Two unrelated driving games that came out recently utilize an aesthetic I would call whimsical, though they are really not similar to each other. I haven’t played Art Of Rally or Inertial Drift yet, but I really appreciate the unique looks both of these new games are bringing to virtual driving.

For your context, here’s the trailer for Art Of Rally, which can be played on Windows, Mac or Linux computers:

And here’s the decidedly different, yet similarly atypical, Inertial Drift which plays on PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Windows computers:

I had to read the words Inertial Drift out loud to myself five times to confirm it’s not Initial D; the famous drift-racing anime which is clearly being invoked just a little bit here. I mean, there’s even an AE86 lookalike in a black-and-white paint job that looks a lot like a tofu delivery vehicle. But that doesn’t detract from my interest in the game.

What raised my eyebrows on both Inertial Drift and Art Of Rally is the non-standard stylings of both. The cartoonish game skin gives the imagery a fun and casual vibe that I really dig.

Looking at the trailers above might also have gamers around my age thinking back about Auto Modellista, a PlayStation 2 title that looked like a cartoon too. OK, fine, let’s revisit that one real quick:

Squee!

My favorite car games use realistic vehicles and arcadey physics, but now that there seems to be a new-crop of cartoony car games I’m clearly going to have to rethink those preferences. I love the retro energy here, and I’m looking forward to reading the comments on this blog because I’m sure I’ll learn about even more games like this I haven’t heard about.