Parking Garage Rally Circuit Review (Aaron fo' shizzle my peep)
TL;DR - Game feels similar to drifting in Mario Kart. Took me 3 hours to 100% the game. Game would benefit from more cars and tracks in a future update. Multiplayer works fine. Runs perfectly on Steam Deck.
-----------
I love rally racing and I'm a fan of old-school graphics, like PS1 games, so I've been anticipating this game's release.
The gameplay is similar to Mario Kart drifting, so if you've played lots of Mario Kart, this should be easy to pick up and play. There are a few little nuances and tricks that you have to figure out while playing. For example, drifting kind of magnetizes you to the ground, so drifting up a ramp is incredibly useful to prevent you from flying into outerspace.
In terms of content, there isn't a whole lot. I unlocked and played through all of the content, 8 courses x 3 cars = 24 races, in 3 hours. All the achievements are reasonable and easy to earn, and that's how I like my video game achievements. In total, I earned all 15 of them also in about 3 hours.
Multiplayer seems to work flawlessly. The actual gameplay of multiplayer doesn't differ from single player since in both instances you are racing "ghosts" of your opponents (multiplayer is actually real-time, but there's no collision). I had a really funny moment in a lobby where I was racing and an opponent flew through the air and dive bombed me like an airstrike, which made me laugh for a good 5 minutes straight. There's a replay tool that I made good use of to record that.
I played all 3.4 hours at the time of this review on my steam deck. Works perfectly on deck and I never ran into any issues. In the near future, the steam deck compatibility on the store's page will probably change from "unknown" to "verified".
I don't know if the developer has any more plans for this game, but I personally would enjoy a content update. Maybe more tracks and more cars, because the game is limited in that regard. What I would really love is a level editor, but that's too much to ask for and would take a lot of work.
This is a well-made little game and I'm glad I wasn't disappointed because I've had it sitting in my wishlist for awhile waiting for it to come out. I think it's priced fairly in my region (10 USD) and I bought it for 15% off at launch.