WRC 10 Review – IGN

2021 officially marks the 49th season of the World Rally Championship, making the 50th anniversary of WRC 10 content… a premature fraction. Of course, after almost two years of total confusion, it’s hard to blame someone for wanting to celebrate their birthday early, including the World Rally Championship.

To mark the moment, WRC 10 arrives armed with the most retro content to grace developer KT Racing’s series yet, with a new mode featuring cars and stages representing five decades of rally racing history. Combined with a deep race mode, the result is the spiciest and arguably strongest official WRC game to date, albeit a narrow win as it still hasn’t changed dramatically from the already very good WRC 8 and WRC. 9, and still making some of the same minor mistakes.

That great 50th anniversary mode is a big part of this year’s game, and it’s by far the biggest injection of historical content to the series since KT Racing began adding classic cars in WRC 8. With its own separate menu and vintage photographs, it feels quite special at first, although in the end there is not much to do. They are just a small time trial collection with a bit of text to explain the historical context of what you are about to do.

A major issue that some may have with Anniversary Races is that the time requirements are not tailored to the overall difficulty setting. Inexperienced runners can reduce the intensity of their run and the difficulty of the fast run, but at the time of review, the Anniversary mode cannot be changed. I thought I was browsing when I scored the first two events on my first attempts, but that changed in the extremely difficult third event (which is actually the fifth event, because confusingly the third and fourth events were skipped and unavailable). At least a couple of the time requirements that I have subsequently encountered in this mode so far have been surprisingly rigid; certainly severe enough for less experienced runners to bounce off this mode entirely. It seems odd that WRC 10 caters to new and novice players with a variety of settings, driver aids, and tutorials, but opted for a one-size-fits-all hardcore approach to the Marquee Anniversary Mode.

Audi, partner

The good news for anyone stumped by the imposed time limits in Anniversary mode is that all of these cars, and the historic stages, can be used identically in quick play without as much pressure. WRC 10 allows us to put any car in any setting, historical or modern. The older historical stages are a fun addition because KT Racing has removed the contemporary publicity and safety features of the modern stages and replaced them with crowds of more authentic spectators from the era, many of whom are dangerously close to the road. . WRC 10’s old-school crowd is nowhere near as large as at the height of Group B chaos, but it definitely contains some people whose lifelong dream is to be killed by a rally car. Obviously things don’t get all that bleak, but the often packed crowds make the historic stages a compelling challenge because just the slightest touch to a stupid spectator will make you instantly reappear on the track with a heavy penalty.

KT Racing has done very well in selecting a range of rally cars that really matter, and many world championship winning cars are represented. The garage of classics stretches from the Alpine A110, the winner of the first WRC in 1973, to Ott Tänak’s 2019 Toyota Yaris, which ended the 15-year championship won by a guy named Sébastien. There’s a lot of iconic metal in between too, like a pair of fire-breathing Audi Quattros, various Lancias (including the mighty Intergrale), the Peugeot 205, the Toyota Celica and the ’99 Corolla, the 2007 Ford Focus RS, the Volkswagen Polo R, and a handful of successful Citroëns. Colin McRae’s 1997 Subaru Impreza and Tommi Mäkinen’s 1998 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V are two other legends you may have access to, but as of launch they are currently tied as console pre-order incentives or deluxe edition content. . Overall, though, it’s a very good spectrum of championship-winning cars from both drivers and manufacturers; There is no shortage of many important winning models.

Accelerator rocket

Annoyingly, WRC 10 instantly commits one of the most annoying missteps in WRC 9, requiring everyone to start career mode in the WRC Junior or WRC 3 series, with no chance for those of us who have already done a few laps. let’s skip. beyond these power series and straight into the main WRC championship. I understand that climbing the motorsport ladder is a natural part of the career mode process, but it feels a bit punitive to have the faithful redo it every year. I suspect I would have had more patience if WRC 10 had allowed me to dive right into the new private team race option, which allows you to create your own race team and buy and design your own team car with the new welcome color editor. , but KT Racing has locked the most interesting new element of the WRC 10 career mode behind the completion of the Anniversary mode, which I don’t understand.

On top of that, the puzzling bonus targets have survived another iteration without being kicked to the curb, meaning you’ll still have to put up with your manufacturer suggesting silly things like “don’t use hard tires for this rally,” which slightly undercuts the interesting new tire strategy layer that KT Racing has inserted this time around. Not only do we have to choose a reserve of tire types to take to each rally, but the tires can even be cross-mounted if you want to experiment and potentially discover some extra speed on drastically mixed surface stages. If you choose to complete the new shakedown before each rally, you will get four additional tires in your reserve. Tire strategy becomes very important if you opt for the new realistic rally length, which more closely resembles real WRC rallies (which, in real life, are typically run over hundreds of kilometers).

You can name your co-driver this year, which is a fun touch, and KT Racing has added an English co-driver and a variety of additional co-driver talks for a little more flavor on the stages. They could probably have done it with a wider range of comments because they get repetitive quickly, and they aren’t always correct, but I quite admire the WRC 10’s ability to make me feel better. If you find it irritating, Immersive Voice Call can be turned off. There has definitely been some work on car audio this year too; all the components and layers are there since WRC 9, but it sounds denser and I didn’t find any of the volume errors that I did find in WRC 9.

WRC 10 includes the new rallies from Estonia and Croatia, but a few rallies are missing from the list. The last minute Arctic Rally will not be featured (the canceled Rally Sweden remains in WRC 10 in place) but KT Racing has explained that Belgium and modern Greek stages will follow after launch. I think Estonia is the highlight of the new rallies so far, with its fast and thin stages and a lush and beautiful color palette. The slower speeds expose some of the intermittent visual weaknesses of WRC 10, such as square corners and some sometimes simple track accessories, but it is otherwise a very attractive racing game. Things look especially good when the low sun cuts through the thick tree lines and the night scenes look great.

Gravel rallies like Estonia are still my preference; I prefer them to asphalt rallies as it is the most relaxed type of driving that I enjoy. There have been some handling changes this year and I find the better feeling of constant momentum when sliding the cars on the gas pedal to be quite satisfying. It also feels more challenging to make very small steering adjustments at high speed, which means I really have to hone the car on the straights. It does a good job of alerting you when you have the wrong tires and the change in grip on surfaces seems more noticeable than ever. I think the feedback from the wheels this year is probably the best it has ever had, but I’m still faster with a controller.

Screenshots of WRC 10

KT Racing’s stage design is still fabulous, although it’s a shame that much of their excellent work from WRC 8 and WRC 9 has been abandoned thanks to calendar changes. There is actually a bonus tab for other rallies, which I enthusiastically thought might have been KT Racing’s way of including the rallies from the last two games that will not take place in 2021, such as Poland, Germany, Mexico, Turkey or Australia. but the tab is inaccessible so i am confused.