Rush Rally Origins - Top Down 80s/90s Rallying

Rush Rally Origins (1).jpg
Rush Rally Origins hits the Steam store this week (Friday 15/04/2022) and it’s a great top down racing game based on 80s/90s rallying.

This is the fourth game in the Rush Rally series and the first to land on PC. The first 2 games of the series were on Android and iOS, winning bronze and gold pocket gamer awards.

Rush Rally 3 was released with high praise on mobile devices and Nintendo Switch, winning a gold pocket gamer award too. Rush Rally 3 is still available for all three devices and has a reviewer rating of 4.7 on both the App Store and the Play Store.

The series comes from an indie developer - Brownmonster Games. The developer Stephen Brown has worked on various racing games over the years - Colin McRae Dirt2, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, GTi Club+, F1 2009, Split Second, MotoGP 10/11, and Sonic Racing Transformed. Stephen was also the lead vehicle programmer for Crackdown 3.

Rush Rally Origins, which appeared in our games of 2022 article is already available for Android, iOS, and Switch - however, do not let that put you off. Rush Rally Origins is not a sim, the top down style should have been a give away, but this game has enough going on to be fun, rewarding, and challenging.

Gameplay​

We tested the game for a few hours with a Xbox controller and driving felt intuitive, trail-braking, lift off oversteer, and flicking the car one way and then the other to enter corners are all things that you can do. Rumble on the controller was excellent, translating the types of surface very well. There are multiple road surfaces in Rush Rally Origins - snow, gravel, dirt, mud, and tarmac.

There’s a lot going on underneath Rush Rally Origins, the game engine was developed by Brownmonster Games and runs a realistic tyre model based on the PaceJKA and brush models and runs at 360Hz.

Rush Rally Origins gameplay.jpg


When playing the game, there’s definitely a 90s feel to the way it has been out together. There’s the navigator’s voice that is reminiscent of Sega Rally, the music feels very 90s, and the way the game is structured feels very nostalgic.

A player can complete various stages of a rally, unlocking upgrade credits that can be used to upgrade various aspects of each car. Once upgrades have been made to a certain level, the category of the car is increased - starting from category D and going up to category A. Each upgrade unlocks new challenges and stronger AI.

There are no licensed cars in Rush Rally Origins, though they are all very familiar cars. There’s 13 cars in total and each car has its own characteristics and various ways to be driven.

Rush Rally Origins Cars.jpg


There’s plenty of tracks too, with 48 stages across Finland, Greece, Sweden, United Kingdom, Kenya, New Zealand, USA, and Japan. Each country brings new challenges, with characteristics specific to each location - for instance Japan has twisty, narrow mountain roads and Finland offers fast and smooth stages with plenty of jumps.

Rush Rally Origins Stages.jpg


Players can play against each other in real-time, either via a LAN connection of peer 2 peer through Steam and there are plans to allow this game to be cross platform!

As well as a cross platform multiplayer, there’s plans for weekly events, career mode, and additional content. Brownmonster Games has a community on Discord and Stephen pays close attention to ideas and comments about his games.

Future Developments​

Stephen hasn’t ruled out the possibility to mod Rush Rally Origins, he would love to do this, but also recognises this opens up a whole can of worms. He states that his community love that the leaderboards are fair and acknowledges that this could potentially be broken if he allows players to be able to tweak physics and make custom cars.

You can find the game on the Steam Store and also check it out on mobile if you’re looking for a racing game to play whilst out and about.
About author
Damian Reed
PC geek, gamer, content creator, and passionate sim racer.
I live life a 1/4 mile at a time, it takes me ages to get anywhere!

Comments

Fun, but strange mixed bag of effective yet perhaps too simple and lacking eye candy.
The devs are using their own engine and it shows, with a 120mb download the game is the stereotypical mobile port. You still have mobile control settings available, touch and tilt, and the graphics are functional, but basic. Same with sound and the feedback you get from the road - it all feels the same.

Don’t get me wrong I am having fun, but I’d have more fun with better graphics, sounds and rumble effects, I’d have more fun with more variety as the tracks don’t really seem to vary that much, with the odd narrower stage. You get slightly different scenery - mostly flags - snow, rain and night, but it does not matter that much.

No I am not an alien, with my ootb run playing with the Panda I am getting silver times unless I make a booboo - or extremely close to silver (I am amazed how often I have missed it by a fraction of a second - some curse).

I‘ve started the second stage of the USA rally and after that it is the last one - Japan. I can expect to see cherry blossom trees and probably hairpins.

You can buy this game for EUR 4,99 on IOS, probably same with Android, and that’s where I think this game belongs, at EUR 9,99 and below.

It is fun and I am curious about the other (more powerful) cars, but imo there is some unwarranted hype from the fans.
 
Finally got around to this - it's been a busy Easter so far.

I've got to say this drives way better than Art of Rally - I really feel connected with the car in this, unlike Art of Rally where the car tries to kill me everytime I want to make a small adjustment.

That said I think Art of Rally has the edge on physics, it's just that the controller implementation on AoR is terrible.

This is a really fun addictive little rally game. Certainly worth the buy in for me.
 
I've got to say this drives way better than Art of Rally - I really feel connected with the car in this, unlike Art of Rally where the car tries to kill me everytime I want to make a small adjustment.


That said I think Art of Rally has the edge on physics, it's just that the controller implementation on AoR is terrible.

This is a really fun addictive little rally game.

After playing these two games side by side I came to the same conclusion.
Rush is simple and fun, with predictable handling.
Art has an interesting visual style, challenging physics, but like you wrote earlier I find myself fighting the controls more than enjoying the ride. I have been tweaking the settings, but once a car feels ok, the other might be terrible. I guess it may be part of the challenge, but if so I do not enjoy it. Either I end up with too sensitive, or fighting the pendulum movement and sometimes the car breaks out for no obvious reason. At those times Art is a frustrating experience. I have bought a fresh controller in the hope that it will solve some of the sensitivity (old XBOXONE might be worn, new XBOX X might address that). I tried a wheel, but although more stable, this seems to be geared towards gamepads.

Only AoR suffers from this hyper sensitivity or unpredictable control, other top down and isometric racers (and other games do not).
 

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