World Rally Championship - Racclog #3
I am one of maybe two people who has purchased old WRC games in current year. Why? Because rally games are fun! Even the crummiest ones usually have some kind of saving grace, like an interesting vehicle lineup or variety in its locales. It’s also kinda refreshing to play racing games with licensed vehicles that don’t rely on the same collection of real world circuits over and over again - I may dissociate from video games altogether if I have to race Brands Hatch or Laguna Seca too many more times.
Since, per the most recent Steam Summer Sale, I now own around half of the currently available FIA-licensed WRC games from WRC 4 to 8, I thought I’d check out where the series began by giving the original World Rally Championship on PS2 a whirl, only to find that the series has been passed around between developers a lot. The WRC games I just bought on Steam are developed either by Milestone or Kylotonn, while the first five entries on PS2 - which are part of the same series except not really - were done by prolific developers Evolution Studios, later responsible for Motorstorm, DriveClub and the ridiculous decision from Sony execs to shut them down before they could put out yet another banger.
So, the first World Rally Championship and the WRC games I recently acquired are related in name alone, but that didn’t stop me from trying out the first game anyway, since early rally games are so interesting - I’ve played WRC: Rally Evolved recently and loved it to bits, and Colin McRae on the PS1 is one of the most impressive games on the system. I was hoping World Rally Championship (henceforth referred to as WRC for brevity) would be of a similar caliber, but even for an early rally game, it’s surprisingly unambitious.
World Rally Championship
A little introduction, if you’re not familiar with the genre: rally games often do not concern themselves with the typical race format, where multiple cars share the track and the winner is the first across the finish line. Rally racing is all about posting the best times across a series of stages - each rally takes place at a different county and is made up of several stages (in this game’s case, it’s five stages) and the team with the best overall time across all stages takes the win, earning leaderboard points depending on where they place, and obviously winning if they have the most points at the end of the season. WRC, in particular, is based on the 2001 WRC season, covering all 14 rallies and representing all 21 drivers and 7 vehicles, not including non-manufacturer entries and replacing Colin McRae, then manning the Ford Focus, with the hilariously named “Ford Driver.”
Focusing on timed events limits the appeal of rally games a bit, I suppose. More casual players would definitely find it more exciting to be trading paint with opponents rather than doing glorified time trials, but the appeal of rally games to me has always been how you don’t know what’s coming, especially if it’s your first run through. There’s an inherent and unmistakable giddiness whenever I conquer a stage, perfectly reacting to my co-driver’s pace notes and making split-second decisions on whether or not to trust his “right four, over-crest, tightens.”
That’s largely what you get here. WRC is all about paying attention to your co-driver and reacting appropriately, as it is with nearly every other rally game in existence. And it largely does a good job with it, even if many of its aspects are fairly simplified, which is surprising since this is officially licensed by the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the organisation that has the say on motorsport and whatnot). Especially compared to Colin McRae Rally 2.0, which released a year prior and on a less powerful system, it was more forgiving and arcade-like than I was expecting.
Behind the wheel, cars can be quite twitchy. I found myself only tapping the left analog stick a lot of the time as anything more would send my car into a 90 degree angle, and countersteering happens just as quickly. I expected to struggle with this but if anything it’s just one of the reasons why handling feels so forgiving, alongside brakes working a little too well, both of which combine to basically obliterate the function of the handbrake. Despite this, I found myself enjoying the handling model quite a bit; it’s perhaps not quite as exciting or as grounded in reality as its rival Colin McRae, but it’s super easy to get to grips with, to the point where I wish I hadn’t started off on Novice difficulty as I was regularly eclipsing opponent times by anywhere between ten and thirty seconds. Mind you, this was with a slightly unruly co-driver who, while usually pretty on the ball, would often call out 5 rights and hairpin lefts as I was already taking them - in these scenarios, I’m rather thankful for the forgiving handling.
With the right stage design and other gameplay and management mechanics to complement this handling style, WRC could easily have turned out great, but it’s unfortunately those aspects that let it down quite a bit. Beyond skirting across various countrysides in the pursuit of fast times, WRC doesn’t really encapsulate what makes rally racing so interesting and exciting.
For one, individual rallies don’t feel distinct enough. Generally, in other games you get a sense of what each rally is about - Finland is characterised by its enormous narrow straights, Australia is dotted with huge jumps, Sweden punishes you severely if you so much as glance in the direction of a snow bank. WRC doesn’t do the best job at encapsulating this, and any one rally could have its aesthetics exchanged for another and I might not be able to tell much of a difference. Finland is almost as twisty as any other rally, Australia is fairly flat, and Sweden’s roads are wider than [insert yo mama joke here], which, largely, are all characteristics shared by most of the 14 rallies in the game.
Some, like Monte Carlo, have a bit more of a focus on verticality, but other than this there isn’t much to set apart individual stages, either, aside from some being a little more slippery. Most are fairly wide, with little to no variation, and the only thing I could tell you about the difference between each of the stages in Sweden, for example, is that one of them is set at night. I got a little excited when upon starting the Kenya rally my Hyundai Accent was fitted with a snorkel to tackle river crossings, but there’s no water in the game whatsoever, with Kenya only having the occasional strip of mud which slows you down a bit. Trackside decoration is also nearly entirely absent; there’s almost never any threat of hitting a tree, trying to thread the needle through a gate or swerving around hay bales, with only the occasional eager crowd, roadside barrier or small shed to break up the repetitive scenery. WRC stages are, unfortunately, not very interesting, which is rather damning - the stages are the bread and butter of rally games, after all.
Despite the game actually mentioning it in one of its introductory pre-rally cutscenes, there’s no mixed surface racing, either - any given stage is gravel, asphalt or snow, and that’s it. No 65% gravel and 35% tarmac, just one of the three and only one of the three. Not that it matters much, as WRC doesn’t bother much with the tuning side of things, with simple three-tier options for stuff like tires, suspension and gear ratio. You don’t even have to worry about repairs during intermissions, as cars are automatically repaired between each stage - and frankly, you really have to slam into something with the force of a thousand suns to damage your car, anyway. I rolled my car numerous times off both small bumps and huge drops and I think I damaged something maybe twice.
At least it looks pretty good. It runs smoothly, despite an occasional issue where game speed slows down slightly when looking directly at the sun on some of those more vertical stages, but both car models and road surfaces are pretty detailed and I do vibe with the different atmosphere in each of the rallies. And, as mentioned, it runs pretty smoothly, which is important for a game like this that requires quick reaction times. Audio design is another kettle of fish; it’s rather abrasive and crackly, though I’m not sure if that was the game or an issue with the emulator.
But still, there’s not a lot else on offer. If you’re not doing the main career mode, which is all 14 rallies sequentially, you can also play split screen, race a single rally or a time trial on any individual stage you’ve unlocked - which, I’ll be honest, I don’t understand how unlocking stuff for these two modes works, because I finished the game and I can still only do the first four rallies or the first stage of each rally in Time Trial. Cheat codes offer access to some bonus stages, a few silly visual effects, a mode that gives you enormously increased acceleration and a standard Unlock Everything option and if that’s how you’re supposed to do it, then that’s completely ridiculous - but I’ve ragged on this game enough and I’m kinda nitpicking at this point. Plus, you can put on a cheat that turns the screen upside down - use this while playing on Australia for a truly authentic experience.
In the end, World Rally Championship is fine. It’s fine. One of the two most important bits, the physics and handling, are more than acceptable and would find a comfortable home in a game with good stage design, but that’s where the game ultimately loses me. Stages are simply too repetitive and don’t have enough going on in them, and it makes it feel very watered down compared to even Colin McRae Rally 2.0 on the original PlayStation, from just a year prior. In absolute fairness, this was Evolution Studio’s first game together, and they would only improve from here if WRC: Rally Evolved is any indication, which it is - it’s absolutely brilliant and arguably surpasses Colin McRae Rally, or at least I think so, anyway. Go play that one instead; you’re not missing much if you skip over this one.
PROS
Since, per the most recent Steam Summer Sale, I now own around half of the currently available FIA-licensed WRC games from WRC 4 to 8, I thought I’d check out where the series began by giving the original World Rally Championship on PS2 a whirl, only to find that the series has been passed around between developers a lot. The WRC games I just bought on Steam are developed either by Milestone or Kylotonn, while the first five entries on PS2 - which are part of the same series except not really - were done by prolific developers Evolution Studios, later responsible for Motorstorm, DriveClub and the ridiculous decision from Sony execs to shut them down before they could put out yet another banger.
So, the first World Rally Championship and the WRC games I recently acquired are related in name alone, but that didn’t stop me from trying out the first game anyway, since early rally games are so interesting - I’ve played WRC: Rally Evolved recently and loved it to bits, and Colin McRae on the PS1 is one of the most impressive games on the system. I was hoping World Rally Championship (henceforth referred to as WRC for brevity) would be of a similar caliber, but even for an early rally game, it’s surprisingly unambitious.
World Rally Championship
Year: 2001
Developer: Evolution Studios
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (Europe), BAM! Entertainment (US)
Platform: PlayStation 2
Genre: rally racing
HLTB: 5 1/2 hours | My Playtime: 7 hours
A little introduction, if you’re not familiar with the genre: rally games often do not concern themselves with the typical race format, where multiple cars share the track and the winner is the first across the finish line. Rally racing is all about posting the best times across a series of stages - each rally takes place at a different county and is made up of several stages (in this game’s case, it’s five stages) and the team with the best overall time across all stages takes the win, earning leaderboard points depending on where they place, and obviously winning if they have the most points at the end of the season. WRC, in particular, is based on the 2001 WRC season, covering all 14 rallies and representing all 21 drivers and 7 vehicles, not including non-manufacturer entries and replacing Colin McRae, then manning the Ford Focus, with the hilariously named “Ford Driver.” Focusing on timed events limits the appeal of rally games a bit, I suppose. More casual players would definitely find it more exciting to be trading paint with opponents rather than doing glorified time trials, but the appeal of rally games to me has always been how you don’t know what’s coming, especially if it’s your first run through. There’s an inherent and unmistakable giddiness whenever I conquer a stage, perfectly reacting to my co-driver’s pace notes and making split-second decisions on whether or not to trust his “right four, over-crest, tightens.”
That’s largely what you get here. WRC is all about paying attention to your co-driver and reacting appropriately, as it is with nearly every other rally game in existence. And it largely does a good job with it, even if many of its aspects are fairly simplified, which is surprising since this is officially licensed by the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the organisation that has the say on motorsport and whatnot). Especially compared to Colin McRae Rally 2.0, which released a year prior and on a less powerful system, it was more forgiving and arcade-like than I was expecting.
Behind the wheel, cars can be quite twitchy. I found myself only tapping the left analog stick a lot of the time as anything more would send my car into a 90 degree angle, and countersteering happens just as quickly. I expected to struggle with this but if anything it’s just one of the reasons why handling feels so forgiving, alongside brakes working a little too well, both of which combine to basically obliterate the function of the handbrake. Despite this, I found myself enjoying the handling model quite a bit; it’s perhaps not quite as exciting or as grounded in reality as its rival Colin McRae, but it’s super easy to get to grips with, to the point where I wish I hadn’t started off on Novice difficulty as I was regularly eclipsing opponent times by anywhere between ten and thirty seconds. Mind you, this was with a slightly unruly co-driver who, while usually pretty on the ball, would often call out 5 rights and hairpin lefts as I was already taking them - in these scenarios, I’m rather thankful for the forgiving handling.
With the right stage design and other gameplay and management mechanics to complement this handling style, WRC could easily have turned out great, but it’s unfortunately those aspects that let it down quite a bit. Beyond skirting across various countrysides in the pursuit of fast times, WRC doesn’t really encapsulate what makes rally racing so interesting and exciting.
For one, individual rallies don’t feel distinct enough. Generally, in other games you get a sense of what each rally is about - Finland is characterised by its enormous narrow straights, Australia is dotted with huge jumps, Sweden punishes you severely if you so much as glance in the direction of a snow bank. WRC doesn’t do the best job at encapsulating this, and any one rally could have its aesthetics exchanged for another and I might not be able to tell much of a difference. Finland is almost as twisty as any other rally, Australia is fairly flat, and Sweden’s roads are wider than [insert yo mama joke here], which, largely, are all characteristics shared by most of the 14 rallies in the game.
Some, like Monte Carlo, have a bit more of a focus on verticality, but other than this there isn’t much to set apart individual stages, either, aside from some being a little more slippery. Most are fairly wide, with little to no variation, and the only thing I could tell you about the difference between each of the stages in Sweden, for example, is that one of them is set at night. I got a little excited when upon starting the Kenya rally my Hyundai Accent was fitted with a snorkel to tackle river crossings, but there’s no water in the game whatsoever, with Kenya only having the occasional strip of mud which slows you down a bit. Trackside decoration is also nearly entirely absent; there’s almost never any threat of hitting a tree, trying to thread the needle through a gate or swerving around hay bales, with only the occasional eager crowd, roadside barrier or small shed to break up the repetitive scenery. WRC stages are, unfortunately, not very interesting, which is rather damning - the stages are the bread and butter of rally games, after all.
Despite the game actually mentioning it in one of its introductory pre-rally cutscenes, there’s no mixed surface racing, either - any given stage is gravel, asphalt or snow, and that’s it. No 65% gravel and 35% tarmac, just one of the three and only one of the three. Not that it matters much, as WRC doesn’t bother much with the tuning side of things, with simple three-tier options for stuff like tires, suspension and gear ratio. You don’t even have to worry about repairs during intermissions, as cars are automatically repaired between each stage - and frankly, you really have to slam into something with the force of a thousand suns to damage your car, anyway. I rolled my car numerous times off both small bumps and huge drops and I think I damaged something maybe twice.
At least it looks pretty good. It runs smoothly, despite an occasional issue where game speed slows down slightly when looking directly at the sun on some of those more vertical stages, but both car models and road surfaces are pretty detailed and I do vibe with the different atmosphere in each of the rallies. And, as mentioned, it runs pretty smoothly, which is important for a game like this that requires quick reaction times. Audio design is another kettle of fish; it’s rather abrasive and crackly, though I’m not sure if that was the game or an issue with the emulator.
But still, there’s not a lot else on offer. If you’re not doing the main career mode, which is all 14 rallies sequentially, you can also play split screen, race a single rally or a time trial on any individual stage you’ve unlocked - which, I’ll be honest, I don’t understand how unlocking stuff for these two modes works, because I finished the game and I can still only do the first four rallies or the first stage of each rally in Time Trial. Cheat codes offer access to some bonus stages, a few silly visual effects, a mode that gives you enormously increased acceleration and a standard Unlock Everything option and if that’s how you’re supposed to do it, then that’s completely ridiculous - but I’ve ragged on this game enough and I’m kinda nitpicking at this point. Plus, you can put on a cheat that turns the screen upside down - use this while playing on Australia for a truly authentic experience.
PROS
- Looks and runs well
- Physics and handling are forgiving but fun
- I kinda like the atmosphere
- “Ford Driver” is hilarious
- Stage design is really uninteresting
- Individual rallies are underrepresented
- No strategy required between stages
- Co-driver is occasionally very behind
VERDICT: Far too repetitive and shallow compared to its contemporaries. The series only improves from here on out, but while World Rally Championship plays well, it totally fumbles when it comes to stage design.
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