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WRC 2010 is a competent racing game that is designed for WRC fans. The games strong point is its focus on rally and mimicking the WRC virtually. The game includes the drivers, teams and countries from WRC 2010. It does not have replicas of real world stages, and it does not have 20 minute stages like the real world but what is provided is adequate. WRC 2010 includes all 13 countries each with 6 stages that are inspired by the real world counterparts.
The game comes with career mode, single player(think quickplay), multiplayer and challenges. It allows you to start your own career in rally and eventually compete against big names in WRC, P-WRC, S-WRC and J-WRC competitions. Career mode starts you off small with little horsepower, a few sponsors and racing in short events against unknown racers. Building a name for yourself and earning the right to race against Loeb in Career Mode will take some time, so fortunately you can hop right into any stage of any country in a separate single player mode. In single player mode you can compete in single races, single rallies or even customize your own championship. For example you can make a J-WRC Championship that takes place in 7 countries each with 3 stages. Outside of career mode you will not be able to use your custom driver; instead you will pick from drivers like Solberg or Block and use their cars and liveries. If you're like me you will pick Loeb and lose regularly, finally allowing Mikko Hirvonen a chance at a Championship victory.
Now on to stage length, unfortunately WRC does not have any 10 minute stages like Rallisport Challenge 2, but they are longer than some of the competitors. Dirt3 stages range between 1.5 and 3.5 minutes, where WRC stages are 2.5 to 5 minutes. Dirt3 has about 20 rally stages in 4 countries and WRC has 78 stages in 13 countries. WRC has a good amount of rally content for those who can get past the mediocre menu system and graphics.
The car graphics are good, but windows, mirrors and special effects look weak. Cars kick up plenty of dust and this looks ok but not stellar, what is nice is that the particles stay in the air a long time during replays unlike most off-road games. The environments are good but not as good as the competition. Foliage and trees don't seem dense enough while mountains and hills occasionally show off their limited geometry. Also the graphics engine seems unable to draw objects in 3D very far into the distance even on very high end computers. Even with the visual issues, the game looks good enough to play and each country has unique styling and personality so it is a treat to travel to so many environments.
I use the Logitech Driving Force racing wheel and I find the force feedback in this game to be mild. Other racers definitely kick harder by default. The feedback that is provided seems accurate enough; you can almost feel the traction of your tires via the wheel it just feels subdued. Gravel and tarmac don't feel as different as I would expect either.
The controls are much closer to a Sim than arcade games like Dirt, at least when you take off all assists like I have. The high powered WRC cars need a sensitive touch off road; wreckless acceleration will cause you to spin out and braking too late will cause countless causalities. The front-wheel cars are quite easy to work with so I suggest you start there. The more powerful 4WD cars require concentration to keep them on the road but once you get comfortable with them it's hard to return to the slower junior cars.
While the damage system works in game, it does not seem realistic or punishing enough in many situations. For example in one race, I damaged my gearbox had a coolant leak and cracked something else so my car regularly made a strange sound. Third and fourth gear seemed longer than usual to switch but I was able to finish the stage with the best time. My car was so damaged that with the 60 minutes allotted to do repairs I could only fix half of the issues. I still got a stage win on the next stage as well, but I still had to listen to the strange sound.
I've read complaints about the co-pilots, but personally I find them good overall. In the options you can change pace note timing if you need. Playing with the hud off is enjoyable, focusing on verbal directions instead of a map is a fun challenge. The co-pilots do a good job of navigating you without the need for a map, arrows or even section times. It is not perfect mind you. But late directions are a rare occurrence. After stage splits the co-pilot informs you of your performance "They can't see us for dust", "We moved up a few places", "We are losing our lead" etc are colorful additions that might be annoying to some because you will hear them a lot.
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