WRC: World Rally Championship

It’s not often that I start a game thinking it’s awful before growing to love it anyways, but the first WRC game was certainly one of those. Can’t say having Monte Carlo as the first stage in the championship really helps with this feeling. Before I bothered to get a feel for the game’s touchy handling, I’m already flinging my car around the icy tarmac and hoping for the best. By the time I got to the last rally in the game (there are 14 of them!), I had a far better understanding of how the car was jerking around. Let it be known that graphics and visuals aren’t everything. A good framerate helps, though beyond that, these environments are simple. The car models aren’t breathtaking either, though I usually drive with hood-cam anyways, so that doesn’t matter to me much. The third person cam is loose and bumbly, which you are not going to want for a precise rally racing experience. If I had to play through this with the third person cam only, I would seriously drop this down to a 6/10. Thankfully, WRC has a good interior cam.

While you don’t have much variety in cars to choose from, you get all the rally stages you could ask for. I had much fun flying through all of these. WRC has a good sense of speed without much punishment to counteract it. At worst, you fly off the road, but this is the kind of game that lets you ping pong off the walls. Nothing in this game will blow your mind, but it’s a good amount of fun.