Customer Reviews

WRC: World Rally Championship

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Okay, maybe that is a bit much, but at least the cars can get damaged, unlike in Gran Turismo. Unfortunately, they seem to get damaged very easily. But, hey, that's the WRC for ya! After all, one guy in the WRC smoked an engine this year when he clipped a snow bank with the front of his car thus blocking the air flow to to the radiator with a mess of ice and snow.

But, on to the game. First off, this game is presented exactly as you see it on the WRC TV coverage. Same graphics, same narations, and pretty much the same camera angles. Even the music is the same. So, if you like watch the WRC, you are in for a treat.

The graphics are some of the best out there. The headlights at night when you do some of the night time rallys are a treat. The sun gets in your eyes at times and makes it hard to navigate some of the mountain sides.

The scenery is top notch. Spectators are as dumb in this game as they are in the real world - they stand right at the side of the road all over the place. And they have those can-o-air-horn things as well. The terrain is spectacular, and on some stages you will get to see it as your car flys off the side of a very large mountain. Everything is modeled very well. The cars look like the real things.

An added treat to all this is the navigator. I finally learned what the heck he was saying as I never could figure it out when I would watch WRC on TV. Now I know. Learn how to do his rally notes and you too can drive your friends nuts when you ride with them.

There is one down side to the game though - when you are doing the in car camera and are watching the driver and the navigator, the navigator seems to be throwing his voice and doing a ventriloquist act. Would be much more impressive if the programmers had actually made the navigators mouth move while he is reading the notes.

The game is hard, but is not extremely hard. I managed to get 1st place in the driver's championship as Marcus Gronholm (who won the real WRC DC this year, btw), and managed to get three extra rallys open by finishing in 1st place in them. You have to get points in each rally to move on to the next one, so you really have to push it. I did this with the medium difficulty level. Younger folks may have some troubles doing this.

I sure hope bam! comes out with WRC 2002 soon. If you are a fan of WRC, you are gonna love this. It is a very good representation of what kinds of nuts become WRC drivers. They would have to be after seeing some of these courses.

First off, I want to say that I love watching WRC on the Speed Channel. It's my favorite show on TV, and I try to never miss it. Also, this is the first rally game I've ever played, so I have nothing to compare it to. But this game is fun as hell.

The graphics are very good - very appealling. The environs look exceptional, although they sometimes look too much like a cardboard cutout, but that can only be expected. The replays are absolutely INCREDIBLE. It looks very much like it would on the Speed Channel, with various angles all about the stage. One second you'll see your rally car speed by a stationary camera, the next you'll have an in-cockpit view (complete with co-driver spitting out directions), and the next it will be an awesome view from a following helicopter. Not even Gran Turismo 3's replays beat this.

The gameplay is also very good. The cars handle as you would expect for a rally car, but each one is different. Some tend to whip the rear out on a hairpin, while others are simply slower than others. This adds quite a bit of replay value to the game. The controls are simple and make sense. There are plenty of views to choose from, both in-race and during the replays. The menus look nice, as well. One good point of the game are the videos that play before each new rally - these give you a preview of what's to come, while showing some sweet rally footage. You can also find these in the menu and watch them any time you desire, which is nice.

The sound is phenomenal. You can hear your co-driver very clearly, along with the sound of your car's engine (every car sounds different), and the sound of your car sliding about the stage. The background music is a bit annoying, but you can adjust the volume levels as you see fit. The music during the replays is also very annoying - horrible, actually, which warrants it being muted.

There are a number of modes of play. First and foremost is the "world rally championship" mode, which puts you through a virtual season of the WRC with a car and driver of your choosing. This mode covers quite a number of completely unique rallys (between 14 and 16), each one with 5 stages that offer their own challenges you must overcome to be the fastest. It took me about a week to beat this on "normal" difficulty setting, but I played it almost constantly. Also featured are the "single rally," "time trial," and "2 player" modes, which are exactly as they sound.

Now, here's my only complaint with this game. It's too easy for me. The very first time I played it, I had it on "normal" setting. I also won the first rally of the "world rally championship" mode with ease. I went on to win EVERY single other rally of this mode. I barely ever even placed worse than first on a single stage - let alone an entire rally. Currently I am doing another one on "professional" setting, and I have yet to lose a rally, although I am losing quite a few stages. For added difficulty though, I sugget changing the view to the in-cockpit view. With this view, I found it hard to stay on the course through most of the turns. It adds a great degree of difficulty, I think.

All in all, this is a very well-done game. I would suggest this to any fan of the WRC, or racing in general. If you want a fun racing game that doesn't have hour-long races, ala GT3, then check this it. It's a blast.

If you're looking for a rally racing simulator (like the Rally tracks in GTA3) - don't buy WRC. But if you're looking for a FUN racing game with just enough realism to keep it interesting, WRC can't be beat.

This game is a blast, you race in 14 countries (5 stages in each), each one is unique and requires learning new skills to conquer. From Italy with paved twisting mountain roads where each curve presents a deadly cliff, to Australia with powdery red dirt that is a power-sliders dream, to great Britain's mud-fest tracks with brutal hairpins...this game keeps throwing new challenges at you.

The graphics are superb, with depth-of-field bluring, debris on the tracks and beautiful cars. The cars accumulate dirt and damage as you race a stage, so it's important to push the limits, but not go too far...if you crash too often or too badly, the car won't drive right (and you won't win).

The sound is excellent, constantly providing useful information about your traction and terrain. The engine sounds are higher pitched than you might expect, but these are generally small cars so it's fits.

The tracks are easy to drive on, but many prove to be a challenge to master. The cars are extremely responsive and make mastering each kind of terrain a lot of fun.

One thing to know about this game is that it conforms to the real WRC rules, so each race is a time trial...meaning you race alone against the *times* set by other computer drivers (although the game keeps a record of your best times on each stage). If you absolutely need to race against other cars, ala Gran Tourismo, then WRC isn't for you. Personally I like the time trial aspect, it's always you vs the track.

...It's not a bad game.In fact it's incredibly fast and handles the way a good rally game should. I just have a few personal problems with this game.

First of all,there is no service area like in Colin Mcrae or V-Rally.You can totaly trash your car and it will be fine for the next stage.Ridiculous.

Secondly,the normal difficulty is too easy.The only trouble I had was in the first rally when I kept picking the wrong controller set up,or had it on manual transmission or thought I should change the type of tires on the car.Actually The Network Q rally was a challenge as well.The only way to get the proffesional difficulty is to become the WRC champion.Not that hard to do,but you have to finnish all 14 rallies to do so.I wanted a harder setting after the fourth rally.

Next,Although you can change some settings on your car,the computer allready sets it up for you at the begining of every stage.The only thing I played around with was the gear ratio.

Also,for a game that is officially licensed it would of been nice if the rallies shared something in common with there real life locations.For instance,they show several watersplashes in the intro for Argentina and there weren't any in the game.They mention the ballbearing like gravel in Australia and it drove like gravel anywhere else.In Colin Mcrae2 the Australia stages are really hard because you can't get a good grip of the road.It would of been nice to see the bridge in Catalyuna as well.

Speaking of the individual rallies in general,there seem to be too much driving up hill.This isn't a hill climbing game.

The level designers also liked to put jumps(or yumps) just before a major turn.This was a good trick at first but quickly lost it's appeal.

I lost count of what number this is suppose to be but trust me I'm not done yet.

Oh yes the load times.Bring your laundry to the room your PS2 is.I have had a lot of time to sort my socks and get everything on hangers while I'm waiting for the game to load.A magazine or comic is also handy.I tried reading some of The Two Towers while waiting but there wasn't enough time.

The co-driver's calls are also at times off.A hairpin on one stage is just a "5" on another.Sometimes he is even way too late on his call.Luckily there is a map you can take a quick peek at if you need to.

If you plan on playing this with friends ,forget it.The two player mode is done by split screen.You still are not technicly on the stage at the same time but yet you are stuck doing it at the same time.It's retarded.Colin Mcrae2 had up to 8 players each taking turns at the stages.It might take awhile to play but at least it was playable.

I just unlocked the professional mode and am currently doing the championship while driving a Hyundai.So far I'm earning top 3 finishes,unlike the easy mode where i could drive off a cliff and still win.The proffesional mode so far seem more competitive.There was no fun in knowing I was going to win all the time on the easy mode.

Hopefully most of this will be fixed before the next version of this game comes out.Only problem is ,by then Colin Mcrae 3 and V-Rally 3 should be out and the previous versions of those two games are allready better in so many ways than WRC,except graphically and the lack of the official WRC license.(The intro's for the rallies are cool.)

Despite all of the bad stuff I had to say,(there was a lot wasn't there),I still have to give this game 3 stars.Rally fans are going to buy this game regardless what anybody says,I just wanted to warn them that it wasn't as perfect as some people may of told them.For those who are not rally fans I'm sure someone has a nascar game for you somewhere,but please give this game (and sport)a try,you might be surprised.

I really *love* Rally and rally games, but I'm quite disappointed with World Rally Championship. Don't let the nice graphics fool you, this game has poor overall production values. It's not challenging, has sub-par driving physics and is lacking both realism and depth. Combine this with the very, very long load times and non intuitive menus and you have one stinker of a game.

Within 1/2 hour of playing this game on normal mode, I was winning everything. A bit longer and I was easily beating the game on the most difficult mode.

Rally driving is all about pace notes, it's the one thing that needs to be right for any rally game. However in this game, the pace notes are often read so late that the corner appears before the note is read. There's also no provision for controlling the speed at which pace notes are read. Professional rally drivers often have notes read to them 4 or more corners ahead of where they are at the time. In this game, some notes are either mumbled badly or simply dead wrong. Either way the game forces you into corners while giving you no idea what is on the other side. I can only think this was done by design in order to make the game somewhat challenging...

A WRC Rally runs over 3 days, with 6 or more stages a day. This game has only 5 stages in total for each round of the championship. An average rally stage is about 10 to 15 miles in length, sometimes much longer. The stages in this game average 3 to 5 miles in length, with the longest being a 6 mile stage. These stages are so short as to be totally unrealistic.

The cars in this game are horribly simple to drive and fail sharply in realism. For instance, in real-world tarmac rallies, the brakes are the most important component. Often having to be water cooled as they're used so frequently. Yet one can manage to drive many tarmac stages in this game with only barely touching the brakes. Certain stages could probably be won in this game without touching them at all. This is unrealistic in the extreme and makes the game very unchallenging. In fact, the driving physics in Gran Turismo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 3 are much better than those in this game. The short rally portion of GT3 features a far better "rally driving" experience that the one available in this game.

The game has little depth. One of the main issues in rallying is that the drivers often have to repair their own cars when flat tires and such happen. And rally drivers often have to conserve their cars and tires so failures will not happen. This game simply glosses over all those issues, drive as hard as you like, run over stones, the car will live. In all but the most extreme head-on collisions the car will remain totally undamaged. I've flipped a car a half a dozen times in expert mode and no damage resulted. In an actual rally, major repairs can only be done at certain times. This game mysteriously repairs your car to full functionality after every stage.

In addition, there is no way to get a detailed overview map of all the stages before a rally, just a basic map of the stage you are about to attack. The car set up is very limiting with only 3 different tire, brake and transmission settings. Most of the time a choice other than the default will result in far worse times. Not that it really matters, as the driving physics likely aren't good enough to take advantage of subtle tweaks available in other titles.

Various gripes: The production values of this game are quite low and are clearly evident from the plain white outside cover. The video clips are of a very low resolution and were obviously just ripped from the 2000 WRC television coverage. The game forces you to enter a replay mode after completion of every stage, there is no way to disable automatic replays (although they can be aborted). During the replay, music plays in the background but only 5 songs are available. But for each stage a single song will play over and over, there is no provision for selecting which track you would prefer to hear.

The load times in this game are nearly unbearable and poorly thought out. Unlike better games, WRC doesn't load and automatically pause you, you have to stick around while the game is loading or you'll definitely loose the stage. Because once this game's horribly long loading is done, it automatically launches you right into the stage.

The menu system takes a long time to load as well, and surprise, it's poorly thought out. There is *no* way to quickly move along through the stages of a rally. To continue from one stage of the same rally to the next, you have to hit the continue button 8 times, and wait for a few loads in the middle of those. After many screens are is passed, there's no going back. This also counts for things like secret codes that are given after winning a rally. If you hit the continue button (as you'll soon automatically do all the time just to get through all those screens), you'll have to win the whole rally again in order to see the code.

Concluding, this is obviously just a cheap license title of the WRC trademark. It has poor menus, long load times, horrible driving physics and is a thoroughly lackluster effort. However, if you really love rally and can find this game at a bargain or rental (as I did), give it a shot. It does have nice graphics, (although not as nice as GT3). Otherwise I'd wait for V-Rally or Colin McRae to arrive on PS2.

I got the game a week ago and haven't been able to take it out yet. It does lack some elements, but the tracks are great and challenging, great view changes and replay's, you get all the 2002 WRC cars and drivers (less Mcrae/Grist) great intro video's. Downside is long loading time between stages, a little to be left desired as far as graphics, more tuning options would be nice and some type of reward or points systems to fix and/or upgrade the car like(GT3). Other than the nit picking this is a great rally game. If you love the FIA WRC you won't be dissapointed by this game.

Finally the satisfaction of driving a WRC car. Graphics and framerate are great. But the game falls short on realism (it's an arcade game rather than a simulation) and it is way too easy... Replay value is low, so rent it unless you are a huge WRC fan!

Played this at the WRC race in Great Britain this past Novemeber. What an awesome game-especially for rally enthustiasts! Tease the Sony people at the race why it was delayed for sale in the US 'cause they felt there wasn't the player base in the US......I think they are dead wrong...

WRC is the best rally game I have played. The video segments are cool. There are many rallies, 5 stages pre rally. Some rallies are tough some aren't so, but the tracks can be a lot more realistic than in most games. In some places the track is barely wider than the car, unlike many other games. Physics are fair. Crash physics are pretty bad and can be a little frustrating when you try to save the car when on two wheels. The game does at least have a damage engine and it is adequate. Sector times can be a little funny sometimes (+8sec one sector, -8sec the next).

With those complaints said, I would have no reservations about buying the game again and again. It is a fun game and exponentially more realistic than anything else I've seen. Perfect, no, but still very good. Not to mention at a used price, I love it.

great physics! try using the steering wheel you'll see how realistic it is,it add's to the intensity even more.