REVIEW

WRC 6 Review

by Ford James, October 24th, 2016

The officially licensed World Rally Championship games have always been second best to whichever competitor is about at the time, there’s no two ways about it. They’ve often lacked the finesse and technical precision that has made DiRT Rally the undisputed champion of rally games in 2016. In a somewhat surprising discovery though, WRC 6 has improved tenfold upon the rushed foundation that was WRC 5 and could actually be a worthy competitor to Codemasters’ superb rally sim.

Kylotonn Games have made it clear they’ve listened to community feedback this time around. One of the major changes is that the roads and courses are now considerably narrower to be more challenging and realistic, making it feel a lot more intense to play. The enclosed surroundings give a real sense of speed and adrenaline, while the tight corners and tricky bends add to the concept of danger. It’s always better to take corners too slowly, as taking them too quick with the idea of bouncing back off the wall means the car gets damaged very quickly.

Mainly in the career mode, damage limitation is absolutely vital to succeeding. You have a maximum of 45 minutes each day during each rally to tend to your cars repairs, so you need to prioritise the most important aspects if your car is too damaged to repair everything. Repairing between each race isn’t possible either; you can only repair at the start of each day, so it encourages you to not be too rash on the first race of each day in case you damage your car so much its affected performance wise for the later races that day. It’s a clever way of implementing the penalty of damaging the car too much, just like in real life where it quite literally endangers the driver’s life and costs money to repair the vehicle.

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Visually, the cars and surroundings look fantastic. Dust particles are spewed up behind the car as you drive while mud starts to coat the windscreen the longer you’re off-road for. Crashing too much head on? Cracks appear in the windscreen, obscuring your vision. It’s not quite at DriveClub or Forza Horizon 3 levels, but it’s a damn nice looking rally game. Clipping is often a problem in rally and racing games but WRC 6 get it spot on; you can feel even the smallest of bumps or jolts in the terrain.

Weather effects are beautifully done, with the rain streaming down the windscreen obscuring you vision while playing at night is incredibly difficult. It’s still fun though, which is the key aspect. It’s a solid challenge to play with the weather effects but it feels very realistic; perfect for a simulator. Headlights and windscreen wipers come in handy, but even thinking about going at the same speed as you would in clear conditions isn’t an option.

One questionable decision is the difficulty of the initial introduction and tutorial. For the first half you’re without a co-driver/navigator – something you obviously have for the rest of the game, plus you start off in one of the most powerful cars in the game. Don’t be too disheartened if you initially suck during the tutorial; stick with it and things become easier. It’s an odd decision to throw you in at the deep end given that you start the career in the Junior WRC category and have to work your way up through WRC 2 before you can compete in the famous WRC tier. Once you make it through the treacherous introduction, you’re given a suggested difficulty based on how you performed. Thankfully, you can tweak individual settings so if you want to race against the hardest AI from the get go then you’re welcome to.

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The career mode is an absolute delight, going from country to country and working your way up the ranks. From the hills of Wales to the sandy roads in Spain and the mountainous terrain in Finland, each country and to an extent each track feels unique and a pleasure to play over and over until you learn the ins and outs, hitting perfection. The game likes to get you straight into the action too, with only a few menus about your schedule and repairing your vehicle between each race/day. Online play on the other hand is a little barebones, with not a lot of people playing. When you do eventually get into a race though, the servers seem to be stable and it can be a very close affair.

On certain tracks there’s some unfortunate framerate drops, most noticeably on the Barcelona course which takes place in a city, compared to most of the courses in the countryside. It’s nothing that ruins the experience, but for a game that relies on precision timing to brake and take corners, it feels unpolished and is ultimately quite disappointing. The navigator also needs some work, as he often gets his timing wrong, especially when you’ve gone off course or had to manually reset. You can be halfway through a long turn and he’ll only just announce it, or he’ll announce a corner way too early and you’re in anticipation for far too long.

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Rally cars are typically loud, monstrous machines but unfortunately they don’t quite sound the part. You don’t want to be deafened but the lack of environmental noise and meatiness from the revving of the engine means it’s fairly lacklustre in that regard. The navigator also clips over himself when there’s a few corners/announcements in rapid succession, adding to the confusion mentioned earlier.

Rallying is a niche genre to say the least. I’m no expert on the sport, I just enjoy playing the games and have done since the PlayStation 2 days. It’s safe to say we’re in the golden age for rally games though, with DiRT Rally, WRC 6 and to some extent Sebastien Loeb Rally Evo being fantastic virtual emulations of the high adrenaline sport. WRC 6 is the most accessible WRC yet; it still pales in comparison to DiRT Rally in terms of pure enjoyment, but true die hard rally fans will likely prefer it. It’s safe to say though that it’s the best WRC licensed video game to date.