![]() The AI can be adjusted to compensate before each event in career mode, but it takes some testing to find the right range of difficulty (and that’s not as straightforward as it is in F1 2020). The slider suggests more control to dial it in right at the perfect level to match your own driving skill, but the disparity in the AI’s performance across rallies can often be strange, especially when they go from nipping at your heels at one event to lagging miles behind in the next, despite no changes to their setting. Less ideal is the AI, the skill level of which is now determined by a slider instead of named difficulty levels. Everything from the racket of kick-up from loose surfaces to worn brakes seems stronger in WRC 9, although I have encountered an odd bug on multiple occasions where the engine sound becomes soft and muted despite all other effects remaining at normal levels. There seem to have been improvements made to the already excellent sound mix, too. Previous chase cams have seemed like GoPros attached to the back of your car on a broomstick and I found them virtually impossible to use. Additionally, the awkwardly stiff chase cam finally appears to have been nixed in favour of one that lets the car slide and pivot more on its centre axis while the camera remains facing forwards. There’s a new English co-driver whose delivery is more organic, though it’d be nice to have one who has the dialogue on-hand to be able to react in real-time to your good (or bad) driving. The feeling of weight seems better, though cars are no less nimble there just seems to be an improved sensation of bulk as your car dances across the gravel, which is ideal. Play Triple Caution! Stay Centre!There have been a few refurbishments elsewhere, with a handful of subtle but welcome tweaks since WRC 8. Were you saving those tyres for a special occasion, lads? I thought I was doing the right thing using them to… drive faster than those other blokes. ![]() The ridiculous bonus objectives have remained, though, and while the penalty for ignoring them or brushing them away is only slight, it’s still hard to swallow your current manufacturer reputation dropping after you win a rally, all because you had the audacity to… choose the best tyre compound for the job instead of an arbitrarily mandated one. It’s also still pretty incongruous that it’d be up to a newly-hired driver to personally rotate staff out for vacation time, although it’s less annoying this time because team-members don’t seem to tire as quickly in WRC 9. WRC 9 seems mostly the same in this department, but to avoid déjà vu it probably could’ve done with a way for returning players of WRC 8 to skip past the feeder series and get straight to the WRC championship proper. Go Lotte (18f, Red Giant, Rock of Gibraltar). 2 wins at 1200m, 1300m in 2022-23, 2d Whangarei RC Winter Championship 2YO Final. Belthil (19g, Testa Rossa, Lake Coniston). Fuel and Unusual PunishmentWRC 8 arrived with a radically overhauled career mode that seemed to draw inspiration from both the Dirt and F1 games, turning WRC 7’s vanilla shuffle from one event to the next into something that made me feel as if I really had an actual race team around me. 3 wins at 1400m to 2022-23, Matamata RC Fairview Motors H., Auckland TR Carbine Club Trophy H. Overall I like this game and am glad I waited till it was on sale.Play New Zealand is fantastic too, particularly the sections that wrap their way along the North Island coastline, and Japan is an incredibly taxing and technical tarmac-based rally boasting a lot of raised sections of road flanked by streams and ditches that’ll totally ruin your day. The PS5 controller stuff is fun and adds to the immersion. Luckily they don't come up much (mostly in the Monaco stages). I find them so bad that I often crash when they pop up because I'm so gobsmacked at how bad they. I honestly dont think I've seen such blocky, unsoftened and low-quality texture walls since PC games in the mid-90's. Overall I think the graphics are great but the stone and brick walls that pop up in some levels are extraordinarily bad. It’s not perfect though - there are some tedious and pointless tasks in career mode and not much of a progression system. The cars handle well, most of the courses are fun to drive and the difficulty system can be adjusted easily and without penalty (or incentive depending on how you look at it). ![]() ![]() I like it when they strike a good balance between fun and simulation and I think this one does that well. I like it when they strike a good balance between fun and I’ve been playing rally games for decades and I’m not that serious about them. I’ve been playing rally games for decades and I’m not that serious about them.
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