WRC3 2012 - all platforms

[Jim di Griz]

For those real rally fans - the only game that carries the official World Rally Championship sponsorship and license.

Okay, the first two games did suffer from the fact that Black Bean are a very small studio with not too many resources. That said, once you got past the Sega-style engine sounds, horrible menus and quite old-gen graphics, the first game was wholly absorbing. It provided reasonably long rally stages from the true WRC calendar of 2010 and you got to race full rallies of thirteen countries with upto seven stages per country.

The second, which came out last October is the current and has shown massive improvements in menu layout, car handling and most importantly the look of it all. Being a WRC licensed game reflecting the past season, it had the countries featured, so four new countries replaced others seen in WRC1 - so goodbye to Japan, New Zealand and Turkey: welcome to Greece, Sardinia, Argentina and Australia. Those are a blast with hairpins and insane surfaces all over the place. As with the first game, I'm really enjoying; both have been really long - I'm on the ninth of eleven seasons so have reached the WRC itself now - the last two are historic and specialist in nature. The Group B cars really do feel dangerous and powerful in this game - something that neither DiRT or GT5 have managed to capture.

Online in both titles have been great - you race simultaneously with upto fifteen others and everyone is ghosted, so no annoying little oiks ruining your chance of coming in with a good time by ramming you off track. In the game as with online, you can set varying degrees of damage too - nothing new, but it is a good sign that it isn't just there for the quick fix. You can also run series of events with upto thirteen stages, either via host selection or vote - so in effect you can be involved in an hour of racing against (mostly) the same people to see who is better on different surfaces.

No weather in the first two titles though - seems their game engine can't do that.

Again in October, the new title lands and it is already looking really impressive - it also has a re-vamped game engine and weather can be expected, still no night races though.

WRC 3: FIA World Rally Championship - Debut Trailer

As with the previous titles, you have all of the seperate rally classes to play through but the difference seems to be that this time you won't be working your way up, season by season in 'The Road to the WRC' campaign mode. This time you'll have each of the thirteen country and the classes you can race there, with a full WRC rally at the end, comprising of all the stages for each country in the full season rally. Also it'll be quite like CodeMaster's DiRT in menu layout, with car/rally and tuning selection all done in the same place.

There will be a few side events, again a lá CM such as block smashing and drifting challenges. Head-to-head though has apparently been removed this time, so it's back to hardcore, point-to-point rally for this game.

After this year, the WRC license will be available for purchase - not sure if Black Bean will succeed again but I think they have earned the kudos for bringing Richard Burns Rally style gaming back into fashion.

[Art Blade]

very nicely written, Jim :)

Is is a console exclusive game?

[Jim di Griz]

Thanks Art  :)

It'll be out there for PC along with Xbox360 PS3 and PS Vita - all flavours catered for.

[Art Blade]

all flavours catered for.

:-D

[PZ]

Nicely done JdG  :-X

[Jim di Griz]

Thanks PZ.

Alan Boiston of VVV has put up the first two hands-on stages for this game. He has a pre-release build, so not quite complete (something about background sounds, crowd noise etc.)

It is looking very good though  :)

WRC 3 Hands on part 1

The second stage, just called 'the British stage' for now can be linked through to at the end of the first, which is a rather glorious looking Monte Carlo stage.

[Art Blade]

I've got the same wheel :) Logitech G25

[PZ]

I used to have a wheel like that  >:((

Good vid  :-X

[Jim di Griz]

Yeah, Alan is an amusing presenter and his vids are usually worth watching.

So you're in luck then Art as you probably heard, there is now proper wheel support for this.

I'll let you know which other wheels are on the list if I can find the info PZ.

[Binnatics]

Looks great, I'll definitely be on the look-out for that! :-X

[Jim di Griz]

So, a few more stages to add - seems that the French, Spanish and Portugese stages are completely new as is the UK opposed to Black Bean's usual method of using the same stages and revamping the graphics.

The Greece Acropolis rally is the same as last year's game though, so a few will be standard favourites.

WRC 3 Hands on part 2 The UK stage mentioned and linked to via the second vid above.

WRC 3 Hands on part 3 Greece...yummy!

WRC 3 Hands on part 4 France and Germany

Another person's view of a Spanish stage
WRC 3 - Gameplay Video - Spain Track - Xbox 360, PS3, PS VITA, PC - PQube Games

Yet another person's view of Portugal
WRC 3 | Gameplay Video | Portugal Track | PS3, PS VITA, Xbox 360, PC Game | PQube Games

Not a fan of the chase-cam view but if you can imagine it in connection with the VVV vids I think you'll get a good idea of how it will all look and feel when driven properly  ;)

Of course, there is also the Inside Sim-Racing review if you have 17 minutes spare...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Th_OVkttH0g#!

[Jim di Griz]

There will be a demo for the game on all platforms - EDIT: 11th and 12th September for Xbox and PS3 respectively - PC demo date currently is tbc though they have confirmed that they are working on one.

[Jim di Griz]

The demo was a load of fun by the way - tight and intense with a mixture of surfaces. I believe the PC demo is out there now but there again, the game itself came out last weekend...

As I'm still console-less until next weekend, I haven't played it yet - but the reports from players are favourable, very favourable  :)

So here's a stage playthrough in New Zealand for anyone like myself who needs a fix until the game is in their hands.

WRC 3 - Rally New Zealand / Skoda Fabia S2000 (Dual View) [Full HD]

[Art Blade]

thanks for keeping us up to date on this  :) :-X

[PZ]

Indeed; racing games have come a long, long way

[fragger]

They certainly have. They've moved somewhat beyond Outrun :-()

[Jim di Griz]

I probably should wait until after the weekend to report in on this game as I've only played a few hours during the past week...but hell, it's too much fun to keep quiet about  ^-^

Although the graphics are still sub-par for the current generation, you will be far too busy handling the very twisty and tight tracks to notice. It is a white knuckle blast to play these stages and I am not even done with Spain yet, though I'm about to break out into Mexico next.

It takes no prisoners with regards to AI competition and the car classes all seem to handle and sound quite differently. You need to have a light touch on the acceleration as you will get wheelspin when cornering, which is great.

Like I say though, give me a couple more days to sink into this so that I can give a more rounded report. It it lots of fun though.

[Art Blade]

alright :) have fun, matey  :)

[PZ]

I probably should wait until after the weekend to report in on this game as I've only played a few hours during the past week...but hell, it's too much fun to keep quiet about  ^-^

I know exactly what you mean; was playing AC3 and had to stop to post a few thoughts, and get a glass of wine (while I was up)  >:D

[Binnatics]

Interesting :-X :)

That game looks promising and it reminds me a lot of Dirt. I'll keep checking this topic ;)

[Jim di Griz]

True, that is what I thought when seeing the Wales Rally stage for the first time, plus New Zealand feels very much like DiRT's Australia stages.

It still reminds me of that though the handling is far better. To tease a little further, here are a few screenies from one of the Wales Rally stages.

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EDIT: amended images to OWG stored files rather than externally hosted.

[Jim di Griz]

The game just keeps getting better and more challenging as I progress. You think after a few stages of varying surfaces, that you should be able for the next. The evil game devs  ;) though have other ideas - the career/game progression switches you between classes and stages each time, which really mixes thing up.

Okay, there are seven 'seasons' in all, based on actual country locations for this past year's WRC. We start in Spain/Portugal in the first and move on to Argentina/Mexico in the second. So far it's been mostly dusty mountain roads with lots of jumps and hairpins. Just when you are getting used to that, they throw a stage that passes through a town into the mix - then you get Argentina, long stages with forest, rocks, jumps, straights and more rocks that you need to slalem around. I am exhausted after learning a stage  :) There are the Dirt 2 style block busting challenges thrown into the process too, which are fun, especially the type that changes block colour between red or green, so you need to be really on the ball for those...hitting the red ones will stop you almost dead  :)

As you can see from the pics above which are not in Spain, Portugal, Mexico or Argentina that there is another mode whereby you can enjoy the WRC experience in a different way. This will let you pick from the offical WRC classes and run a stage or a rally from any of the countries and get to know the tracks - you get to choose an official WRC team with its car and go out there to have fun whilst improving your time and knowledge of the stages you encounter.

Online is something I tend to leave until way later with these games as you really need to know the stages before doing this.

So currently nearing the end of season two I am having a ton of fun. It'll take me quite a few months to get all the way through, especially with other games about to land - but I will most certainly will be going back to it inbetween and afterwards :-X

[PZ]

great images JdG; looks like you're going to be busy for a long while  :-X

[Art Blade]

impressive images indeed :)

Jim, you can upload them to OWG rather than have them hosted somewhere else if you like :)

[Jim di Griz]

Cheers Art - yes I have uploaded some images in the past but was guilty this time of being lazy...

I will add those and a few more later then re-edit the above pics accordingly.

Oddly enough I think the images are really quite rough in terms of current-gen imagery. They do allow for some fun angles and dynamics though.

I have now all but completed the career mode which has quite a lot of variety in it. Normally you'd run through seven or so seasons of increasing difficulty, using increasingly faster classes of cars.

This time around you get races in specific areas such as Spain, Portugal and Mexico in the first season but using a wider variety of cars. As you progress through to different regions, you can go back to the older areas as certain challenges unlock, such as the block smashing, drifting (and boy are there some superb hairpins for that) upto combo challenges with...well combinations of objectives. These unlock across the game at certain XP levels which works quite well.

The head-to-heads are the best though - at first they are traditional races with the crossover stadium tracks. By season five though you are faced with chasing your opponent along a stage and beating his time. As you start only three or so seconds behind him it is damn tight and intense w@&k keeping up with him. You can get past them, but they will push you off the track if you do not stay ahead, which is a bit annoying but you get over it as it's so much fun. The first is at Monte Carlo, the second is far harder as it's Greece and you have a lot of dust to contend with. The last is New Zealand and is just insanely twisty and exhausting; not to mention the sudden elevation changes...it was brilliant fun and I was breathless with my heart pounding by the time I won  :)

MP is just as much fun as with the previous titles, moreso because there are many more players this time. I only had one gripe with MP as the host froze in pre-load and so the game just waited for him. As he did not exit after four minutes, I did so and got the warning that I'd be penalised in the next race. Maybe he just wandered off to get a drink...I do not know but it was irritating to lose XP for someones elses fault.

Anyway, a few more pics to follow later today.