WRC - PSP Review - Screenshots - Trailer video - Mpeg download

WRC has been around for while now on the PS2, it is currently on it’s 4 th edition which is also the best version and in my opinion it is better than Colin McRae’s recent effort from Codemasters. Now the two have to battle it out again on the PSP.

When you start up WRC on the PSP everything looks very familiar, the WRC montage appears and then you are given the same options as seen before such as Quick Rally, Time Trial, Single Rally, Championship and Multiplayer. The one obvious difference here is the multiplayer option which utilises the PSP’s wireless capabilities for up to 8 players.

Quick rally is probably the first mode you will select when you pop the disk in, you are given a car and you will have to complete one stage of one rally. When you have finished you can choose to play again or pick another mode. Time Trial is pretty self explanatory. Single rally is similar to quick rally, but in this mode you will choose the car and the rally and the stage from that rally which you want to participate.

The special stages are quite different also. The PS2 version featured the actual stages from the real thing, this time they are made up in much the same way that Codemasters have with the Colin McRae series. This is most noticeable on the stage like Finland which is known for the huge high speed jumps. The jumps in the PSP version are like 45 degree ramps which launch the car directly into the air causing the car to land nose first and smashing to pieces on contact. The only way to take the jumps is to slow to a snails pace and crawl over them.

The handling is not quite the same as the perfectly weighted feeling of the later WRC games either. You don’t seem to get the sense of traction or speed. The car does feel solid and heavy when you get some air and come crashing to the ground again, but the same feeling doesn’t always seem to feed back when the car is on all four wheels. As you play the game more you get do get the hang of the handling. There are times when the illusion of speed is broken somehow, you car can appear to be moving very slowly and how ever had you try to speed up the car doesn’t feel to be getting the traction it needs. To be fair though, this is a fairly rare problem. As with most rally games, once you get used to the style of driving required you will gain full enjoyment from the game.

The multiplayer mode will accommodate up to eight players on either time trail, turn-based time trial, turn-based single rally or a turn-based championship. Originally the multiplayer part of the game was meant to have 16 loop based tracks. But it seems this hasn’t made it to the final release which is a bit of a shame. Maybe these tracks will be available for download in the future. The only chance you get to actually race other people simultaneously is the time trail mode. As in the single player, other cars appear as ghost cars.

Graphically WRC is pretty good. The main problem I can see is that some sections of the special stages are a bit too dark in areas. The colour brightness could do with a slight increase. General use it is ok, but some stages see the light levels change quite dramatically and it caused me to get a pretty nasty headache. The cars are very nicely detailed, when the car has been smashed up a little the cracked glass and dents in the body work look very good. The scenery also looks good, especially the Swedish stages which see the special stages covered in snow. The falling snow effect is also very nice. When compared to Ridge Racer, Wipeout Pure and Force Pursuit, WRC stand’s up very well to their visuals.

On the whole the sound is very good. The cars sound as they should, you can here the dump valve dumping all the turbo pressure when you lift off the accelerator and you also get the pop and flames from the exhaust at the same time. Each car sounds quite different too. The tyre screeches on the tarmac are a little of the lame side but they are not too bad. During the rallies there is a tune which plays in the back ground, I think it is the WRC theme tune, although it is repetitive to here on every rally it’s quite enough so that you don’t notice it all the time.

Overall WRC for PSP is a really good effort, especially considering its not a port from the PS2 games is really quite impressive. If you have played the PS2 versions of the game, don’t expect this to be identical because it isn’t. The tracks are not the real world ones and the handling is slightly different. But this is a different system and its one of only a couple that I can’t stop playing. It’s really enjoyable and surely worth a purchase for any PSP owner.

8.5/10