What makes a rally game?
Speed helps, as do puddles, and patches of muddy track.
Long drifts are essential, and the thing has to lookright.
You want to thunder into woodland and over ice.
Oh, and those racks of headlamps, as if a vampire hunter were competing, are a must.
With EA Sports WRC, Codemasters supplies all of this.
But opting for one means missing the rest.
You make your plans, and the pressure mounts.
You then pick a driver, and are acquainted with the disembodied Keith Taylor, your chief engineer.
Your own journey with EA Sports WRC may slalom through those same zones.
Give it time, though, and you get a feel for the handling.
The weather, too, though not dynamic, plays a fine supporting role.
Should you come loose, you have a number of options.
One, you’re free to attempt to doughnut your way into facing the right direction.
(If you have somersaulted from a lofty peak, this becomes a pretty steep challenge.)
Two, you’re free to reset your car’s position, with a time penalty.
And three, you’re free to quit and enroll in the Rally School.
It’s as though the game were balancing a biscuit on your snout and telling you to wait.
One advantage of having the official licence is that Codemasters has room to go back in time.
you’re free to race Sebastien Ogier’s win at Rally Guanajuato Mexico, back in March.
EA Sports WRC accessibility options
Option to increase subtitles size.
Includes colour blind configs for people with deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia.
Mono Mix can be adjusted, and the left and right audio channels can be re-balanced.
Full button remapping, and extensive options for driving assists.
The only thing that ruptures the spell, at least at launch, is patchy performance.
This will, with any hope, be smoothed in the coming weeks.
As for the coming years, Codemasters has an excellent base to build from.
As Keith would say, there is always room for improvement.
And if Max were to get his hands on this game, he would be Delighted.
