WRC Powerslide adds a weapon system to rally races and is played at an isometric view-point. Each stage is a race of 4 cars and power-ups can be picked up at certain sections. Power-ups include nitrous, shields, smokescreens, hailstorms and lightning bolts. The inclusion of power-ups is quite jarring and doesn't fit the more realistic aesthetics of the game.
In the options, you do have the choice of disabling the weapons to create a pure racing game, which is what I chose to do fairly early on. Strangely, this option is coupled together with car collisions, so you are essentially racing against ghosts. This does make it play more like a true rally, but these options should be mutually exclusive.
The single player mode consists of eight rallies from across the world, each of 3 stages which require racing in the 3 types of cars; WRC, Class 2 and Class 3. I found it rather strange that they are listed in this order because they go from fastest to slowest.
There are around 50 cars to unlock and by achieving gold on a track, you either unlock a car, or a new course. These rewards seem arbitrarily assigned to the rallies, so to unlock the next race, you may have to win in the WRC class, but the next course may be unlocked by winning in Class 3. The key is to check on the race select screen to see which races need to be done.
The 8 rallies show great diversity of terrain and backgrounds. There's ice, dirt, gravel paths, road surfaces and you will be driving through woods, cliffs, cities etc. Graphically, its nice enough. In terms of performance, there is the occasional stutter, and the track deformation doesn't stay on screen long enough, so if you are a couple of seconds behind, you will see tyre tracks rebuild in front of your eyes. The physics have moments of madness so you may see your car catapult and pinball around. The damage model is purely cosmetic, so taking a hit and losing your bumper will not affect the car's performance.
The game allows you to change difficulty at any time, without the need to restart the championship, and you can retry any stage as many times you want to without penalty.
In a lot of games, people often complain about the rubber banding, but most games I don't notice. In this game, it is blatantly obvious and so extreme that it really ruins the fun. If you fall behind, within seconds you will be back with the rest of the racers, but when you are doing well, they will really press you. The thing is, there's not much difference in the three opponent cars so they will finish within a second of each other anyway. This also means there's not much difference in which car you pick, because the rubber banding will always cancel out the differences.
In one race, I performed well, only making one mistake on the last corner; I finished last with the fastest computer opponent coming in at 2:49. When retrying, I made many mistakes throughout and finished last, but the fastest computer finished in 2:57; a large decline in performance. On my third try, I made a couple of mistakes but they occurred early on and came joint first at 2:49. In another race I lost by a second at 3.05. On the second try I knocked off 2 seconds but still finished last, trailing behind by a second once again. On my third try, I knocked off a further 6 seconds and finished 1st in 2.57, but the fastest computer finished in 2.59; a large improvement on the previous races. As a test, I set off 30 seconds late and managed to catch up on the final corner.
The bunching up of the cars also causes problems when you are driving because sometimes it's easy to mix up which is your car, especially if they are similarly coloured. The design choice to place driver's names above the cars also adds to the clutter. There should be an option to disable them, or choose the size; but the options in the game are very limited.
There's potential for a great game here, but some strange design choices hinder it. With a few tweaks here and there, and some new modes, WRC Powerslide would be great. I really tried to enjoy it, but when you have to turn the weapons off to attempt to enjoy the races, and then the races seem unfair due to the rubber banding; you want to just race against yourself. Then it's frustrating to find that you can't even do that since there is no Time Trial mode.