WRC 2 Extreme

Review - Sony's answer to Colin McRae revs-up for the challenge.

Picking up this game the title really excited me. Extreme had me racing to my bedside tissues and wiping myself clean. Was I going to see a Rally game with rocket boosters and cannons. Landmines strewn across a remote rallying destination? This, sadly, isn’t what the game is all about but, as with the original, this is one heck of a fine rallying game.

This is without a shadow of a doubt the single biggest rival to the Colin McRae Rally game and playing it I get a real sense of why. It’s addictive, sleek, fun, competitive and accessible. But does it serve up any aces on the originality front to pip CMR to the post?

You can definitely not aim the criticism that this is just your average rallying game. With a plethora of gaming options from the WRC to WRC challenge and multiplayer modes you will be engaged for hours. Being the official game of the World Rally Championship you get to race as all of the current top Rally drivers, with one notable exception, across all the complete stages of the actual World Rally Championship and there are over 100 different tracks. Combine this with commentary from the real commentators and you’ve got a very precise little game. The Challenge mode is also a welcome addition with the ability to set time records and practice all of the tracks against a ghost car. The multiplayer stops you from becoming a total recluse as you can get your friends over to make them eat your dirt. You do end up giving a bit of the graphical finesse in playing on a split screen but it doesn’t seriously affect the game play. The best, and most important thing, which tips the balance in favour of WRC over CMR, is the addition of a custom championship mode. You have the ability to choose who races and on what tracks. You could create a whole championship on racing through Great Britain! It is a very enjoyable extra but I fear with the addictiveness of the “real thing” you might never get round to utilising it to it’s full capacity.

The graphics are then a bit of a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying they are bad but for a genre as competitive as Rally games you have to set the benchmarks incredibly high. The cars are impressive to look at but you never get the same intensity of snow piling onto the windscreen like CMR 3 does when you are in the ‘in car’ camera mode. The replay options are quite fun to watch but there seems to be a heavy compromise to be made when playing in split screen mode and with a game like this the discrepancy needs to be minimal. The cars seem to take little to no damage also even though you can flip and spin the car so easily. The ability to roll the car is really enjoyable and looks so realistic its scary, but occasional glitches where you can get the car stuck against a wall with just the bumper on the floor can sometimes get a tad annoying. The draw distance is also noticeable at times with the ‘pop-up’ of certain scenery.

The sound is pleasant enough and for die-hard fans of the real thing it contains all the TV music in its original form. The in-game car noises are also much less imposing than in CMR3 and I didn’t find myself turning the sound off or straining to hear what my co-driver had to tell me. A battle won for the WRC camp.

The handling of the cars and the impressive overall look of the game were a big plus factor for me as a novice could quite easily pick this game up and get involved without the die-hards starting a riot complaining that the difficulty settings were too easy.

In this tense battle, unfortunately, only one contender can come out alive. The Christmas sales are really hotting-up now and no-one can really be sure who will win, CMR3 or WRC 2 Extreme. On playing and thoroughly enjoying both, the only thing that comes out clearly is that nothing is clear-cut between the two. On the one hand you have CMR3 which has incredible visuals combined with a very addictive experience for the true fan, and on the other you have WRC 2 Extreme which is accessible and technically more accurate if not a little flawed in the visual department. I really do think that the jury is out on this one. For my final opinion get back to me after Christmas when I’ll have played both a little longer, and if you can’t wait that long then get both and decide for yourself.

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