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No matter what settings you choose there’s some weird foibles that can pop up regarding the time other drivers post. There’s a fantastically intuitive set of sliders which can change how difficult a rally is from 50% to 150% difficulty, damage setting and one crash mode (for veterans only – trust me). The other area that WRC 9 could use some work is the consistency of the AI. While this is far from a deal breaker, it’s poor in comparison to the car models which are excellent. The environments? They look so rough highlighted by the headlights. The rain? Impressive, as are the water effects after driving through streams. This is never more apparent during “extreme weather” events which take place during the night while it’s raining. There’s a lot of 2D images placed together to give a 3D feeling which doesn’t at all look realistic. The tree’s in the forests of Japan are so similar, they start to look copied and pasted. The vineyard section of the German rally borders on looking awful. Drive through Sweden and some of the tree’s look so poor they almost become distracting. While the roads themselves and the immediate surroundings are detailed and lifelike, some of the environments you’re driving through looks incredibly ropey on a standard PS4.
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There’s a lot of inconsistency in the visuals.
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The 3 new rally’s included in this years calendar – Kenya, Japan, New Zealand – are included and while they don’t offer anything mechanically different from the rest of the game, they offer new backdrops to take in. Sweden’s snow kissed and slippery tracks feel very different to the tiny tarmac streets of the German rally and you’ll have to approach them differently. So to do all of the rally locations make an appearance. Being a licensed product, you’ll see all of the top teams and drivers from the WRC-J & WRC 3 through to the WRC proper. There’s no traditional races with multiple cars on track here you might see other cars on a track but they’re simply laying down their best times too. WRC 9 doesn’t deviate from the format of the FIA World Rally Championship. This is assisted by well implemented co-driver instructions that aren’t just barked out at nonsense times. The feeling of stringing these corners together to really own a section of a track is immense.
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Every 1-3 severity corner you manage to take at speed without clipping the environment, your fingers working in unison to brake and accelerate perfectly, feels like an achievement. When it all clicks though and you find your rhythm, racing in WRC 9 becomes an enjoyable balance of speed and precision. It wasn’t uncommon to feel like I was going slowly to look at the speedo and see I’m doing more than 100mph. At first there feels like a real disconnect between how fast you feel like you’re going and how fast you’re actually going. This system takes a little time getting used too. Take a corner that starts on gravel but transitions to tarmac and you’ll feel where the tyres start to bite on the road rather than the rubble. It’s an impressive system that KT Racing have put together here that really allows you to feel the road and the friction you’re facing. Depending on your car set up (all altered via an easy to use slider system), the assists, the weather and surface, you can have a twitchy ride or a fight around each corner. Each corner is a test of your thumbs, your observation, your reactions and how brave you want to be. No matter what assists you pick, tackling a course in WRC 9 is a challenge. The assists here are related to the sport specific nuances, like ABS, traction and starting line control. There’s no steering assists here like have become commonplace in sim racers. Simulation rally games can be a little impenetrable at first but this game has you complete a track before you really get into the game which will then offer up suggestions on the difficulty and assists you should start with. Let’s start with the handling in WRC 9 as this is the part of a rally game that really makes it or breaks it. Things have really progressed since then. The last time I strapped myself into a virtual rally car it was with WRC 7 back in 2017. It has been a few years since I played a rally game with Paul covering V-Rally 4 and Greg taking WRC 8 for a spin last year. This is a review by more of a rally enthusiast and lapsed fan rather than someone who picks up a title in this genre every year. If you came to this review expecting a detailed breakdown of how WRC 9 differs from last year’s entries or the other rally games out there, I’m sorry to disappoint.