WRC FIA World Rally Championship 2

Developer: Milestone
Publisher: Black Bean Games
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation

WRC 2 delivers all of the good stuff found in the original game, improves on much of it and adds some extra zest to give fans of rallysport something to play other than the Dirt series of games. Unlike Dirt, this game is not drifting away from the 'real' rally action.

As per the original, WRC 2 offers a number of ways to get into the action -- hotseat and online multiplayer, single player rally and championship modes, plus a nice career mode tweaked to give us a more fulfilling team management and driving experience.

One backward step is menu presentation with the development team adopting Forza style simplistic white screens, though with the complexity and non-intuitiveness of a Gran Turismo interface. For example, I was well into the rally career before spying the menu option to display the controller layout, finally I knew which button controlled the hand brake... That made things much easier.

Likewise the “Rally School” does little to teach the art of careering through the bush at break-neck speeds, or for that matter how to control a video game of the concept. Loading screen driving hints actually give more insight into the skills required, so jumping into the game could be a little daunting for beginners.

The graphical presentation of WRC 2 has been given a slight spruce up, not to the level of games such as Dirt 3, but still an improvement over the previous title. Playing from the cockpit view is okay -- again not in the same league as something like Gran Turismo, but serviceable.

Halleluiah! Finally a rally game that concentrates on rally driving, including managing car damage between stages and giving fans the ability to tweak 16 different car settings (as well as each gear ratio) prior to launching into each section.

Car setup will be important as the difficulty increases. This is the first time I have seen a rally game that gives such granularity in course designation. For instance a distinction is made between wet gravel and wet pebbles, or dusty tarmac and dry tarmac.

The actual driving feels pretty good. There has been some time spent on the driving model removing the ‘floaty’ feeling of the original game giving the virtual vehicles some real weight and reasonable handling touch. Turning off all driving assists will provide a challenge even for experienced players.

Your co-driver can get a bit lost at times. Thus players will most certainly want to adjust the timing of those all-important pace notes to give ample warning of an upcoming turn going at break-neck speeds into tricky course sections.

This game adds a rewind feature, giving the ability to take back a snippet of time, to right a wrong move -- perhaps pulling your Skoda out of a ditch. Unlike most games that have now introduced this feature, however, WRC 2 does not reverse any damage caused by the mishap, in fact even your skid marks will remain as you watch time rewind.

There also seems to be a bug that adjusts your time when using the rewind feature -- giving back more seconds than were removed by the rewind. A damaged windscreen, no matter how impossible to see through, can sometimes be completely repaired simply by nudging the rear quarter panel into a side barrier. This is obviously a bug, and several other non-game-breaking graphical bugs pop up from time to time.

Generally, however, the visuals seen through that windscreen are satisfying enough and showcase well the variety of the sport around the world. The photo mode is a new edition and allows players to easily set up shots and apply visual effects to the final product for upload to social media sites. It is too bad the visuals are not top notch to exploit this feature.

Playing through a career requires a level of dedication. It is just as well the garage options are relatively light on for car selection, as much of your down time between rally stages will be spent hiring and firing mechanics and office staff to work on R&D for car upgrades as well as sponsorship deals.

Satisfying challenges and sub-challenges defined by the rally stage and sponsors earns dollars and 'Reputation' points, both of which unlock new cars, paint and patterns. That said the game does a good job of not making this feel like a grind -- essentially it just opens up as you progress through the career mode.

What we are left with is a satisfying and genuine WRC themed game. While a few bugs need to be ironed out with a patch or two, those that missed the more authentic rally experience in the latest Dirt game, can get some of that flavour back with this release.