{"id":38299,"date":"2023-11-07T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/ea-sports-wrc-review\/"},"modified":"2023-11-07T12:00:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T12:00:06","slug":"ea-sports-wrc-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/ea-sports-wrc-review\/","title":{"rendered":"EA Sports WRC Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 1998, my family got a PlayStation. We were allowed one game each. My siblings chose Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider. I chose Colin McRae Rally from Codemasters. I subsequently cheated and also picked Gran Turismo for my dad, but my point is that Colin McRae Rally is one of the most formative racers I\u2019ve ever played. EA Sports WRC is the latest chapter in that long-running off-road odyssey. With the lasting legacy of the Colin McRae and Dirt Rally series at its core and a juicy injection of official WRC content \u2013 plus the strength of the cracking F1 games as a sister series \u2013 how could WRC go wrong? Easily, it turns out, as a range of performance problems and disappointing features have combined here to jam a banana in the tailpipe of WRC\u2019s otherwise fantastic loose surface handling, impeccable audio, and killer car list.<\/p>\n

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WRC has seen Codemasters pivot from its traditional in-house engine to Unreal, a switch that was described as necessary in order for WRC to support the longest rally stages the studio has ever built. Those extra-long stages have arrived; at around 30 kilometres they\u2019re around twice the length of even the longest routes in the previous Dirt games, and they are<\/em> very welcome. I do enjoy longer stages like this (just like the Epic Stages in the previous official WRC games from Kylotonn) as they\u2019re such satisfying tests of consistency and endurance, and they have a real feeling of occasion to them you just don\u2019t get from quick, five-minute blasts.<\/p>\n

However, this engine swap also appears to have introduced a range of nasty performance issues in WRC that I never came across in the previous Dirt series. The worst is the regular stuttering. I suspect I could probably ignore it if it was confined to just the pre-race camera pans across cars as they wait on the start line, where it is just annoying, but unfortunately it also occurs during actual racing. It\u2019s a jarring experience. On Xbox Series X I encountered it whether set to 4K or 1080p, and there are definitely instances where the stuttering always repeats at about the same point on a particular stage. For a racing category where you\u2019re barely able to blink for fear of a gnarly wreck, these micro-freezes are like being poked in the eye \u2013 and they definitely had a tendency to throw off my rhythm and reactions in complex corner sequences. The only freezing problems I want to encounter in a rally game are ones that can be dealt with on studded snow tyres.<\/p>\n

The only freezing problems I want to encounter in a rally game are ones that can be dealt with on studded snow tyres.<\/section>\n

Equally frustrating is the screen tearing, which is slightly less of a gameplay foul when it happens but unfortunately occurs far more regularly and is plenty distracting. This is not something I\u2019ve noticed in Dirt, Grid, or the F1 series, but it\u2019s rife in WRC \u2013 and it all contributes to a surprisingly sloppy look. It\u2019s still playable, but it\u2019s far from pretty at times.<\/p>\n

All the World\u2019s a Stage<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m disappointed with the stage design overall, as there\u2019s a lack of crispness to the surface detail, the vegetation is very basic, and roadside features really don\u2019t stand up to much scrutiny. Forza Horizon 5-level this is not. I love how dust realistically hangs in the air for far longer than any other rally game I\u2019ve ever played, but I hate that most shrubs are constantly clipping into the cabin of my car. <\/p>\n

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The fidelity here just doesn\u2019t feel like a generational leap from 2019\u2019s Dirt Rally 2.0, despite the fact WRC is only available on PC and current-gen consoles. In fact, in some areas it looks like it\u2019s gone backwards. I\u2019ve seen no glimpse of rabbits darting across the road or low-flying drones \u2013 things that added life to the stages in previous Dirt games. Tyre kick-up is great, but none of it seems to attach itself to my cars \u2013 I\u2019m finishing muddy stages with a perfectly clean car. Is this a bug or by design? Because you can <\/em>manually apply thick layers of dirt and muck to your cars while frozen in photo mode. Wet surface textures don\u2019t seem as convincing, either, and the rain and water-splash effects are mediocre at best. Driveclub came out nine years ago. How have its rain effects never been matched? Codemasters even hired the Driveclub team after Sony axed them. <\/em>I don\u2019t know whether to be baffled or bitter.<\/p>\n

Snow is also a notable offender, especially considering how great it looks in 2022\u2019s WRC Generations from Kylotonn. In the latter, snow glistened and clumped on the verges of the roads. In WRC it mostly looks like dirt painted matt white. I had figured this might have been a side effect of the fact WRC boasts the nifty ability to customise seasons to race stages in different conditions (and that there was a summertime environment masked underneath the snow effect). However, it turns out Sweden and the equally snowy (but fictional) Nordic event Rally Scandia are actually the only two rallies in WRC I can\u2019t select a different season for. So there\u2019s no excuse for why this snow blows. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame, because WRC does feature more than 600 kilometres of unique roads, all carved up into more than 200 stages across 17 locations. That essentially equates to 30-or-so kilometres of road per environment, sliced into a one long stage that uses the majority of that distance (that can also be run in reverse) as well as a bunch of half-length and shorter stages that use segments of it. There are no Super Special Stages or rallycross courses but it\u2019s still a ton of track \u2013 more than what\u2019s available in WRC Generations and Dirt Rally 2.0. It just doesn\u2019t always impress.<\/p>\n