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Random Review – WRC 4 on Xbox 360 – Caution! Post!

As the real life World Rally Championship drew to a close on Sunday, I thought I should give WRC 4 the once over.

It's a rally game, and not an insane one like Dirt 3 or god helps us, Dirt Showdown. So don't expect any gymkhana silliness or destruction derbies. This is a serious racing game...sort of.

Let me explain...

For a start, it's a very authentic experience. All thirteen rounds of the real WRC are represented here, with six stages in each. I can't vouch for the rallies in other countries but the one set in Wales is loosely based on a real road round the Great Orme, which I have driven on and it's very similar.

All the car categories are present too; JWRC, WRC 3, WRC 2, and WRC. These basically go up in order of speed, WRC being the top category.

The first two, JWRC and WRC 3, are front wheel drive only classes, which I found harder to drive as they just wouldn't slide around corners like a four wheel drive. They have so little power that driving them becomes a battle to maintain momentum more than anything else.

WRC 2 and WRC cars are broadly similar, both are four wheel drive and slide around corners with ease. The only real difference is that WRC cars have turbochargers fitted and therefore accelerate just that little bit quicker.

If you play through the game's rather basic career mode you'll progress though each category which serves as a very useful way of learning the game's handling physics. Which is where this game stops being a simulation.

It's just a little too easy, a little too forgiving; you can push the cars round corners with wild abandon, Forza it is not. Even Forza Horizon's rather quaint rally mode was more realistic than this; the cars just lack any real feeling of weight. It's not to say that it isn't fun, just that if you wanted a hyper-realistic rallying game, which this appears at first glance to be trying to be, it's not.

How hard the game is, is entirely up to you. There are a few driving aids to turn on or off and then the overall difficulty of the opponents you'll be facing, as well as the damage your car takes from impacts and full-on crashes. However, there's no incentive to turn things off like in Forza or Grid, no rewards for pushing up the difficulty, so why bother? Just adjust things to the level you feel comfortable with; I nudged the opponent difficulty up to '9' before I started having any real trouble beating them.

If you turn the damage up to 'Heavy' the slightest knock damages your car's bodywork and a big nudge will cost you dear. Fortunately, there are rewinds, which reverse time to let you undo your mistakes. These have been staple of every racing game since they were introduced and in rally games in particular, they are helpful beyond belief. Again, you can turn them off but as with the other settings there's no incentive too, so save yourself some frustration and leave them on. It's not like you can use them online anyway...

Talking of online multi-player, it's options are rather limited; there's only two modes: single round and rally. That's it. There's a levelling system but it does nothing other than show how long you've been playing. There's not many people online, even now so soon after release, only the hardcore rally fans who will make you feel rubbish when they beat you by ten seconds....again. There's also occasional lag which for a game requiring such precision is almost unforgivable.

The graphics then; they're good to a point. The car models look great in the menus and the dirt effects look suitably muddy. However, damage the cars even slightly though and the graphics fall apart much worse than the bodywork. It looks like you car is covered in bubbles.

Other problems? There are a few. It's little niggling details that should have been fixed since the last game that annoy. There's been no change in co-driver voice, and the pacenotes, vital in for navigating the stages effectively, haven't got any more detailed more detailed either. Where is 'caution post' or 'tightens over bump' or 'tiny rock you can barely see that will flip you over'?

Everything feels very recycled; there's obviously a fairly small dedicated team making this and perhaps trying to make it into a yearly franchise is spreading their resources a bit thin. I finished WRC 3 and this is very, very close to that. Some of the stages are copy pasted wholesale from the last game, which is a little disappointing.

This is doubly annoying as the rallies themselves may be different (there are thirteen countries to race in) but don't be fooled, you'll be running over the same sections of track in each one, over and over. They run in both directions to try and hide it.

It's not like this technique hasn't been used in other rally games and appreciate it's hard to build long point to point tracks, as opposed to closed circuits, but dammit this is rallying you're supposed to travel to different places. This does however, give you the advantage of being able to learn the stages more quickly than you might do otherwise.

There's also some things missing that were in the last game. There's no cars that aren't in the official WRC championship, so no more tail-happy rear wheel drive action, no 90's group A cars, no early 2000's Subarus...

As a side note, why are there no group B cars? Every rally game should have some, even if it's just as a bonus unlockable.

The sub-games, such as drift events and gate crasher contests, have also been removed; presumably because they were unpopular with 'proper' rally fans. Unrealistic they may have been but they did add some much needed variety, something this game sorely lacks. You can't even create you own car liveries any more.

So, in some ways, this game has less...when a sequel should always have more. More cars, more tracks, more modes, more everything. This doesn't.

Overall, it's a nice package for the rally fan but it's nothing new or special. Ultimately, it's for ardent rally and racing game fans only and you'll know if you fall into that category by how many versions of WRC you've already played.

Everyone else should probably stick with Forza Horizon as that covers all the racing bases: loads of cars, open world, and rallying too if you splash out for the DLC.

Rating: 2/5

Also available on PS3 and PC.

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