Game Review: WRC 6

You don’t play a World Rally Championship video game to relax, right? Thankfully then, this iteration of the officially sanctioned WRC racing simulator is a white-knuckle concentration fest that will test your mettle and bring sweat to your brow.

Once loaded, WRC 6 drops you straight into the action behind the wheel of a Volkswagen Polo R on a stage of the Italia Sardegna rally. If you survive that it's on to the Wedding Bells stage of Rally Australia.

After crossing the finish line the game will evaluate your performance, and – ahem – suggest game settings appropriate to the level of skill shown.  However, WRC 6 is not too strict, and will ask if you are looking for some serious racing simulation, or you're just here to have some fun.

Rally driving is more than just going fast; careful throttle management and vehicle placement are the elements to get right if you're chasing the fastest times.

The major way a driver can get this right is by having an affinity with the co-driver. WRC 6 offers a bunch of options to how the information about the corners, bumps, driving lines and road conditions ahead are presented.

The timing and pace-note detail of events coming your way can be adjusted to alter the relationship between viewing the road ahead and adjusting the car's speed and positioning accordingly.

This is a full-spectrum representation of both the WRC and WRC Junior championships. All 14 WRC rallies are available, with some stages exceeding 10km in length, and special Rally Cross stages are available in career or one-off modes.

The game offers a great deal of variety. Take any role in any team (Citroen, Hyundai, Ford, MINI or Volkswagen), play multiplayer offline or online, as a split screen on the couch or with up to eight players taking turns on a stage in hot-seat multiplayer.

Graphically, WRC 6 is not the most spectacular driving game on the market and the presentation is generally slightly bland and inert, but there is plenty to look at, with static road-side obstacles dominating the tight tracks and dust-devils at times obscuring the road ahead.

Of course, none of that matters as you concentrate on in-cabin instructions and try to get a Scandinavian flick timed correctly for the next Right 3.

And while your beautiful presented rally car will take a beating, and at least get dusty, damage will affect its performance in many ways, from reduced aerodynamic performance to complete car failure, or just a time-consuming rollover.

Water crossings, snow, gravel, mud and tarmac all play a part, with a satisfying audio accompaniment adding to the experience.

There is also a variety of camera positions available, though the in-cockpit view is only for those of strong heart, as it is difficult to maintain an eye on the road through the windscreen as you counter-steer through the next bend.

The core of WRC 6 are the career modes, providing a chance to race through the rallies of Portugal, Poland, Finland, Germany, France (Corsica), Australia, Sweden, Argentina, China, Wales, Monte Carlo, Mexico, Italy and Spain -- or any combination of these, in varying weather, and at night, dusk or day.

Between stage days each team will have limited time to make repairs, or adjust suspension, transmission, tyres and brakes in quite extensive ways.

Your heart rate will rise, the blood will drain from your knuckles and we'll bet you swear as much as we did when you fluff a crucial 90-degree bend onto tarmac, though that is preferable to a plummeting off a Finnish mountain, which adds a significant time penalty.

Overall, WRC 6 is a great representation of rallying and a step up from previous iterations. It takes itself both seriously and, at times, not so much which is fabulous.

WRC 6 is out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC.