It’s Mud, Skids and Right, Right, Right!
Sony heads offroad with World Rally Championship for PSP
Despite the amount of multiplayer now available, gaming’s often thought of as a bit of a solo pursuit. So it is with rallying. Being in the hotseat of a tricked-out Subaru or Peugeot, you’ll have a helpful co-pilot shouting sweet directions in your ear, but racing against the clock, it’s a self-pressured situation like much of gaming. Which when you think about it makes it a surprise how unsuccessful rallying games actually are.
Of course, there’s Codemasters’ Colin McRae old chestnut still managing to sell (and coming to PSP) despite the decline of its hero. Sony’s kept the faith too, thanks to its longterm exclusive deal as the holder of the official World Rally Championship license. Despite being good games with reasonable sales, rallying just hasn’t caught our attention as gamers however.
Maybe WRC on PSP will change all that. Probably not but there’ll be no doubting its quality and completeness. Featuring the 16 official rallies from around the world, 19 bonus stages are also promised. There will be 30 fully deformable cars, including Evolution and Extreme spec cars from the six official manufacturers (Peugeot, Citroën, Ford, Subaru, Mitsubishi and Skoda), plus all 17 official 2004 registered drivers such as Grönhom, Gardenmeister and Sainz. But more significantly, according to the development team at Traveller’s Tales, the PSP version of WRC will have a different emphasis to its PlayStation2 cousin, being more accessible with a pick-up-and-play gameplay focused on arcade-style against the clock challenges. Game modes include quick race, time trial, single rally and championships.
Breaking out of solo mode, there’ll also be an eight-way head-to-head multiplayer mode using Wi-Fi. Players will be able to compete on 16 specially designed looped stages. Another Wi-Fi mode will allow you to transpose your stage times using ghost cars with other players. And as with Sony’s WipeOut Pure, WRC on PSP will be supported with downloadable content as well. No details have been released of exactly what will be included but bonus tracks, cars and other licensed elements are expected.
