WRC Shakedown

WRC Shakedown is not what you'd call a conventional racing game. In fact, the only thing you're ever racing against is a ticking clock. It's not a conventional rallying game either. It's an arcade blast sculpted around some shards of reality.

While you will be driving real cars around chunks of stages from some of the most famous rallies the WRC has to offer, you'll also be running over bowling pins, dodging cones, and collecting floating XP boosts.

Sticks and stones and bowling pins

In fairness, there is a standard time trial mode on offer too, but if you want to unlock all of the stages and cars that the game has to offer you need to play through the WRC Experience, completing bite-size challenges for RP.

Each stage lasts no more than a minute, and sees you completing a number of tasks. You'll need to leave a set number of cones standing, perform skids for a given number of seconds, knock over bowling pins, and collect the aforementioned RP boosts. Sometimes all at once. And there's a ticking clock to beat as well.

Each challenge you complete bags you RP, which are used to unlock new levels and more powerful cars. There are 60 stages to play through, and you might need to backtrack a couple of times if you don't rake in enough points on your first try.

You control your licensed rally with big accelerator and brake pedal-shaped buttons and steer either by tilting your iOS device or using some chunky buttons. Neither option is perfect, but the buttons probably perform best, even if there is an annoying thumb-sized gap between them.

Measly portions

You'll drive through woods, muddy tracks, snowy lanes, and other staples of the rallying circuit. It's fun, it's fast, but it's rarely challenging, and it's entirely possible to drive off a cliff and still finish a stage with enough RP to unlock the next.

WRC Shakedown is fun, but it's surprisingly shallow. You'll finish off most of what the game has to offer in a couple of hours, and while setting times for your friends to beat is fun the game never quite grabs you tightly enough to drag you back for more.