Since the middle of February, I’ve attempted to review a newly released Video Game every week, with a few exceptions. Along the way, I’ve been lucky enough to review Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, and God of War Ascension, and I’ve done a few stinkers in there as well, Mud-FIM World Motocross and The Walking Dead Survival Instinct immediately come to mind. Unfortunately, with some strong releases in there, I’ve had a miss a few games I wanted to play, thanks to being already booked. One of those games was WRC3, which was released in the US on March 26, 2013, which was the same week as Bioshock Infinite. So, when I noticed no new releases this week, I jumped at the opportunity to play and review it!
I’ve long loved playing Rally games, which is weird as an American, but lately there’s been a huge gap in the genre, with the DiRT series switching from racing based game to being more of a Gymkhana style car game. The WRC series hasn’t had much success stateside, and in fact WRC3 wasn’t released until 5 months after being released in Europe, and only on the Playstation 3. Sure, the Forza and Gran Turismo franchises have dabbled in Rally, but that hardly counts.
StoryThere isn’t a story in WRC3, only two different game modes, the WRC Experience, and the Road to Glory. The WRC Experience is based the actual World Rally Championship, with actual drivers, cars, and liveries from today’s Rally racing, with single modes, Rally races, and championship racing all available. The Road to Glory is a single player mode, where you create a character and rise through the rankings of the WRC, experiencing challenges, Rally races, and Championships alike. Each series has a boss race, but for the most part, each boss is pretty simple to beat.
GameplayWhen I first started playing WRC3, the first thing I noticed is that the cars in the game don’t appear to be positively engaged with the ground, meaning friction from the ground doesn’t seem to affect the tires. I know, the cars are moving around on dirt and gravel, but there is really no differentiation between the different surfaces, apart from tarmac. Also, when at speed, obstacles on the side of the road would seem to grab the car, and send it careening off into oblivion. Lastly, when playing online, I found that there was an extreme lack of playable space, roads and track were the only place the car could interact with, shoulders and sidewalks were blocked off, and this created a big tunnel effect, and made racing unenjoyable.
Bits and PiecesObviously, there is very little voice acting, aside from your co-driver, and, for once, I actually wasn’t completely annoyed by him, as most co-drivers in other rally style games often get completely on my nerves. The music, on the other hand, was absolutely atrocious, and dub-stepped itself into my soul, which I would have loved to extinguish. Visually, WRC3 was a disappointment as well, with rendering happening in real time during races, and tire tracks disappearing right in front of my car during track events. Online wasn’t much better, with very few players playing, and most of those in lobbies were level 35 or higher, making winning a race, which is a trophy, extremely difficult to impossible.
Final ThoughtsOverall, WRC3 isn’t a very good game. The visual, sound, controls, gameplay and online experience being well below average. I played the game around 25-30 hours, and found most of that time to be boring, and I never really fell into a rally-trance like I did with the DiRT franchise games, but that was mainly due to the dub-step soundtrack blaring into my ears. I would give WRC3 a 65/100, with it’s only saving grace being that it is a completable game, and I face no glitches that broke the game. I would definitely recommend that you wait until WRC3 is in the bargain bin, $9.99 or under, have a boosting buddy for the online trophies. WRC3 is a very easy platinum, with a buddy, and requires no online pass.
This review is reprinted from my website www.thenerdfilter.com 2.5