Wow, the WRC series has certainly had a chequered history. A disappointing debut was followed by an awful sequel, but thankfully things got a lot better with #3 which was followed by last year’s excellent WRC 4 (not a popular choice, but it was one of my games of the year).
From my first quick drive it’s clear that they’ve been busy tweaking the handling again for WRC:RE. The cars (again) look superb, as we should rightfully expect them to, and the WRC series’ trademark expansive landscapes look more detailed than ever – and unless you’ve played every game in the series like I have, what probably won’t strike you instantly is that the pop-up (scenery building up in front of you) has all but gone – you can look and look but instances are as rare as rocking horse poo. As before from my preferred in-car view there’s an excellent sensation of speed and involvement, and this year’s stages have more trackside detail and realism modelled in than ever before – it’s hard to believe the improvement in the detail level if you saw the original WRC’s panoramic but pitifully sparse tracks. Locations not only capture the character, the look and even the colouring and lighting of the real thing, but also have the screen so full of trees, bushes, rocks, buildings and animated spectators (including nutters who lean out to take flash photos and duck in at the last moment), realistic junctions and surface changes going on that I’d go as far as to say that watching a WRC:RE replay is as close to watching real TV footage as you’ll come on this generation of consoles.
WRC:RE has an excellent, clutter-free in-car view, with a raindrop/wiper effect that is simply the best yet (there are full screen, bonnet cam and two chase cams also). As you’d expect the cars damage and dirty-up realistically, churn up dust and mud, and despite the flora looking butt-ugly close up, the overall effect as you zoom by is excellent. As you travel the world’s backroads and forest tracks the lighting looks nice too, with a real contrast between the locations. The watersplash effect, has also been improved, but the flat, unconvincing water needs to be viewed from “a certain distance” or it looks like flowing concrete. You won’t want to stray too far off the beaten track either, as the textures get seriously ugly not too far from the edge of the track – mind you, Evolution seem to have narrowed the allowed driving area down so much that you can’t stray far from the track anymore, even if you want to; there are no invisible walls either, you just get reset to the stage without warning, even when you’re heading back towards the track after a wild moment – this would seem to be a complete change in direction from the early ethos of the early WRC games and can be annoying...
But as I said, it’s the handling and physics where WRC has changed most noticeably this year. Last year’s delightfully predictable handling has gone, replaced by a noticeably lighter, more demanding set of physics that you’re either going to love or hate. It’s the arse end of the cars that feels most different, and whilst the gravity of the game feels right most of the time, there are occasional strange and unconvincing reactions to trackside slopes. If you take to the air too often or hurtle into a corner too fast then the tail of the car will slide convincingly, often resulting in a spin that not even instant counter-steering can correct. Now if you ever driven offroad (or just watched a lot of rallying on TV) then you’ll know this unpredictability is realistic, but it can still be infuriating when you think you’ve caught a slide, only for the pendulum effect to keep the tail swinging round long after you feel like you’ve got things under control. What this new aspect to the handling does is one of two things, it A) pisses you off so much that you rip WRC:RE from the PS2 and go play WRC 4 or McRae instead, or B) you listen more carefully to the co-driver’s excellent pace notes as driving to these and not over-doing it will result in stage wins and fewer spins.
Other handling aspects seem to have been tweaked too, with more responsive handbraking (possibly due to the lighter rear end) and livelier engine characteristics. Many of the cars are capable of 130mph+, and no longer struggle and bog down on slopes or rough ground. Last year the cars almost came grinding to a halt on some steep slopes or when going through water splashes, but now you can fly up or through them just as fast as you feel you should be able to. Car damage also seems to be a little more evident, and with some new narrower stages getting to the end with an un-bent car is a real challenge – on many of them you can feel justifiably proud. As usual with the WRC games, tune up and damage repair options are kept as simple as possible, with auto-repair options and advised setups (although you can fiddle and tweak till your heart’s content if you want with custom setups, some of which will make a significant difference to your chances, but it’s down to you to find out what’s really best, and only hours of practice will discover that).
One new feature this year is an element of unpredictability. Now, whenever you tackle any of the game's stages, you’ll often face random 'interactive events' – which basically means there could be obstacles on the track. These can range from opponents' knackered vehicles (complete with marshals and bemused looking driver and co-driver standing in the road) to slower cars limping home, rock falls rolling onto the track, waterfalls splashing, fires, burst pipes and a selection of local wildlife nipping across the road in front of you. These events tend to be more distracting than anything, but rock falls or wrecked vehicles are unforgivingly hard if you hit them.
The main WRC Championship season gives you the thrill of all the 16 WRC locations on 5 continents, but this year the number of stages has been cut down significantly, to only three per country – plus a rallycross circuit that doubles as a ‘shakedown’ test track. This might seem like a backward step, but some of last year’s stages were a bit long and monotonous and the reduction in stage numbers is indicative of a generally fitter, leaner game that even has better options screens and menus, and is definitely more enjoyable as a result.
Miles completed in time trials or championships equate to points that can go to unlocking extra cars, stages, cheats and extras, including some brand new prototypes and concept cars not seen in a computer game before. When competing in a championship there’s a new ‘Novice’ difficulty level - ‘Professional’ setting is still pretty tough to start off with – you soon learn to pay close attention to the co-driver’s pace notes, and you won’t do very well if you’ve a lead foot.
The ‘Expert’ setting is just that, for devotee petrol-heads only, where not only do you have to be error-free, but bloody quick with it just to compete in the top five. Driving aids in the form of adjustable levels of steering assistance, traction control and brake assist means that you can make the game just about as easy or hard as you like, but I’m not sure I like slider gauge-difficulty setting so I just turned the lot off. This feature does mean that now you can play with your hopeless mate (we all have one) and he has a chance though, so maybe it’s a good idea in that respect (brake assist when full ‘on’ will even apply the brakes slightly if the car is going too fast). The semi-automatic gearbox works better than ever before, and keeps a lazy, normally ‘manual’ driver involved by allowing you to short-shift and down shift early too. Thankfully once again WRC:RE has LOADS of super fast sections rather than mile after mile of left-right-left-right blind crest rubbish, and the tweaked game engine gives an even better sensation of speed. 130 mph really feels fast. Very fast.
The Super 1600 Championship feels like a beginners class and it seems a lot easier than the WRC in every respect – the cars’ handling is forgiving and they’re easy to keep on the road, the opposition doesn’t seem to be up to much either. As previously with the WRC games, win bonuses allow you to unlock new cars from each category - WRC, Extreme, Independents and Super 1600. You can also drive against 3 other cars in a rather underdeveloped-feeling rallycross mode. This year’s other new addition is a selection of the Group ‘B’ supercars of the 80s (Metro 6R4, Ford RS200, Peugeot 205 T16, Audi Quattro S1 etc) that they seem to have stolen from the Colin McRae games, but as the suits at Codemasters went mad and decided to not make a rally game this year we’ll forgive this particular grand theft auto... These 500-600bhp machines are totally insane, but great fun nonetheless.
You can play up to 4 player in a proper ‘take-turns’ championship (although there’s an annoying bug in here that means that the first driver always goes first, and is always the only one to get the 'interactive events' happen to him). If you have a network adapter the online time trials are a nice diversion too, but the fact that you can only use what you’ve unlocked offline, a lack of voice communications (txt chat only) and no collisions (more jellymould racing), once again WRC online is a bit disappointing, especially after the wonders of F1 ’05.
Every rally game need good pace notes, and WRC:RE’s are just about perfect – you can even alter the timing of when the co-driver calls them out. The irritating twerp from last year has been given the sack, and now our team mate seems a lot more involved, encouraging you before the start, making comments during the stages and congratulating or commiserating at the end. He does seem a little over-cautious at times though, and we had a Gamecell competition to see who could make him yell “Are you trying to kill us?!!” the most times during a stage (without actually crashing of course). He also calls out corners in the more logical way to me now (a la Nicky Grist in the McRae games), meaning that a ‘6 left’ is a really fast corner rather than a painfully slow one. Another nice touch is the way that the on-screen help arrows are done in the style of a co-driver’s hand-drawn ring binder notes. There’s also a new damage gauge, but all the damage is so obvious (in the way it affects the car's handling or performance, or just the squeaky, graunchy noises it makes) that this would seem to be a needlessly arcadey addition.
The usual lovely replays (saveable to memory card) look great and show off the nicely modelled cars with some spectacularly realistic camera work and positioning – dynamic weather, rain, mud splatters and dust never looked better on PS2. WRC:RE has come a long way, both virtually and literally, and ends up being probably the benchmark rally game of the generation. When you consider the mighty competition, Evolution Studios deserve much kudos for that, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with on PS3.
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