POSTED 19/11/15


WRC 5

Kyloyonn Games/Bigben Interactive

Is it rally so strange?

If you think car games are all the same then you’re likely the type who drives at 20km below the speed limit while glued to the right lane of the freeway, mobile phone to ear until you can get to some traffic lights to leave five car lengths between you and the car in front. In other words, a fucking dickhead.

WRC 5 is a rally game. There’s no jamming down the accelerator full-time and sliding around corners with impunity. It involves subtlety, and listening to your annoying sidekick barking directions lest you make friends with a deep ravine on your point-to-point journey.

The officially licenced game of the 2015 FIA World Rally Championship, this means that the real cars – highly modified Ford Fiestas and numerous shitboxes (OK, sprung, we drive a Fiesta ST in real life) - are let loose on the real tracks. Yep, it’s travelogue time (hi Phil!), as you race variously from Sweden to Mexico, Australia to Finland, Finland, Finland and beyond, with many a varying road surface along the way.

The key to a good rally sim is finding the sweet spot between pick-up-and-play and realism that doesn’t crush any teensy sliver of fun like a bug. Like a bug we tell you! Handling is absolutely everything.

Unfortunately, WRC 5 flails. While difficulty can be adjusted from crayon-in-ear to just-go-and-drive-a-real-rally car, it all feels too floaty. A bit irritating. A lot not fun. Plus your navigator is a twat. If we had a dollar for every time he intoned “That was dodgy” then we’d be able to throw him an incredibly lavish funeral... or live at the pub long enough to become intimate with cirrhosis.

We know what a good rally game demands. Is WRC 5 exhilarating? Is it ace? Does it at least look really pretty? We say no, you say yes (and you will change your mind...)

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