Street Rally

StreetRally plays as a top-down checkpoint racer where players complete challenges across a variety of tracks loosely based on real-world locations, including Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Rome and, erm, Newcastle - not what you’d call a prime video game location unless you count the original Driver’s hidden level set in the developer's hometown of Newcastle, but we’re certainly not complaining when it’s such a rarity for the UK to be honoured as a video game location.

Each setting features 12 challenges to complete and unlock, and there’s a strong variety of events to avoid repetition – one minute you’re in a high stakes race against a rival, the next you’re performing extended drifts in special stunt events.

In addition, Skill Tracks provide precision driving tasks where you must stay on the marked line throughout the course of the track while avoiding conveniently placed barriers and cones, and a few police chases are thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile, you’re constantly trying to set the best possible lap time to earn a spot on the leaderboard.

StreetRally wasn’t originally intended to be quite as broad, however. “At first we planned to make a simple drifting game in the new version of flash but then the concept got bigger - we generated new ideas and started adding new features step by step up to create the version we have live now,” Martin explains. “The main idea was to create a game that was realistic, fun to play and different from the other racing games.”

We particularly like the track designs - while they’re not particularly long, there are plenty of twisting turns and surprise sharp corners that require skill and concentration, and the urban street locations mean you’ll often find yourself navigating through treacherous narrow parks and careening across beaches. A future snow track is also confirmed to be in the works, as is a new location based in India.




It all adds to the challenge, which is one of StreetRally’s best attributes – you get a sure sense of accomplishment if you can successfully navigate a track without bumping into a wall, and the AI opponents are often tough to beat, though it can be frustrating when you lose a race because of a time penalty inflicted by missing a checkpoint, even if you beat your opponents.

While the cars will experience mechanical damage which affects your performance and can be repaired, there isn’t any visual damage to speak of, disappointingly, which is particularly apparent during StreetRally’s road rage events where the objective is to repeatedly ram a target car. Martin confirms that cosmetic damage is a future possibility, however.

Twenty cars are currently available in StreetRally spanning a variety of classes that are designed to look similar to their real life counterparts, from modest superminis such as the Fiat 500 and Chevrolet Aveo to more beefy beasts such as a Dodge Charger and Ford Mustang, to plucky hatchbacks like the Volkswagen Scirocco and Alfa Romeo MiTO. Cars influenced by the Japanese designs of the Mitsubishi Lancer, Subaru Impreza and Nissan GTR are also being prepared to roll off the assembly line next month.

Twenty cars may seem a little light, but the developers are endevouring to add more to the rosta soon – “We have been concentrating on developing the game and to test the boundaries of what can be done in Flash, so because of that have had to set some priorities. Now though we have resources to continuously start bringing in new cars to the game”, says Martin.

Remaining cars are unlocked by accumulating credits from race wins, an aspect which Martin describes as one of the biggest challenges to implement into StreetRally. “We had many meetings about how to keep the earning and spending of coins in balance for all players. We didn’t want to end up in a situation where everyone has too many coins and doesn’t have an idea what to do with them, or too few coins in which case they won’t advance quickly enough to stay interested.”


Every car you own can also be heavily customised in StreetRally's garage. There’s a satisfyingly vast array of tuning options, comprising of new engines, suspension, transmissions, brakes, exhausts and tires as well as nitrous branded by Nitrous Express, along with a slew of paint options. New features such as vinyls, new rims, spoilers, wings and sideskirts are also on the list to be added, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a Forza-esque marketplace that allows you to sell custom cars to other players, considering StreetRally is built with social networking in mind.


Adding to StreetRally’s challenge is the decidedly drifty, weighty handling. While the cars may seem a tad erratic at times, StreetRally’s car physics make powersliding round corners an absolute joy once you master it, leaving the track completely shrouded in skid marks. And if it proves to be too daunting to the casual player, a flick of the traction control will soon keep you on course.

According to Martin, finding the right balance between arcade accessibility and realism was a hefty challenge as the developers went to great lengths to perfect the handling model: “The goal was to make it as realistic as possible but at first it made it very difficult to drive the car. We then modified every parameter slightly to make the cars driveable. These modifications are also in use now.”


“We considered many parameters when developing the car handling such as rolling resistance, air resistance, braking, torque, car and tyre dimensions and weight, weight distribution, transmission efficiency, gear ratios, drive axle, etc.”

While the cars may not look quite as dazzling as the well-rendered showroom models imply when viewed in-game, StreetRally certainly looks impressive for a Facebook flash game. Granted, there are graphically superior browser-based racing games available to play online elsewhere in 3D, but for a 2D racing game StreetRally looks the part, thanks to its vibrant visuals and detailed environments.





Been playing this today and it's surprisingly deep and addictive and it has more modes than most console racers!

reminds me of the old gta of old

Looks good but I refuse to play games on FB as they can become obsessively addictive given half a chance lol

N1NJA FWG wrote:Looks good but I refuse to play games on FB as they can become obsessively addictive given half a chance lol

I tend to agree with you there mate, titles like Farmville etc have really pulled in the casual crowd with that "just one more" approach, this I feel is different though, it doesn't hanker you to purchase FB credits or anything like that and your free to just quit whenever safe in the knowledge that it's all saved up to the point when you left that page. I've only been doing 2 or 3 races at a time and that's more than enough...