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Like the greatest games of any kind, WRC 5 is at its very best when things have gone horribly, horribly wrong. It's the third stage on the final day of the Finnish rally, and the two second lead you've got over your nearest competitor would be looking good if that advantage hadn't come by getting a little too intimate with the scenery: you lost half the gearbox to a sturdy piece of hoarding near the start-line, the electronics were sacrificed to a church a couple of kilometres back so now you can no longer hear your co-driver and it's hard to see through the dimming twilight as your headlights have been scraped down the side of a tree. The service station couldn't be any further away, and yet you still manage to bring it all home. A Ford Fiesta has never seen such heroics outside of an Essex b-road. If there's one thing that developer Kylotonn has brought to WRC for its series' debut it's a sense of fun. The current breed of rally cars aren't exactly the most spectacular the sport has ever seen, but WRC 5 wastes no time in pasting a smile across your face no matter what you're driving: this is a game that can make you feel heroic with nothing more than a 1.6 litre engine and a thin stretch of country road at its disposal. Compared to the often starchy handling that beset previous custodian Milestone's stretch on the series, WRC 5 feels positively alive.
It helps that WRC 5 is much more approachable than those entries that have gone before, and what's already out there: think more Sega Rally than Codemasters' exacting, excellent sim Dirt Rally. Even with all assists off, WRC 5 is a forgiving ride, inviting you to hack away at the steering wheel with all the unwavering confidence of an Ogier or a Loeb. There's ample room for the improvisation the discipline is built around, in other words, and WRC 5's gentle dynamics can usher you into flow state faster than other games of its ilk.
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