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Colin McRae Rally 3 Review

Chris Leyton

00/12/0000

If Colin McRae 3 was any more realistic you’d need a driving license just to play it...

The flying Scotsman is back in the latest title in the highly acclaimed Colin McRae series. The third title in the series marks the first appearance on the next-generation consoles, and thankfully Colin McRae has undergone far more then just a cosmetic overhaul.

New to the series is an all new career mode that places you firmly in the footsteps of Colin McRae, who has recently signed a three-year agreement with the Ford Focus Rallye Team (!). Itâs up to you to prove your worth by winning a series of rallies and hopefully picking up the Championship towards the end of the season.

Like TOCA before it, Codemastersâ have tried to re-invent the steering wheel when it comes to the racing genre, by adding a number of animated sequences in between the racing stages. The developers have made an effort to make you truly believe that you are Colin McRae, right through from the animated TV crews to the fully working mechanics. To this extent the game no longer entails race after race after race, those who have followed our previous coverage on the game will know that vital importance is placed on the events in between the actual races. Each stage begins with a Shakedown that allows you a number of test races with which to test a number of different car configurations. Rallying fans will probably find themselves in a haze of delight once they realise how many attributes of the car that can be tinkered and tailored with; Tyres, Chassis, Gearbox, Engine, Suspension, Steering and Brakes all have a variety of different settings, giving you the chance to completely customise your car for each stage. Once youâve chosen your set-up you can put each run against each other through the extensive telemetry system to ensure youâve got the right set-up for the stage in hand. Itâs a feature that only the real rallying fanatics out there will take any real time over, however considering that this is the crucial aspect to rallying in the real life, itâs great to see such importance placed on it.

Onto the actual stage and youâll realise why Codemastersâ have had so much success with this series, the handling is absolutely spot on and a joy to play. This is the difference between Colin McRae and other rallying titles, thereâs an immense amount of satisfaction to be gained by racing a good race, be it sliding around a 180° curve and speeding out of the apex or clinging onto a narrow hilltop track, everything feels so good and so right. Thereâs none of the weightlessness that plagues the V-Rally series, when you lose control of your back tires, youâll soon know about it.

This time around it feels more like the real thing then ever before, switch to the internal view and listen to all of the noises coming realistically from the car, itâs almost as if your speakers had been placed right on the wheels of McRae\'s Ford Focus RS WRC. More emphasis is placed on the fully animated co-driver Nicky Grist - who provides crucial navigation information - then ever before, once you get good enough youâll find yourself driving just from his instructions, much like the real thing.

Something else that youâll immediately notice is how dense each stage feels; it does feel as though youâre racing in actual environments rather then on tracks with a hint of nearby scenery. To this extent youâll have to ensure that you keep to the track more so then ever before, all manners of speed reducing shrubbery and objects now sit on the roadside, so make sure not to stray too far off the beaten track!

Having completed the first three stages youâll have a chance to repair any damage that you may have picked up at the Service Area. However as in real-life youâre only given a set time, so if youâve got major damage youâll have to repair it at the risk of not fixing other lesser areas. This whole section is fully automated and told through animated cut-scenes as your mechanics get to work on the car and Colin gets interviewed for the TV. Itâs a great idea that sucks you further into the game and helps to break up the driving action, however weâd like to have seen more player interaction during these moments, for example why hasnât the player got the option to choose which parts heâd like fixed!!!

The car damage is the best weâve seen in a racing game, thanks mainly to how solid and complete your car looks and feels. Because the game is only rendering one car on screen, the developers have been able to create a car that is more realistic then anything else youâll see. Before youâve sustained any damage make sure to check it out, complete in its glorious real-time reflection mapped body surface adorned with a variety of minute details. Itâs only after youâve wracked it around a rock a few times that youâll realise how detailed these machines are; bumpers drag along the ground, bonnets fly off, brake discs grind along where a wheel used to be. Most racers use a superficial damage system whereby the windows smash and the body dents, however in Colin McRae 3 every knock has a realistic consequence, superbâ¦

Having run through the Service Area youâll move onto the final three stages, hopefully securing some points and moving onto the next location. The stage designs are up to their usual best, testing you to the max with a variety of different driving techniques. The difference between racing on sun drenched tarmac in Spain to the icy tracks of Sweden have never been so pronounced, without any fear of lying itâs safe to say Colin McRae 3 features the best handling system seen in a racer to date.

Visually the series has undergone the overhaul that was expected, resulting in the best-looking rally game ever created. Of course visuals will always play second part to the vital gameplay components, however an important part they do play and you couldnât ask anything more, from the complex and expansive environments, to the lusciously detailed car and silky smooth frame-rate. We did notice a worrying amount of pop-up during one night-time race, however this was bizarrely absent from any other race! Oh yes and I nearly forgot about those rain effects, just take one look at the screen and imagine it realistically being pulled from the windscreen and smearing as the wiper washes over the screen, itâs so real youâd be forgiven for jumping for the umbrella!!!

Away from the Championship Mode are a number of other modes to boost the longevity of the game. It seems that no expense has been spared with this title, as any of the vehicles in the game can be raced in the other modes, each detailed as accurately as the Ford Focus in the main Championship mode. Additionally thereâs a variety of multiplayer modes for you to jump into when youâre mates are around, however lets admit it, this is one game you want to be playing on your ownâ¦