WRC 2: FIA World Rally Championship

After a solid yet disappointing - not to mention dog ugly - first WRC outing, publisher Black Bean has teamed up once again with developer Milestone in an attempt to right the wrongs of last years effort. Sadly, while there have been a few tweaks here and there, the whole game looks and feels so similar to what we saw in 2010 that I’m very tempted to just refer you all back to my original WRC review. Unfortunately, my editor says that this simply won’t do, so I’m going to have to come up with a new way to describe what is essentially the same game.

In truth, that’s not entirely fair. Yes, from a content point of view WRC 2 is a shameless rehashing of what we saw last year, but look a little deeper and a few subtle changes start to appear - none of which are particularly game-changing, but it’s good to see that Milestone at least made a bit of an effort. At this juncture it’s probably best I tell you that the bits that made WRC worth playing are also for the most part all present and correct. That means that if you enjoyed the 2010 version and all you really want is a full roster update, the new vehicles, revised official tracks and everything else that an official WRC license permits, then your desires will be well met with WRC 2.

Personally, while I couldn’t overlook the horrific production values and sometimes offensive graphics of last years outing, I found myself coming back to WRC as time passed - it was rough around the edges, make no mistake, but I appreciated the way it took itself quite seriously, the way a proper rally game should. That approach is once again at the core of WRC 2, and as such Milestone has once again dished up basically the only hardcore rally sim on the market right now. Codemasters’ DiRT 3 is obviously the more entertaining game, but for all of its flashy visuals, slick controls and varied game modes, the DiRT franchise is quite far removed from the reality of rally racing. Those classic Colin McRae titles had that serious edge to them, and that’s the one thing that Milestone’s WRC - and now WRC 2 - captures perfectly. Is it fun? Not particularly. But long sessions of unforgiving, heart-in-your-throat racing through a forest are not necessarily meant to be fun, okay? The point is that WRC offered hardcore rally enthusiasts a rare chance to get their kicks, and WRC 2 does pretty much the same thing.

The thing is though, it’s been a year since WRC showed up. A lot can happen in 12 months, in the gaming industry as much as in any other. Yet Milestone seems to have sat back and let things pass them by. In terms of visuals - probably the biggest failure of last years game - things have hardly progressed at all, or at least nowhere near enough to keep up with consumers expectations. There is still a severe problem of texture pop-in, especially noticeable while waiting for the green light as a race is about to start, as the surrounding environment textures take their time to appear like disinterested students filtering into a lecture hall. The environments themselves still lack detail and variety, but I will concede that things don’t look quite as dreary this time around - wet tarmac, loose gravel and other road surfaces have a more realistic look to them, as do the trackside buildings. While the vehicle models look only marginally better, the damage model on the other hand has improved significantly, with more bits hanging off or coming loose altogether. Just don’t compare any of this to DiRT 3, because that’s a comparison that WRC 2 can’t hope to stand up to.

Those who really enjoyed all of the game modes included in WRC - enjoyed them so much that you just can’t wait any longer for more of the same - have cause for celebration this year, because Milestone has very kindly replicated last years’ modes almost exactly. You’ve got all your standard single stage, single race, single championship action, as well as the WRC Academy training school - useful for beginners - and the option to take most of that online too to compete with friends. Once again the multiplayer component is quite a lonely affair, hardly doing justice to the term “multiplayer”, but that is the nature of real rally racing. Had they thrown in new online modes with 16 cars and pick-up trucks banging into one another around a neon lit racetrack, well, then Milestone would have been just as guilty as Codemasters are of diluting the rally experience to pander to the masses.

The major time sink in WRC 2 is, as with last years WRC, the lengthy and detailed Road to the WRC career mode. Kicking off in the minor leagues with an R2 front-wheel drive hatchback, it takes time and dedication to build up your own team, unlocking new liveries, better vehicles and more lucrative sponsorship deals along the way. There is more focus on the back end part of forming your team, hiring and firing garage staff to research new technologies, managing office folk to deal with PR and new deals - it all does quite well to give you the illusion of having control over the destiny of your team. The problem here is that the structure of your progress is linear and strictly planned, so your career moves along at a predetermined pace. To get the most of out the Road to the WRC mode, it’s best if you try not to over intellectualize the process too much, and just focus on the racing itself.

Progress through the career gives you the opportunity to take part in races across all the classes, from the slow, top heavy R2 vehicles to the turbocharged hatches of today’s WRC class and the firebreathing deathtraps that embodied rally racing in the 1980s. Each class, in fact each car, has a distinct handling model and requires quite a different driving style to cross the line with the winning time. Success comes from carefully teasing the brake and throttle - and yanking up the old handbrake when needed - while also keeping that steering wheel loose and ready for whatever comes around the next bend. The handling feels more forgiving this year, which I would say is actually a bad thing, since I quite enjoyed the frantic, twitchy demeanor of most of the vehicles in WRC. Still, there are a number of dials to tweak to customize the difficulty level to suit your abilities.

As in the sport itself, your co-driver is an essential asset on the road, and any plans to earn the silverware will be dashed if you don’t pay him or her the deserved attention. The voice-overs for your navigator are unobtrusive and helpful, but I experienced a handful of bugs in this regard which troubled me - there were times where my girl just stopped barking out commands completely, and since by this point I had come to trust in and rely on her voice implicitly, this sudden comms silence soon had me making close friends with a fat slab of trackside concrete. Other aspects of the audio side of things are more consistent, if painfully average. Engine sounds aren’t great, but at least there is a fair amount of aural feedback relaying the track surface. While we’re talking about your ears, you may want to have them surgically removed while navigating the games’ menus, or risk being subjected to a selection of “smooth jazz” nonsense which may or may not cause mental decay after repeated exposure.

At least the menu screens and general navigation system has seen a slight overhaul since last year, considering that WRC had the production value of a nursery school play. Milestone has gone for a more uncluttered, minimalist look this time, and it’s an improvement. Some of the illustrations used for menu graphics are laughable though, as is the quality of the copy writing for help screens and the like - it sometimes seems as though the hints and tips that show up during loading screens were written by people who don’t have a very good grasp on the English language. On the subject of loading screens, new races load slowly but at least once the race is loaded it’s a matter of seconds to reload should you make a mistake and want to restart. This being a proper rally sim, trust me, you will want to restart. A lot. Sure, the addition of a now popular rewind feature helps to get you out of trouble, but serious rally racers will probably want to turn that option off to keep it real.

If keeping it real appeals to you, WRC 2 is an interesting proposition: as far as the actual racing goes, WRC 2 takes everything from WRC and tweaks it slightly, a nip here, a tuck there, to make it ever so slightly more balanced. Incremental improvements show up in most aspects of this game, but the problem is that these are incremental improvements to a rather flawed original. WRC needed more than just refinement - it was too rough for that. To make a really successful sequel, Milestone would have had to re-engineer a lot of what they did last year from the ground up, especially the visuals and unremarkable game modes. By rehashing a game that was already behind the curve, and then spitting it out relatively unchanged a year later, the developer has missed an opportunity to surprise serious rally fans with a worthy racer. Assuming there is another title planned for next year, I hope Milestone takes braver steps to create something more memorable.

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