WRC Shakedown Edition Review

WRC Shakedown Edition brings the World Rally Championship to iOS driving players through dirt, mud and snow as they progress through two gameplay modes. As players progress through the WRC Experience mode, by completing challenges, they will earn enough points to unlock better and faster rally vehicles. WRC Experience mode has a set list of challenges to accomplish in 60 different stages ranging from knocking over bowling pins, drifting for a set amount of time, collecting enough rally points and by not knocking over cones that are placed on the tracks.

Usually that type of skill testing gameplay can be a lot of fun, but that’s not the case with WRC Shakedown Edition. During WRC Experience mode, it feels like one very long extended tutorial. It easily gets players started and familiar with the process, but then it doesn’t get much more challenging after that. Most players will race through all 60 stages in close to an hour and will have no desire to play those obstacles ever again. There is only one or two that may actually put up a slight challenge while the rest are ridiculously easy. Even for players who enjoy racing, they’ll be left with the feeling of boredom and a hope that a possible greater challenge will come, though it never does.

The other mode featured in WRC Shakedown Edition is Time Attack mode which only has 14 courses and is, obviously, all about putting up the best times. Even though Time Attack mode begins with set times for players to beat, most of them are easy to surpass and it simply comes back to the player and their interest in beating their own time. However, there is an online leaderboard for all 14 tracks, but there seems to be a few issues or a number of glitches that have been exploited and need to be fixed. Once that happens, Time Attack mode can be a good source of replay-ability, but it won’t last for long.

Now, most importantly, the gameplay handles fairly well when dealing with the control of the vehicles. It’s fairly easy to move about and drift around corners and can actually be a decent amount of fun at times. Some of the tracks are also quite entertaining with sharp turns that overlook steep edges as well as a few bumps in the road that give players just enough airtime to smile. However, the entire experience is dragged down by frame rate issues and it's not fun to see the background "chop" along while racing. The visuals really need a lot of polishing to make for a far more enjoyable experience.

WRC Shakedown Edition needs a lot of work and more depth if this title is going to be worth the purchase for anyone. Providing only 60 simple obstacles and 14 Time Attack courses with zero head-to-head racing sure doesn’t leave for a good enough racing experience.

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