Parking Garage Rally Circuit Preview

Parking Garage Rally Circuit is very different from other racing titles that I have previously challenged. There is no story here, your concentration is on racing, and not even against other vehicles! you are instead focusing on your own personal best track time, and racing against your ghost from your previous best run to get a time that will earn you the bronze, silver, or gold medal to advance.

Upon starting the game, you will select between four different visual settings: Original Hardware, 4:3 display, 30 FPS, and Pixel Perfect with CRT Scanlines on; Modern Emulator, 16:9 60 FPS Pixel Perfect with CRT Scanlines; Modern Handheld, 16:10 60 FPS Fill Space (Fractional) with CRT Scanlines; and finally PC Port, 16:9 Unlimited FPS Fill Space and the only one with CRT Scanlines off. When it is set to look like a title on original hardware, the visuals aren't as crisp and clear as the later settings are so they feel more retro. Whereas the PC Port is a newer game trying to emulate what a classic game looks like but with improvements to the visuals, ditching the scanlines from older TVs.

There are two different modes to play: Single, where you are challenging yourself to get the fastest time you can, or Online Multiplayer, where you create your own lobby or join an existing one to race up to eight other opponents. Before you jump into the races, you can head to the options menu to change which units are used in the game: metric (km/h) or imperial (mph). You are also able to select your ghost car type, where you select if you race against your own best time, battle against the trophy rival closest to your time — chances are that in the beginning it will be the car that has the time for the bronze trophy, then you work your way up, or you have the option to race against all three of the trophy rivals.
Once a mode has been selected, you will need to customise your vehicle. You start off driving a light vehicle; to upgrade to Heavy and Ultra, you need to complete all the tracks in the previous weight class. You will select your livery between spots, one large racing stripe of several smaller ones with seven two-tone paint combinations like white and blue, red and grey, or light and dark pink. Your lucky number will be posted on the sides of your car, and you're ready to race.

Well, you are almost ready to hit the track. Before that happens, you will watch a training video that will show you how to drive your car and how to drift properly around the track. You will have the opportunity to test out the skills you have acquired in the Learning Garage. Here, you can try out the race and endurance modes. Endurance has you completing multiple laps trying to get your score on the leaderboard. In the race mode, your goal is to unlock additional tracks by surpassing the current trophy times. You start off at Mt. Rushmore, followed by San Francisco, Seattle Airport, New Orleans Stadium, Chicago Marina, Minnesota Mega Mall, and finally Liberty Mall. To unlock the track after the current one you are playing, you must place third or better. Unless your time is in the top three, you must repeat the course until you reach the race time you need.

The controls are quite easy to learn; as per my usual playing style, I opted for a controller. To accelerate, it was the right trigger; brake/reverse was the left trigger; steer with the left thumbstick; and to start your drift, hit the left face button. For a wider drift, steer in the opposite direction, and whenever you make a clean drift, you will get a boost of speed. The drifting feels very good in Parking Garage Rally Circuit; it actually reminds me a lot of drifting in the Mario Kart games, so if you are familiar with that, you will have no issues figuring out how it works here. Once you finish your run and meet the required time, you can proceed to the next track. If you haven’t been able to, retry the race or view a replay of your run to see where it went poorly and what can be improved.

All the tracks that you race are set in parkades, so they are full of parked vans, trucks, station wagons, and sports cars. The vehicles in the parkade vary between four different colours, like orange, cream, white, and grey, depending on the colour of the vehicle you are driving. This significantly distinguishes your car from others, particularly when you make a wide turn or collide with a barrier, causing them to shift and no longer remain in their original position.

The first few tracks have a pretty simple layout, so it was straightforward to find out where you needed to go next, but as you progress, the difficulty ramps up. The first course that I had difficulty with was the Seattle Airport. It is so confusing to race in; there are so many turns, a lot of them that are incredibly sharp and that require you to totally go in the opposite direction. It is incredibly easy to get lost in! Any barriers or vehicles you bump into or hit remain in place, ready to obstruct your path for the next lap. Some of these later tracks will take a few playthroughs so that you can learn the layout and build the muscle memory required to improve your times and progress to the next track.

Man, I thought that last one was challenging. When you get to New Orleans Stadium, there is a thunderstorm, and the power goes out on the second lap, so the only light you have is your headlights. This makes the yellowish-green barriers, which have arrows painted on them showing you which direction to go, difficult to see, and it’s hard not to crash into them when you need to do a super sharp turn. It can be tricky to stay on the course and not get lost so you can find the next checkpoint. If you get off the path and are totally lost, hit the top face button to be reset back where you should be so you can continue towards the next checkpoint.

The visuals in Parking Garage Rally Circuit make me feel like I’m playing a cleaned-up version of an old console game from years ago. It has vibrant colours and cool-looking parking garage courses to race through. The music that accompanies it is very upbeat and fits well with the fast-based action of this racing game, where your main goal is to go as fast as possible!

Parking Garage Rally Circuit is an incredibly fun and addictive game. I never expected to find a game with such smooth controls and tracks that I had to play it again and again. Trying to place as high as I could on the leaderboard was great, and I can’t wait until my friends get to try it out so that we can see who the better racer is. If you enjoy racing games where your biggest rival is yourself and you are constantly improving your own run times, this is a game you will want to check out. I never realised how much fun it can be to race by yourself without having to worry about your opponent's cars smashing into you.