Black Bean Games is developing new WRC game!

[pk500]

Have a hard time believing this will be any better on the PC than Richard Burns Rally with the RSRBR updates.

Not for you or me, mate. The majority of gamers, though, are probably going to prefer the idea of a rally game that isn't such an exacting, punishing test of skill and patience. Call RBR anything you like - I call it brilliant, as I know you do - but you're never going to get away with calling it accessible...

Very true, matey.

[GB_Simo]

This is starting to look like a promising little effort in it's own right. Start plucking the crow now, and I'll chow down when the demo comes out...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/wrc-hands-on

[fsquid]

My little 4 year old loves Petter Solberg for some reason (probably the yellow car), so I just want a game where I can race with him.

[pk500]

My little 4 year old loves Petter Solberg for some reason (probably the yellow car), so I just want a game where I can race with him.

Your lad has exquisite taste in WRC drivers, Squidly!

[fsquid]

It's a she, so lass. However, she has told me that she doesn't want to ride in those cars, daddy.

[pk500]

It's a she, so lass. However, she has told me that she doesn't want to ride in those cars, daddy.

Hey, Ilka Minor is a pretty damn good female WRC co-driver! So there's still hope your lassie will change her mind.

[Kruza]

A video of the first official trailer has been released:



Kruza

[dbdynsty25]

That looks AWESOME. I'm all over that.

[Teal]

That looks AWESOME. I'm all over that.

+1

[toonarmy]

Amazon has the game coming out November 30, while in the video it says October 8. I assume the October 8 date is more accurate. At any rate a day one purchase for me.

[Rodster]

Holy smokes the game is only $39.99 for the 360.

Amazon has the game coming out November 30, while in the video it says October 8. I assume the October 8 date is more accurate. At any rate a day one purchase for me.

I'm thinking Oct 8th is for Europe and Nov. 30th is for the US, just a guess.

[toonarmy]

I think they pretty much have to charge 39.99 for a WRC game if they hope to get any sales here in the US. I would think they would want to change the time of release as well (if the Nov. 30 amazon date is correct), considering GT5 will be coming out on the PS3 in November. Early October would make more sense.

[Rodster]

Supposedly the demo was just released to XBL, possibly in the UK only ATM?

[fsquid]

feck me, that is something I'll buy.

[Rodster]

feck me, that is something I'll buy.

I've got the 360 preordered from Amazon for $40. I seriously doubt my PC will be able to run this, sad.

[DChaps]

Has anyone actually seen the demo available on Xbox Live? From http://www.virtualr.net:

World Rally Championship – Xbox 360 Demo Released

Update: Despite Black Bean’s announcement the demo dosen’t seem to be available on Xbox LIVE yet.

Black Bean Games has announced that a demo version of their World Rally Championship title is now available on Xbox LIVE, giving players the chance to try out two different cars on two stages.

The demo includes both the Citroen C4 WRC by Sebastien Loeb as well as the Ford Focus WRC of Mikko Hirvonen, both can be driven at Finland and Jordan. While Xbox 360 players can give the demo a go right now (Xbox LIVE Gold Membership required), PC & Playstation 3 owners have to wait until September 24 and 29 respectively.

[webdanzer]

Looks like a lot of 'pole through the center of the car' physics in that video, especially in the last 15 seconds or so.

Doens't particularly bother me all that much, but I know it annoys some.

[GB_Simo]

Supposedly the demo was just released to XBL, possibly in the UK only ATM?

It's definitely on the UK Marketplace, though it's probably a Gold-only affair for now so I suppose you might have to wait a week to grab it via those fake UK Silver accounts you've all surely got by now. Worth a look, just in case.

Though in fact, perhaps it isn't.

The demo has two stages - one in Finland, one in Jordan - which you can plough through at the wheel of Mikko Hirvonen's Ford Focus or Sebastien Loeb's Citroen C4. Everything looks pleasant enough, and the Finnish stage in particular has a decent sense of speed about it, in spite of it being remarkably wide for the most part. There's nothing remarkable going on either graphically or sonically, but not all that much to fault either, save for your co-driver.

I've gone straight to the hardest difficulty to get a feel for the AI performance (they're quick. Very quick, in fact) and the handling without driving aids, of which more in a second. I'm not expecting to win stages straight off the bat, or for quite some time, and so I'm going to get thoroughly sick of the co-driver criticising my performance at every checkpoint. "Is this the fastest you can go?" I'll be going a sight faster than he is when I find the option to pull over and let him walk home. Occasionally I wonder whether that might be a great idea, since there are a couple of instances in each demo stage of corners that I'm halfway around before he's read the pacenote to me - I haven't checked to see if that can be customised, and if you've got the directional arrows on you'll be fine as long as you remember to keep looking at them, but it's an irritance all the same.

Driving through the stages is an interesting affair. Real-world rally cars don't slide around quite as much as they used to, but they're still renowned for tail-out powerslides and all that business. This game doesn't appear to want you to do any of that. If you get the tail hanging out in a corner, all it does is slow you down, and if the slide develops far enough, all the counter-steering in the world won't get you out of it either. Nor can you power out of the slide, since holding the throttle wide open has no discernible impact upon your progress. The result, as far as I could tell from a few quick runs through each stage, is that you have to drive it like a circuit racing game to make any kind of progress. This extends to things like cutting corners too; many of the corners on the open, flowing Finnish stage are ripe for cutting, but the instant you stray a tiny little bit off the edge of the defined track, the revs die off and the car slows down.

Braking in a straight line and keeping everything in line seems like the way to go, then, though when you do that the cars respond by understeering in a fashion most unlike that of a modern World Rally Car. You're either dealing with a reasonably heavy push or waiting for the back to stop sliding and killing your corner speed, neither of which feel right.

It's not awful - I'll be having a few more plays, so if people have specifics they want to know about now would be a lovely time to shout up - but it hasn't at any point threatened to rise above 'unremarkable' so far.

[Rodster]

Thanks Adam for the detailed impressions. The part of the co-driver sounds like a return of Rally Trophy. Anyways me thinks i'm off to save myself $40 by cancelling my preorder at Amazon.com

Been having a blast with Split Second and i'll just wait for F1 2010 instead.

[pk500]

Thanks Adam for the detailed impressions. The part of the co-driver sounds like a return of Rally Trophy. Anyways me thinks i'm off to save myself $40 by cancelling my preorder at Amazon.com

Been having a blast with Split Second and i'll just wait for F1 2010 instead.

Rod:

You can always try the trusty Richard Burns Rally for the PC. It's still the most realistic, best rally game ever released, and it's seven years old so it runs on late model PC's.

Let me know if you get your paws on it. I know a couple of in-game and steering settings tweaks that put RBR beyond sublime.

[Rodster]

Thanks Adam for the detailed impressions. The part of the co-driver sounds like a return of Rally Trophy. Anyways me thinks i'm off to save myself $40 by cancelling my preorder at Amazon.com

Been having a blast with Split Second and i'll just wait for F1 2010 instead.

Rod:

You can always try the trusty Richard Burns Rally for the PC. It's still the most realistic, best rally game ever released, and it's seven years old so it runs on late model PC's.

Let me know if you get your paws on it. I know a couple of in-game and steering settings tweaks that put RBR beyond sublime.

Yup I still have RBR for the PC as well as Colin McRae 2/3/4/5 for the PC. I love rally games.

[Rodster]

Well it looks like our boy Adam wasn't imagining things. Here's a few responses from the Eurogamer board. It's already making some look forward to Dirt 3.

1) Lets see:
Hardly any detail in the environments
Trees along side Finish track are 2D and not many of them
Hadly any track indulation or variety, it's just one road straight through
Handing is dire
Co-driver icons, voice, and placement is badly done
With the basic environment it should be locked at 60fps, it is 30fps
Front end is awful and not clear in any way

2) It's basically a total mess."

"It looks like a homebrew game to me. Really poor production in every sense. I can't imagine a team of professional game designers making something this shoddy. Worth a download to laugh at the front end and the co-driver. OH NO! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD."

3) "The co-driver reminded me of Stephen Merchant for some reason?? Love the way when you crash into a wall at full speed he just let's out a really timid pathetic "oh no" . Game is crap in every respect, roll on DIRT 3!!"

4) "the demo is absolute cack.....despite the Dirt franchise going all american on us, it still makes this game look like complete wank."

5) "Been playing the demo since the weekend and sadly it seems to suck. Rallisport Challenge 3 plz Microsoft"

[fsquid]

damn, I was really looking forward to this one.

[GB_Simo]

They're being a bit harsher on it than I would be, Rod, but it's interesting to see the consensus.

The Jordan track has a few ups and downs on it, but Finland is indeed a bit flat. There's one reasonably big jump about halfway through, which just suddenly seems to appear on an otherwise perfectly level strip of road, and that's your lot. That's not exactly representative of Rally Finland, but it's only one stage so I'm not ready to jump on Milestone for that yet.

The co-driving and pacenotes earned a paragraph from me last time out. My feelings on them haven't changed a bit. As you start to learn the demo stages it becomes less of an issue, but rallying isn't about learning the roads. A particular favourite of mine comes about halfway through the Jordan stage, when there's a sequence of corners ending with a '3 left, long, tightens' that I'm not told about until I'm almost through the exit of it.

The handling...I'm convinced it's not right, for the reasons I mentioned last time, but it's not a complete dead loss. Adjust to Milestone's idea of how a rally car behaves and it's then possible to start attacking the stages (to the point where, after a worryingly short time, I was capable of beating the hardest AI on each demo stage) but it's still more like running a time trial on a circuit-based game than any rally game I've ever played. There's some fun in there, of that I'm sure, but nothing that's going to hold your attention for any great length of time. Try before you buy if it all possible, chaps.

[Teal]

Well, good. My finances are looking better everyday...