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"Near Perfect Rally Racer"

COLIN McRAE RALLY 2005
CODEMASTERS
1-8 PLAYERS, LIVE ENABLED

ABOUT
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Colin McRae Rally 2005 is a purist's rally racing game who's namesake, oddly enough, is not even on the roster this year. This makes no difference once the game begins, because you never see or hear from the aforementioned speed demon except for a cursory mention in the manual and the fact that his name is emblazoned across the title screen. It could be called "Big Bird's Freakin' Fast Dirt Car Racing" for all I care, it's still all good.

Rally racing, which is infinitely popular across the big pond, has regrettably not made a splash on this side of the ocean. For the uninitiated, rally racing consists of small, sometimes obscure, mostly four-wheel-drive four-cylinder family mobiles barreling down treacherous back country tracks at obscene speeds one at a time, competing for low lap times instead of against each other. I will be the first to admit that I thought rally racing was stupid. However, this game has changed my mind completely, opening my eyes to the fact that the sport is one of the most intense and exciting competitions on the planet. NASCAR racers only WISH they had this kind of skill.

This obsession has even bled into my non-gaming life, prompting me to set my VCR to record the WRC updates on SpeedVision every other Sunday night. Read on, unsuspecting gamer, and find out what you have been missing. . .

GRAPHICS
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I want to say this game has amazing graphics, but I just can't bring myself to do it. At first glance, you will be blown away. You will find yourself saying, "Wow, if I didn't know better, I would say this was live on television!" Before you know it, however, you will have raced your 200th stage. Then you will be saying, "Man, that texture is chunky. Why does the car seem to pivot on a central axis? Hey, those rock textures are upside down!!! Why are those trees in the background only 2D cardboard cutouts? And what the hell is with those creepy 2D animatronic spectators on the side of the road?"

There is a lot of good to be seen in the visual department, though. The replays have a neat-o depth of field effect that blurs the foreground and background, which unfortunately seems slightly overdone and is a smidgen distracting. Your car deforms realistically according to how much you abuse it. Paint scrapes. Headlights break. Windshields shatter. Sparks fly. Fenders crumple. Hell, even your hood flies off if you drive like a college student on a 2 AM Saturday night bender.

The car models are all sufficiently realistic, and lack that surreal polyurethane sheen that most developers seem frustratingly intent on saddling their cars with on the X-Box. The vehicles in this game get dirty, and fast. The weather effects are particularly convincing, especially in cockpit view. The rain and snow really contribute, obscuring your vision in a frustratingly realistic fashion. Your vision even blurs for a short while after a nasty crash. In a nutshell: thumbs up for realism, and a slight thumbs down for the nit-picker's details.

Also worth mentioning is the sense of speed imparted by this game. No matter which view you are in (but especially in the cockpit view), the game engine offers a harrowing sense of speed. I have never been this physically stressed by a racing game in my entire gaming career. This is the type of game that gets you leaning back and forth with every curve and holding your controller two feet to your side in an attempt to nudge your vehicle that extra three inches over to keep it from plummeting into a ravine. I have actually had to wipe sweat from my brow after certain stages. If immersion is what you are after, this game has got it. You will forget you are in your living room and will live within the confines of a small European road rocket for a short, but intense time.

SOUND
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In my opinion, this game shines for its fantastic sounds (or more pointedly the lack thereof). I have seen reviewer after reviewer give Codemasters grief for leaving out a musical soundtrack during the actual laps and stages. There isn't even an option to use custom soundtracks. Now, you may be thinking, how boring! Who wants to barrel down twisty mountain roads at perilous rates of speed without a pumping soundtrack? I, for one.

What you are left with is a virtual auditory assault of fine details and realism. From the utterly realistic drones of the engine (which are different for each car, and even change pitch depending on your camera view), to the spinning tires and debris hitting the undercarriage, every sound you could imagine is in there. You can even hear a metallic "clink" from the gearbox as your fully-rendered driver switches gears. All surfaces in the game have a different sound under your tires and produce different sounds for debris hitting the undercarriage.

The co-driver barks out orders on turns and hazards. There are several voices to choose from, but you will want to pick one and stick with it. They all have thickly European accents to which you will need to train your ear, and understanding them is vital.

Colin includes support for Dolby Digital in-game, but I can't tell that it is used to great effect. Other than noticing the screaming crowds passing from fore to aft and the occasional babbling brook or waterfall, it wasn't that spectacular. To be quite honest, surround sound tends to amplify the sound effects and slightly dampen the announcer, making it difficult to plan an attack on the upcoming curves. This is adjustable through the options menu, but why bother? I play through the TV's speakers and am perfectly happy letting my surround sit this one out.

GAMEPLAY
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Don't come into this game with any kind of illusion that it will be easy, that's for sure. The controls are truly rally-inspired, meaning that if you can't slide your car and maintain control you'll quickly be in the ditch losing time.

Drifting is a way of life in rally racing, and some people have a difficult time acclimating to the slippery physics. Having said that, pinpoint control most definitely IS possible once you learn, although it requires an almost zenlike concentration to achieve. It is actually quite gratifying to take one of these mini monsters around a dirt track and throw it around to your liking. You will likely spend more time sideways than anything else, and if you are a rally fan that's the way you want it.

While the controls can seem difficult to learn, they never seem unfair. If you wreck or slide off the road, it will obviously be due to some fault of your own like a slight twitch of the finger on the analog stick at an inopportune time. You can chalk it up to a lesson learned and improve your skill on the next run.

Setting up your car before a race can have serious effects on its handling. It is not rocket science, as each adjustable attribute has a description of its properties onscreen, but if you neglect this setup it can have dire consequences for your race times and car's well being. Check the track description and set up your car accordingly and you will be fine.

There are four main game modes; Career, Championship, Challenge, and Live/Multiplayer. Career starts you off as a rookie driver and allows you to play through what is probably hundreds of successive rallies over the course of a career, earning points to unlock the next challenges on the grid and some new cars. This is the real meat of the game if you ask me, and is what I have been mostly playing for the last month or so. I am not even 1/4 of the way through it yet, as I have been taking my time to get firsts with every available car on every available race. You also get opportunities to upgrade your cars by completing manufacturers' tests. They slap an upgraded suspension, brake system, engine, etc. on your car and you are expected to break it within an allotted time. If you abuse it to the point of breakage, you get to keep it. While I can't tell that the new parts make a great difference, it adds an RPG-esque attribute to the game that keeps it fresh and interesting.

Championship mode is much the same as Career, only you are playing as Colin McRae himself, and you have to go through a set progression of races to win a championship, rather than unlocking new ones you can pick from.

Challenge is kind of like a "Time Attack" mode, allowing you to choose your track and car, then just cutting you loose to do some damage. Interestingly enough, if you have Live the game will update your times automatically online, allowing you to see where you place worldwide on that particular track instantly. This mode is also good for quick runs when you don't want to get embroiled in an entire rally in Championship or Career mode.

Live racing and Multiplayer seem like a mixed bag to me. You spend the entire game racing against the clock, and all of a sudden in multiplayer mode there are other cars there with you. But not really. The other cars you are racing against are "Ghost Cars": solid colored, translucent car outlines that represent your competition's progress on the track. They are very distracting and they tend to block the view of the road. I personally don't like them, although there never seems to be a shortage of people playing online. I guess it is just my own personal preference.

I should mention that you can choose to alternate players rather than split the screen in multiplayer, but this gets old fast when you have three people waiting their turn, the last one having to wait at least nine minutes before he is up for his lap.

LONGEVITY
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This is one of those games that can last you to the end of time if you'd like. The massive Career mode is enough to keep any casual racing fan busy for months, not to mention Championship mode or all the online time challenges. If you are a racing fan willing to learn the touchy (but precise) controls, this one will be with you for the long haul.

MY TWO CENTS
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I love this game. The sense of speed combined with the massive and deep Career mode and gratifying control scheme add up to a good time in my book. What it lacks in graphical pizzazz it more than makes up for in immersion. Supplement that with the bargain price tag of less than 30 clams brand-new and you have a winner in my book.

If you aren't sure if you can warm up to the rally style of solo racing, or if you are looking for a party-ready multiplayer race experience, rent before buying. Otherwise Colin McRae 2005 will make an exciting addition to any race fan's library.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/27/04