

Image1of5

(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

Various screenshots from Parking Garage Rally Circuit, showing off gameplay, available cars, and environments.

(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

Various screenshots from Parking Garage Rally Circuit, showing off gameplay, available cars, and environments.

(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

Various screenshots from Parking Garage Rally Circuit, showing off gameplay, available cars, and environments.

(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

Various screenshots from Parking Garage Rally Circuit, showing off gameplay, available cars, and environments.

(Image credit: Walaber Entertainment LLC)

Various screenshots from Parking Garage Rally Circuit, showing off gameplay, available cars, and environments.

While the game has multiplayer lobbies, I wasn’t able to find a game, and given the scope of PGRC I wouldn’t hold out hope for a massive competitive scene—but it’s there if you want to race your friends. Instead, you’ll likely be trying to get gold on every track, as the single-player campaign has you racing ghosts rather than other cars.

One feature which I do think is very clever is that, if you get gold, the game will automatically save your run to a leaderboard. The next time you boot up that track, PGRC will download the replay of the personjustahead of you on that leaderboard, which means that, theoretically, you have an infinite number of phantom opponents to race until you’re the very best at that particular circuit.

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The only real complaint is the whole parking garage theme. While the game does a good job of swapping things up—making you dodge snow ploughs, throwing debris from Mt. Rushmore at you, and a cute ode to Rainbow Road—parking garages aren’t exactly the most exciting visual. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I wouldn’t have hated a forest or two.

There’s not much else to say about PGRC, and I don’t think it’s a game that’ll keep you busy for hours upon hours—but at a price point of $10/£8.50 (less with the introductory offer) it doesn’t have to be.Parking Garage Rally Circuit is out now.

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