Parent's Guide: World Rally Championship 3 - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

WRC 3 is the official game of the World Rally Championship, and plonks your child in the drivers seat, as they attempt to navigate the windy gravel tracks that rally drivers call their home. With rallies taking place across thirteen different locations, from the valleys of Wales, to the lowland of Finland, it's a game of man versus machine, as you try to complete the courses in the quickest time possible, and your navigator barks out warning about upcoming bends. If they're a fan of games like DiRT, or Forza, this could be right up their street.

As you may expect from a game that carries an official license, though, keeping your car on the track isn't all that easy. Not quite as realistic as it might be, the controls here are nonetheless quite tricky to pick up, and pit you against an over-responsive, spin happy car, that requires gentle assistance rather than large movements to keep it going in the right direction. Luckily for younger players, there's a wide variety of assists that can be turned on to make the car that much easier to handle. Stability control makes it harder (but not impossible) to spin out, auto-braking slows you down automatically as you approach tricky bends, while should you come a proper cropper, you can press Y to rewind time, and have a second go at a corner.

While the game does have a multiplayer mode, it's sadly rather limited, with no option for split-screen, as you instead have to pass a controller between four players. As a multiplayer game, it works OK with two players, but when three or more are taking part, you'll find the time you have to sit around waiting for the other players to finish their lap may cause younger children to wonder off, bored.

As a rallying game, there's nothing for parents to worry about here - no bad language, no violence, and no gore - although a few cars will likely be wrecked as you progress through the game.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360