WRC 8 Review: An Engrossing Rally Sim Contender

I’ll have a look eventually just not very excited I can’t purchase it on steam currently.
Thanks for the review was a good read.
 
This game is honestly one of most, if not the most fun rally game I've ever played.

While it's not perfect it just has so much content for yourself to get immersed into. The in-depth career mode, the training challenges, the test area... The list goes on. Combine this with a rather solid car list and tight, realistic physics... It's a delight to play.

Of course, while it doesn't have quite the same polish as a Codemasters game, all the content in WRC 8 just makes DiRT Rally 2.0 feel like a physics tech demo in comparison. I say this as a huge DiRT fan, so you can take my word for it when I say that this game is very good.

All in all, I'd give it an 8.5/10. Again, it's not excellent but it's certainly giving the DR series a run for it's money with how quickly they've caught up to the standards it set.
 
The massive headache Codemasters has at the moment while counting their cash is well deserved imo.Here is a company that offers more than enough content to be a Full game for half of what CM's would have you pay,Yes there is dlc but it builds on rather than completes the game.
And like RedRock I have always been a staunch Dirt player who found the WRC series bland so this to someone who really only plays off-road games these days is very good news.
Now to a sentence that I thought I'd never write.....Well done KT.
 
Man, that **** sucks gtplanet. The release date is for Europe not America. I was trying to find it but its only for pre order as it releases here on the 10th. I guess next weekend it shall be.
 
No spoilers please
OK. :gtpflag:
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Yep, even on the pro model. But I will say that it's a very solid 30FPS which looks very smooth - probably helped with some motion blur. As I said previously in the other WRC 8 thread, IMO it's better to have a solid consistent 30FPS than an unsustainable 60 FPS where there are frequent frame drops.

Absolutely. It is quite a deceiving 30fps. I was convinced it was higher because it is absolutely solid unlike previous entries in the series.
 
Yep, even on the pro model. But I will say that it's a very solid 30FPS which looks very smooth - probably helped with some motion blur. As I said previously in the other WRC 8 thread, IMO it's better to have a solid consistent 30FPS than an unsustainable 60 FPS where there are frequent frame drops.
I heard some people here said that in PS4 Pro/Xbox One X, it aims at 60 FPS. Not stable all the time but you get the idea.

Or maybe said people are lying. Don't know, I didn't buy the game yet.
 
Umm modern WRC cars are faster than group B cars were, and by quite a significant amount.

Even group A cars were faster only a few years after the class was introduced.


The torque to weight ratio of the new cars is insane too, one of the reasons why its actually very difficult to compare the handling of them to anything on DR2.0 because truth be told, theres nothing over there that feels anything like WRC 8’s main roster.
 
Im tempted, its a pity there isnt a demo the last wrc I bought was 4 and it was poor... Really got into dirt 2.0 and feen for more stages so might jump in and grab this...
 
Im tempted, its a pity there isnt a demo the last wrc I bought was 4 and it was poor... Really got into dirt 2.0 and feen for more stages so might jump in and grab this...
WRC4 was made by a completely different developer, and I don't think many will disagree that the WRC games up through 6 were poor. Only 7 and 8 are pretty good.
 
Really undecided between this and dirt rally 2!

Loved dirt rally 1 but thought it was lacking in content so skipped dirt rally 2 until now as was gona be picking it up cheap and now that wrc has turned out pretty good its gona be a tough choice...
 
Really undecided between this and dirt rally 2!

Loved dirt rally 1 but thought it was lacking in content so skipped dirt rally 2 until now as was gona be picking it up cheap and now that wrc has turned out pretty good its gona be a tough choice...
Get both. But to choose which one first... If you want to drive historic cars, or want the best overall driving & handling experience, and don't mind making your own events in Free Play or playing the online events & the fairly bare-bones career, then go with DR2.0. If you want to drive modern WRC cars and want the most immersive career experience with team management & car development, then go with WRC8.
 
While Phil Mills does sound more natural in DR 2.0, he often has quite a few late/messed up calls, even on the earliest setting.

WRC 8's co-driver is robotic and takes a bit of getting used to but he's very punctual, no matter what call distance setting you pick.
 
While Phil Mills does sound more natural in DR 2.0, he often has quite a few late/messed up calls, even on the earliest setting.
Phil Mills is definitely my least-favorite DiRT franchise co-driver. I liked Paul Coleman and Jen Horsey better. Didn't really use Nicky Grist.

I often disagree with Phil's calls on turns in the square-1-2-3 range, it's almost like he just picked the numbers at random in that range. He's sometimes too verbose, like "very tight hairpin" when "acute" would be better and faster. Also, it's not Phil's fault, but they way they use his post-stage banter is inane. Like "do you want to make any setup changes at the next service?" after the last stage of an event. "I hope the tires are okay" sounds fine after a normal stage, but I swear it sounds sarcastic when you finish a stage with a badly damaged car (like, well, you certainly smashed everything else up, but I hope the tires are okay!)

The only thing I didn't like about Paul Coleman was his insistence on calling every. single. crest. ever. Like "right 4 over crest and crest into crest continues long over crest into crest and jump maybe over crest." If there was the slightest rise or bump is the road, it always warranted a crest call from Paul. Other than that he did a great job. There were only maybe 2-3 calls in DR1 that I really disagreed with.

Anyway, all that being said, I still enjoy Phil more than the co-drivers in every other rally game ever. Codemasters hit upon something important by recording the pace notes on an actual live run-through and only then cutting & assigning timing/triggers. Every other rally title just pays their voice actor to say each note once, then stitches them together. The end result is like the difference between listening to an audio book read by a professional narrator, vs listening to a text-to-speech program. The former just sounds more natural, and I can follow the pace notes without having to consciously pay attention to them. The canned robotic pace notes require more mental overhead to keep track of what they are actually saying. "Right 4 long tightens 1" when read in a monotone doesn't get my attention. "Right 4 long TIGHTENS ONE" tells me something important is happening.
 
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Anyway, all that being said, I still enjoy Phil more than the co-drivers in every other rally game ever. Codemasters hit upon something important by recording the pace notes on an actual live run-through and only then cutting & assigning timing/triggers. Every other rally title just pays their voice actor to say each note once, then stitches them together. The end result is like the difference between listening to an audio book read by a professional narrator, vs listening to a text-to-speech program. The former just sounds more natural, and I can follow the pace notes without having to consciously pay attention to them. The canned robotic pace notes require more mental overhead to keep track of what they are actually saying. "Right 4 long tightens 1" when read in a monotone doesn't get my attention. "Right 4 long TIGHTENS ONE" tell's me something important is happening.

Not gonna lie, you are right with that. The robotic voice gets really confusing with Super Special Stages, I couldn't even navigate Turkey's SSS because the robotic voice was just a bit too punctual. Overall though, he's just a bit more accurate than Phil.
 
While Phil Mills does sound more natural in DR 2.0, he often has quite a few late/messed up calls, even on the earliest setting.

WRC 8's co-driver is robotic and takes a bit of getting used to but he's very punctual, no matter what call distance setting you pick.
Did have a few late calls, especially on hairpins and 90 deg turns.
 
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