WRC 4 (PS2)

(Herald rating: * * * *)

It's a rare but satisfying experience to play a big-title video game that features a slice of New Zealand in all its natural glory. As you fly down a gravel road somewhere in Te Akau during the Rally of New Zealand stage of WRC 4, the scenery rolls by in the familiar patterns and colours found only here. It's not quite as good an advertisement for the country as Lord of the Rings but it comes close.

WRC (World Rally Championship) is by far the best rallying game on the market. Its devotion to realism is impressive. Everything from the handling of the rally cars to the advertising hoardings on the sides of the race tracks has been built to mirror reality.

Building on its successful predecessors, WRC 4 is more of the same but done slightly better. It is updated to include the latest drivers, cars, rallying teams and tracks with courses in Mexico and Japan making their debuts.

All up you have 16 rallying locations and 100 rally stages to keep you occupied in single races, time trials and championship races.

Importantly, WRC 4 is now network-ready so you can go online through the Playstation gaming network to race other wannabe rally drivers. A global leaderboard lists the fastest drivers.

For the novice rally driver, WRC 4 can be daunting to master. It's no Monster Truck Madness and staying on the road requires some knowledge of the physics of high-speed motoring. Luckily, a practice function lets you take your car for a spin to figure out the eccentricities of its handling.

This time I started listening to the instructions of my passenger seat navigator and spent more time on the road and less in the ditch.

Car damage is more realistic in WRC 4. After a few brushes with rocky banks and fenceposts you'll end up peering through a cracked windscreen with the crumpled bonnet flapping up to obscure your vision. Rain and sleet look particularly effective, and the landscapes generally seem to have been given an upgrade.

But the scenery is nevertheless designed to be viewed at high speed. As you sit idling you'll notice the race spectator wearing the green jumper has a decidedly 2D quality to him and robotically repeats the same wave.

If you're a rally nut WRC 4 is a must-have but intense realism doesn't always equate with good entertainment.

If you spend most of your time in WRC 4 trying to flip your rally car on to its roof, you have probably bought the wrong game. Great value for money for those new to the series.

$60

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