Review: WRC4

The latest installment of the WRC series from Milestone is now on the Vita and it delivers a solid follow-up to the previous titles. They have stuck to the already winning formula and released an evolution of the series rather than a revolution.

Standard rally game HUD is customisable

Quick rally mode does what it says on the tin throwing you straight into the action with a minimum of fuss.

Career mode is where most players will spend their time. If you have played MotoGP '13 then the format will be instantly recognisable. You start of with a wildcard drive for a WRC Junior team and earn reputation points from results to work your way up through the classes. 

You can adjust the difficulty in the main settings anywhere from a walk in the park to a genuine challenge. The different road surfaces actually feel different and you will notice the change in grip at different rallies, and the bumps really make life difficult for example in Argentina.

Another feature which is carried over from WRC3 is the rewind system. This lets you undo any time sapping mistakes you might make and gives you a chance to do better. The number of rewinds per stage can be changed in the menu settings.

The co-driver can get a little lost on occasion when there are many corners in quick succession,  but you can adjust the timing to be earlier or later if you wish.

One bugbear I have is the loading times. I can't decide if they are longer than usual or if they are just more frequent than other games, but it seems like about 20% of your gaming time will be spent looking at a loading screen.

Get used to this screen....

In terms of performance I experienced some frame rate problems occasionally, usually during Rally Australia. In places it resembled a slide show which makes a reflex game such as this quite difficult to play. Thankfully these incidents are very isolated and don't detract from the overall experience. 

The multiplayer feature is fine when it works, however I have had more than my fair share of connection problems and dropouts. I have tried in 2 different continents and get the same issues, so it doesn't appear to be a localised problem. This assumes of course that you can find someone else online which sadly is a problem for many Vita games.

Nothing new on the car repair screen

For the trophy hunters out there, nothing here is an insurmountable challenge. Most time will be spent in career mode in which you will earn the bulk of the trophies. The only grind will be the online trophies, which due the the aforementioned connection problems and lack of players may prove frustrating. 

Honestly if you already have WRC3, you aren't missing out on much if you don't buy WRC4. Aside from the updated cars and teams it doesn't feel like there is a huge leap forward in terms of graphics or new features. However if you are a fan of rally games or racing games in general this certainly won't disappoint.