It rally isn’t very good!

It has been two years since I last reviewed a WRC game, and not only haven’t things improved, they’ve got noticeably worse.

For those that don’t know WRC stands for World Rally Championship, and the WRC games are their only officially licensed games. You would think that would mean there would be a level of quality on show, but alas, no. But let us not dwell on the negatives just yet. What does WRC 8 have going for it?

Well to start with it’s official,meaning fully licensed stages, cars and drivers are all present and correct. It is safe to say that having an official license goes a long way regardless of quality, and to fans of the WRC having the official seal of approval means a lot.

Platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One (Reviewed)
Price: $59.99
Multiplayer: Online and Local
Price: I’d pay: $9.99

The biggest draw however is the amount of modes available. There is of course the standard career mode which will see players start out as a rookie at the bottom of the ladder and climb their way to the top. Like many games now the career mode includes a leveling up system that awards XP based on performance in the mud, which players can cash in to improve their team. Players will also be given the opportunity to impress potential sponsors who will offer to sign them up if they meet certain criteria during races. The racing calendar plays out much like the real WRC calendar with events taking place all across the globe over a series of days and tracks.

There are also races in between that can be taken up to boost their standing with the sponsors. In between the eventsplayers will be given a limited amount of time to repair any damage the car has taken. The amount of work players can get done depends on their team. At the start of the game the team will be novice, so keeping my car in shape was much more difficult. This can be a little infuriating,as it is at the start of the game where players probably need the most help and so limiting it in this way can make the difference between getting an overall decent result in an event and not. Players also have to look after the team’s wellbeing as they are affected by tiredness and morale, which in turn affects their performance.

Along with the Career mode the game also offers a Season + mode which allows players to take part in a season without any of the worry of having to manage their team and offers both the standard WRC season and WRC2. There is also a training mode, quick play and testing mode to play about with. If you have played any of the recent games, then you will know what to expect here.

Not only are all of these single player offerings available, there is also a healthy choice if players want to take their skills online. Racing against human opponents can be done as a number of disciplines. There are also weekly challenges to attempt and even a season long event players can take part in. It even offers split screen multiplayer, which is becoming unheard of these days.

Now if all of that sounds enticing,then please close your eyes, take a deep breath and then go play Dirt Rally 2 instead, because WRC just isn’t worth the time. First of all, my biggest problem with the game is that it is a broken mess, which included a game breaking bug when the game refused to let me get pass a menu screen. I thought all I would need to do was to restart the game and load up my save, but the save had been corrupted and I have to start a brand-new career save. The game also crashed my Xbox One X several times for no apparent reason. Then there are a variety of smaller bugs that may not be as serious, but spoiled my experience none the less. Things like the cursor bugging out in menus and the sound going funny for short periods of time.

But it isn’t just the performance of the game that rubbed me up the wrong way. Graphically the game looks like a budget release, not a full priced one. With some of the earlier games, I could forgive it, but we are coming to the end of a console cycle and one where many games are X or Pro enhanced. Put this game next to Dirt or Forza and they make it look like a last gen outing. Surprising seeing as the game takes an absolute age to load in to events. Then there is the co-pilot; the thing that players will be listening to the most, the thing that is a core mechanic of rally games. In WRC 8 he sounds like an English butler; like the person they got to record the lines wasn’t actually English, but was doing a stereotypical impression of what an English person sounds like. It was laughable. It’s 2019 so can’t we please have a selection of voices to choose from?

On the surface WRC 8 would look like a game made for rally fans, but it misses the mark by miles and with there being so many other fantastic rally and racing games already out there to choose from, I can only recommend that you go looking elsewhere.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.