In terms of describing things that are a little extreme as nothing more than suicide, I’m on a roll. Skiing is flinging yourself off a mountain and paying for it, bike racing is licensed decapitation, and the World Rally Championship is throwing a car full of scaffolding down a mountain while trying not to kill yourself or several spectators. With that light and happy tone set, it should be said that while I may not have been the kindest to WRC 9 last year, I did return to it earlier this year for a video review in better spirits. There is a reason I returned: For all its roughness, there is something interesting there, a solid piece of racing experience that may very well be too niche for some.

Back in the World of Sport and Grand Stand days, you’d have Dicky Davis and rallying on typical terrestrial TV in the UK. Now you’d have to go to channel 800-something and find Eurosport Xtra, or whatever it is if you fancy a piece of racing that isn’t at the height of its popularity. This is a real shame because rallying is a skill that is mind-boggling: Driving at high speed around a tree, on dirt or ice, while listening to a co-driver yell their map at you as they hope you don’t fling them off a cliff. I never really understood the whole co-driver business until recently when I made mine in WRC 9 German/Italian/French/Spanish because it is easier to ignore someone yelling, “Scharfes bremsen;” Sharp braking, in English.

I can’t do that this time around, as the language alternatives on launch were reduced to French, Spanish, and “British” despite the bloke clearly being Irish. Nonetheless, the English woman with her very broad received pronunciation will do, as she’s the only female voice at launch as well. Of course, that is not entirely a negative, but it is lacking in some regards if you ask me. As far as I can remember, that seems to be about it in terms of impactful changes to the options menus; Still the same as the year prior.

That isn’t to say everything is a copy-paste job. There are some areas where things are lacking, which we’ll get to in a bit, but that was the case in 9 as well as WRC 10. You still have a meteorologist about as accurate as Michael Fish on a windy day, at least at the beginning of the career mode. Nothing changes there, though the career mode does see a bit of a facelift, as do a couple of the menus overall. That is mostly to make room for the WRC 50th Anniversary despite the inaugural season being in 1973, but it provides small challenges from historical events throughout the years, which was a significant part of last year’s career mode and this year’s game. Other minor changes include an increasingly prominent online focus and skill development segment on the main menu.

These are minute changes, I know. The biggest changes seemingly come from trying to improve the career mode and defining the features such as hired staff being nuanced further, tutorials on all the menus, a greater amount of detail on how tires are used, and more. In the car, there is a tweak to the physics it seems, not by a large amount, but it is there. It feels a little tighter and more comfortable to control, though I’m uncertain if that’s from playing last year’s release a lot recently. Generally it feels a little bit more fun. Throwing the back end of the car out is made even more fun by the co-driver’s comments of “wow,” “ow,” “perfect,” and the somewhat condescending, “that’s a bit much,” make her sound like a wife either impressed or very unimpressed by her husband.

Graphically, there are numerous things to be desired, even on the 8th generation hardware. I’m not just talking about texture quality or clipping either. There are segments, such as the training areas, where you can see textures are stitched together. Not that it’s entirely without pretty moments, they are just too few and far between to say it is anywhere near an attractive game. Meanwhile, in terms of graphical options, you still only have motion blur (switched on for some reason) and no brightness settings. That’s a decision that is as helpful as my sarcasm when I say the headlights of each car could light up the universe. In fact, they are about as useful as a teapot made of digestive biscuits (graham cracker for Americans).

Ultimately, the point of the WRC 10 is being able to kick up dust at stupid cornering speeds while being shouted at by a woman reading a map that might as well be in Dutch. Does it at least succeed in doing this? For me, yes. While there are segments missing such as co-driver languages, you can still have great fun killing people standing in the forest or up a mountain watching several cars wrap themselves around a tree or rock. Career mode might be more of the same, generally speaking, as last year had historic races in the calendar of the career. This separate mode with exclusive tracks makes itself compelling, even to those without much knowledge of historical WRC.

A PS4 copy of WRC 10 was provided by Nacon for the purposes of this review.

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WRC 10

$49.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• More controlable and fun physics.
• improvements to career mode; despite being small changes.
• The new exclusive tracks in the 50th anniversary mode.

Cons

• A lack of co-driver languages.
• Even on 8th gen' hardware, graphics aren't being pushed.