After Dirt Rally and Dirt Rally 2, this entry in the modern Codemasters/EA rally game series seems a bit less revolutionary and falls a bit flat for me.



At this point in my life, I've played a lot of racing games and a significant number of the rally games there are. Dirt Rally was a hard cut towards sim-style rally gaming that Dirt Rally 2 faithfully stuck to. I played through both of those on the standard Playstation controller, which was particularly difficult since they leaned towards a wheel input due to their sim-like nature. Booting up EA WRC, I expected to crash on the first stage and blame the controller immediately. However, I found myself just racing down the stage unimpeded by the unwieldiness of the input system! Has EA found the correct balance between sim and arcade style racing or did I just set the options to baby me through the world?

Whatever the case, if you liked the Dirt Rally series, this WRC game adds some branding and more car choice to the racing experience. I spent most of my time in the career mode, however, and found it a bit of a mess. While most racing career modes are pretty linear and straightforward, EA dumps you in as the team manager, choosing rallies to compete in, hiring staff, managing teammates, negotiating with sponsors, and even building cars. You are left to wonder what that British guy who keeps talking to you in the menu is for... The whole process becomes a bit tedious, but luckily it is easy enough to just focus on the main series and get to the WRC in two years. The difficulty is adjustable to your skill level and I always tend to pick a level that lets me win by 30 seconds, so I guess I'm awesome at video game rally driving.

It is a racing game based on the best genre of racing and it does the racing part very well. If you're looking for a solid rally game, you can't go wrong with this one.

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