WRC 9’s incredible stages make it easy to recommend to series first-timers, although it's not a huge leap from WRC 8.

With the addition of the new Clubs mode, this is the most competitive entry in the series yet, and it’s also the biggest thanks to the three new rallies that have been introduced. But more importantly, it’s the best-playing WRC game to date, going toe-to-toe with the DiRT Rally series. At this moment in time, WRC 9 is the closest thing to a perfect rally game we’ve got.

Publisher Nacon and developer KT Racing have built a very solid Rally title with WRC 9, even though there aren’t many improvements over the last edition. It’s definitely a worthy investment for Rally fans, especially if you skipped last year’s WRC 8, though I’m not sure it’s worth upgrading straight away if you’re still plugging away at that title. At least not until a good sale comes along. While it does have some multiplayer modes, at the time of this writing I was unable to find any open lobbies. But to be fair most people probably prefer the career mode, because you really aren’t racing head to head anyway.

WRC 9 pushes forward KT Racing's series with a deeper and satisfying managerial aspect, a great car feeling and top-notch audio. It only gets dragged down by not too satisfying graphics and lack of meaningful visual damage, aspects we hope will be improved in the future.

WRC 9 is definitely the best WRC game yet, and one of the best racing games of this generation. It's not perfect though, as rather shallow career mode and absence of some big cars are noticeable; but its solid physics and handling of cars and diverse environments are enough to make it worth every racing fan's while.

WRC 9 is the best chapter produced so far by the French team Kylotonn Racing, improving a very solid career mode and innovating the multiplayer.

For fans of the genre, WRC 9 is a very good facsimile of what it must be like to run a WRC team, but for those of you who want their rally driving to be more enjoyable and less like being mugged, then DiRT Rally 2.0 is where the smart money goes.