Gear.Club Unlimited 2 - Ultimate Edition (2021) - Every PC Rally Game
9Gear.Club Unlimited 2 - Ultimate Edition by Eden Games/Microids, 2021.
A port of the Nintendo Switch road racing game, from the developers of Test Drive Unlimited.
The game includes a Mini and Ford Focus that can have "Rally Monster" parts added, as well as rally customisations. Technically these are just road cars with bits stuck on, but it's rally enough for inclusion in this playlist! One issue is that these are lower category cars, so can't be used in higher up/later races. Note: I hacked money in the game, in order to upgrade cars quickly, or it can take a long time! It is possible to apply vinyls/designs to the cars, but I kept them simple here.
There are a selection of off-road tracks amongst the various themed road racing locations, which can be raced in a number of modes, including race, knockout and time trial (with ghosts, as seen at the start of this video). There's no weather as such, apart from fog. The map connects lots of locations, then circuits are formed from bits of the road network.
Initially I saw this as a graphically imperfect basic racing game (although sometimes it looks rather nice), but playing it more it is actually quite fun, if rather repetitive. It reminds me (on occasion) of Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, early V-Rally titles and maybe Asphalt Xtreme.
Music gets repetitive (a small selection of rock and electronic tunes). Sound is okay, and there's a cartoon storyline linking events. You can also custom design your garage, but it just slows down setting up your car, watching crude animations of (for instance) a gearbox being changed by a robot arm yanking an object through the car!
This is part of the Every PC Rally Game playlist, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYDobL0b26ugFuXASCIC9qmFb9_k4_fqU