WRC 9
Bigben Interactive, Nacon
To be honest, rally racing games have never been my thing. To me, they’ve always been kind of the red-headed stepchild of the racing genre. Like many gamers out there, I’ve always preferred the sleeker, sexier racers that feature tuner cars—on up to the exotic sports cars that most of us just dream of.
Okay, to be completely honest…I also suck at rally racers.
There’s something about the oddly shaped cars (in comparison to the usual asphalt denizens), ultra-twisty tracks, and to top it off, inclement weather such as heavy snow and rain, that make things too hard for me to stay on the racetrack. Instead of elegantly swerving around muddy corners like I’ve seen racing aficionados do on YouTube videos, I seem to end up flying off-road and careening into whatever is there.
But that was over 10 years ago—now things should be different, right?
So, I swallowed my manly pride and picked up the latest in a long-running rally racing franchise (the WRC series), WRC 9. Inwardly, I also looked at the game’s loading screen and said to myself: “Please, be gentle with me.”
As with any racing game, your objective race from point A to point B and beat out all of your competitors in order to place first. But being a rally racer, things are much more complicated than that. Fortunately, this rally game sports a handy tutorial so you can get acclimated to its controls. What’s also great about the tutorial is that it shows you a little bit of everything so that you’re less likely to run into something that is totally baffling, and potentially off-putting.
Each rally event is set up over the course of several days, with events taking place in a staged manner. In between those events is a chance to put your pit crew to work and fix any damage to your vehicle.
Surprisingly, your crew is a game unto itself, as you’ll have to manage them in order to be a successful rally racer in WRC 9. And that’s in addition to basically running a whole racing company with you as the manager—although it isn’t as difficult as it probably sounds. You’ll control everything from the makeup of your cars to your sponsors, and will also have to pay attention to your ever-endangered relationship with them.
What I also like about WRC 9 is that you can determine what kind of experience you want to have with rally titles right from the start. Yep, that means not only do you set up the difficulty, you can also choose what levels of damage that can happen to your cars, as well as how that affects your overall gameplay.
WRC 9’s graphics are really impressive, especially if you have a good gaming PC or gaming laptop. I have to also say that the sound design is also spot-on. The game’s effects are great throughout and the co-pilot (yes—there’s a co-pilot!) in particular is awesome. It might not sound like much, but having your partner call a rough layout of the course that lies ahead is really helpful.
Overall, I’d like to tip my hat (or erm…racing helmet) to WRC 9 for not only giving me so many hours of fun (so far), but also getting me over my old fear of flying off of the roads at every corner. Thanks!
RATING: 8.5/10
WRC 9 has some pretty amazing graphics that make its racing gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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