Virage Rally (2020) - Every PC Rally Game
0Virage Rally by Eyraud Software, 2020.
This is a small, independent rally game. Featuring procedurally generated stages, it comes with a Single Rally and Championship mode, and a wide range of setup changes you can make to your car.
Content-wise it is a bit slim; 3 cars of differing specs (all look quite like a Skoda Fabia) and 5 locations (Finland, Sweden, Australia, Spain and Wales), plus a "Suspension testing facility" (really just rally stages that are full of jumps!)
Handling is rather tricky to get right (and set up; I went for 360 degrees on my wheel settings before playing the game). Force feedback sometimes seems to stop working after a few stages.
Graphics are okay; they've made the procedurally generated stage from not many blocks, meaning some stages feel extremely repetitive. A "tea tray" style background sits under the track elements, so it can feel like stages are floating in the air sometimes (but it's a neat enough way to fill out the far sides/distance). There's a blur effect when you're travelling towards the sun, which feels like you suddenly need to wear glasses! There is time-of-day, but it's not settable, meaning that the night stages will always appear in a rally at the same point in the rally.
Sound is pretty average; the co-driver gets very repetitive, and sometimes mis-calls corners a bit, so you can end up taking them too fast. There is an in-game slider for his "optimism" though, not sure if that translates to accuracy or not!
You can't damage your car, so accidents just slow you down. There's meant to be jump starts, but in practice it just appears that the timer starts later, meaning you can be some way down the stage before it begins! Also there's no punishment for pressing the reset-to-track key, so that can make offs much quicker to recover from. It's not an easy game though, I never made it higher than last place in each stage!
This is part of the Every PC Rally Game playlist, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYDobL0b26ugFuXASCIC9qmFb9_k4_fqU