This Saturn-era throwback racer is the most fun I've had on my Steam Deck in months

Most retro racing games have left me cold. This took me back to 1995.

Supposedly, actors use a particularly sad or poignant memory to help them show that emotion in a scene. I've never spoken to an actor, so I don't know if this is true, but if I was asked to summon the emotion of a man thinking back over a life that could have been, I'd only have to picture one thing: The SEGA Saturn.

While not as simple as this, the Saturn was a real turning point for SEGA and the console business as we know it today. It was the beginning (ish) of the end for SEGA as a platform holder, as a high price and development difficulties compared to Sony's PlayStation simply couldn't be overcome. And yet, here we are, 30 years later, and one of my favourite games of the year is a Saturn racing game, Parking Garage Rally Circuit. I didn't have that on my 2024 Bingo card.

I won't lie; it's the visuals that drew me to Parking Garage Racing Circuit. I saw a little video posted on Twitter and that was it. I loved it and was going to play it. Now I've played it, entirely on my Steam Deck, and I love it. To my eyes this is one of the best examples of the retro throwback era we've been in for a while now.

I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong and that the way the polygons or whatever are rendered wasn't possible on the SEGA Saturn because it had to draw them as 2D triangles or something, but I don't care. PGRC looks like a Saturn game, and it's marvellous. It's also immense fun to play.

Stripped back entirely of modern racing game trappings, what you've got here is a series of eight circuits changed slightly between three car categories: Light, Heavy, and Ultra. Each course has three pass times, the fastest awarding a gold medal, then silver, and finally bronze. Earn a medal and you'll unlock the next circuit, and once you've medaled all the courses with a car class you'll unlock the next class. This is entirely time-trial focused then, but that's what rally racing is all about - plus you'd struggle to get cars overtaking on some of the narrow paths you'll be screaming around.

It's like that bit from Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, but more old school. | Image credit: Walaber Entertainment

While the name of the game should serve as a warning, don't go into Parking Garage Rally Circuit hoping for expansive locations. The courses are set in places like Chicago and New Orleans, but you only see a glimpse of iconic scenery before heading into the multi-storey parking lots. It's also worth noting that the soundtrack goes harder than I expected, so make sure you turn that up to get some impeccable 90's vibes.

PGRC has some smart course designs and I absolutely adore the visuals (there are options to make the game appear as if it’s running on Saturn hardware or more modern machines, complete with differences in draw distance, resolution, and frame rate), but it's the drifting that meant I played nothing else in my evenings for a whole week. Press the drift button after turning and you're off, and as in the best arcade racers it just feels spot on. There's a high level of control from within the drift, plus a neat boost mechanic that can throw you out of a slide at high speed and also allows you to chain drifts to maintain high speeds.

Why's the boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark here? Who knows, but it's cool that it is. | Image credit: Walaber Entertainment

Parking Garage Rally Circuit is a simple game. The kind of game you'd have read a 60-word review of in Computer and Video Games magazine and that would have been enough. I've written a few more here, but most aren't necessary. If you feel the pull of the classic 90's arcade racing game but haven't been able to get your fix, PGRC is it. It's cheap and cheerful in the best possible way, just like games used to be.