Laaaaaaadies and gentlemen, time to start your engines! Is it that time of the season again, ready for some rally racing action? WRC is back, with WRC 10, so let’s drive in with GamingBoulevard’s worst rally driver ever!
WRC 10
Realistic racing games on the Nintendo Switch are always a bit of a hit-miss situation. The feel and touch are usually excellent, just like other platforms. But the graphical performance is usually not something to write home about. Then again, people pick these games up for the cars, not the people standing along with the racetracks. And that’s for a reason since WRC 10 is a very high-level and deep rally simulator. Not something you can master in, let’s say, 5 minutes. So, when this is your first rodeo, expect to suck at it for a while – I sure did. Oh, pro-tip, lower the vibration on the controls; my Pro-Controller exploded with vibrations while I was driving along the routes of Japan (not literally, but it felt that way). You know that feeling when you’re handling a jackhammer? Well, that was my experience with WRC10.
Sunday Driving
WRC 10 is not a game for the Sunday drivers, your driving skills have to be exceptional, and you’re punished without pity if they aren’t. The slightest clip of an object at the side of the road will send you spinning or tumbling, or even doing frontflips, backflips, and 360s like Tony Hawks Pro-Skating. You can tweak the controls by heading into the options and reassigning the acceleration and brake controls. By default, these are mapped to ZR and ZL, respectively, but because these aren’t analog triggers, they lack the nuance needed for some corners in a serious rally game.
Like some of my colleagues recommended, I mapped them to the right analog stick instead and played with a twin-stick control method. As a result, I got much better control over acceleration and braking, making it easier to navigate tricky corners without spinning out. Unfortunately, you also have to deactivate the ability to turn the camera around with the right stick. Not that I used that one, so I wasn’t very sorry to deactivate that one.
Learning Curve
The slippery handling combined with the game’s exceptionally long courses means quite a difficulty curve. It felt very depressing to lose a race that took over 7 km to finish (and took me over 8 minutes), failing and restarting. I’ll tell you when you complete these races a few times (with plenty of restarts) and still fail horribly; I wanted to throw the controller at the car. But, once you eventually get the hang of things – which, as I say, can take a while – you’ll find that WRC can be highly satisfying. When you finally put in reasonable times that challenge those of your competitors, you feel like you’ve accomplished something. Games like these should be played with a steering wheel or even a car sim set-up.
Graphics
Let’s talk graphics. I already mentioned that people play these games for cars. And you should since they look great! The environment and people in them, not so much. In docked mode, it just about passes for acceptable, but play the game in handheld mode, and the graphical issues are so severe that they provide a huge distraction while driving. Not only is the frame rate rougher than a cheese grater made of sandpaper, but it’s also hard to concentrate on a crucial, lengthy run when trees and other scenery are appearing out of nowhere like Dr. Strange summons them from the Avengers.
But, if you can put up with a game whose environments are almost always grossly underwhelming, there’s a lot more on offer here than last year’s game, which was already pretty stacked with content. As well as the return of the in-depth career mode (which has barely changed much), there’s also a brand new model celebrating the 50th anniversary of the World Rally Championship, which lets you take on a series of classic courses from different critical years in the sport’s history. I had a colleague at one of my first jobs, a rally nut, so he would be thrilled to play this game.
Historical impressions
Why, you might ask? You can drive around the 1974 Sanremo track or take on the part of the 1992 New Zealand rally. This includes the authentic cars used back then. This extends to the vehicles, too. Whereas WRC 9 featured 22 different models covering a mixture of modern and classic vehicles, the extended focus on the sport’s history means even more legendary cars are available to drive, bringing the total number to 35. And, no, I’m no rally nerd, but I can appreciate a level of detail. And details are present; last year’s games featured 107 courses, taking in 13 locations. With all the actual 2021 WRC stages, plus bonus Belgium and Wales stages from older games, plus all the anniversary content, you’re looking at a massive 142 courses spread across 19 locations. Given that so many of these courses are exceptionally long given the nature of the sport, there must be over 1000km of the track there. So, yeh, WRC 10 puts its money where its mouth is.
Conclusion
So, to conclude, WRC 10 contains significantly more content than its already packed predecessor and can provide extremely satisfying rally gameplay once you get used to its (accurately) unforgiving handling. However, this is let down by the game’s visuals, which are tolerable while docked but look awful when playing in handheld. Nevertheless, as long as you can put up with how it looks, there should be enough to keep you busy for months.
