Colin McRae Rally is made by Codemasters, a company which has in the past had success with racing games. They are the authors of TOCA Racing, which was only slightly lacking in the graphics department. However, CMR definately scores well in the graphics department. Using a Riva128 4 meg video card initially to test the game, I found the graphics were very good. The framerates were exceptional and I never once found a bit of lag on the screen. However, when I switched to the Monster 3DII 12meg in the game, wow! Suddenly all of the effects were enabled and the game flew. The only possible place the game loses points would be the trees. In rallies like Australia and New Zealand, there were lots of trees by the roadside. This is obviously very realistic and true to the WRC courses, but unfortunately, the trees in CMR were sprite based. In otherwords, they were 2D. This didn't mix well with the wonderful 3D look the rest of the game posesses. It was a stark contrast, and brought the graphics margin down a notch because of how distracting I found it. One must remember, though, that to make the amount of sprite based trees in the game polygonal would require some VERY hefty hardware, and would probably nearly double the system requirements. Also, this game IS a port from the Sony PlayStation, even though the two versions were developed in conjunction. They had to design for the PSX, which can't quite do as many onscreen polygons as a modern Voodoo/Voodoo2/other 3D acclerator can achieve, and many of the PSX games are mostly sprite based anyways. Putting aside this one trip up, the vehicles, roads, fences, people, billboards, and just roadside distractions in general were all exceptionally well rendered. The game has all of the regular special effects such as lens flares, dust/dirt/gravel/mud/snow/etc all fly up when you drive through them, and also stick to the car in the appropriate places. I thought this was actually very nicely done aswell; the damage and dirt portion of the game. A perfect example of what I mean is this. If you are making a square lefthand turn, and catch your front right wheel in a ditch as you go around, then that wheel will become covered in mud, and so will the car. This may sound nice, but what really puts the icing on the cake is the fact that the mud that flies up, DOES actually stick to the car! They seem to have modeled ground precip.!! The cars are very active, windows will break, body panels will bend, the lights will get smashed; its all here!

Control in CMR is brilliant. The cars all behave differently, however subtle the differences may be to some people. They have different turning rates, and accelerations and behaviors in the different terrains. There are, incidentally, numerous terrains including dusty gravel, gravel, tarmac, snow, deep snow, mud, wet road and more. There were also lots of different weather conditions to drive in such as fog, rain, and snow, as well as pitch black night driving. That was one nice addition too, because your car got special rally lights for the night levels. The light sourcing was very well done, and true to the head lights. The car's physics were very well done as well, and jumps, bumps, turns, rolls, and even driving on two wheels was modeled! This made for some exceptionally fun driving.

One thing you must realize about World Rally Racing is this; you do not race directly against another car or cars. You race against their times. In real WRC Racing, the cars go so fast and skid and swerve so much, it would be suicide to try to fit two of these cars on the same patch of track. CMR is just like this, you race the other cars' times, not the cars themselves. However, in multiplayer, you do race your opponent(s) directly. The other guy's car shows up as a sort of transparent ghost car, which you can drive through. This was brilliantly thought out because it allows you to keep track of where your friend is in relation to you, and saves time, and also allows you to concentrate on driving skill, and not 'running your friend off the road' skill. Single player had many different difficulty levels, and each was a great challenge. Even though in single player you do race the other cars' times, you do get some special stages which resemble half drag race, half rally. These were great fun because if you win the race, you win a bonus car such as the Ford R200.

Sound in CMR is exceptional. Everything in the real racing series is here, including incockpit voices, the voice of your co-driver, navigator, sounds of the garage, and most importantly the rumbly, throaty sound of your 300BHp turbocharged engine. The engine sounds, in fact, were very fun to concentrate on, and you can drive by the pitch of your engine, rather then the actual speed of your car. This was a great aid.

Overall, this game is exceptionally well thought out. It is not really for beginners to the racing sim genre, because you have to have a slight understanding of car physics. These cars don't behave like the ones in games such as Need For Speed 1,2,3, or Screamer or Motorhead. They are probably closest to Screamer Rally, but even that is stretching it. The graphics are excellent, and there are numerous chipsets supported. If you ever dreamed of driving a WRC car, or enjoyed games such as International Rally Championship, or Screamer Rally, then get this game! Colin McRae Rally is THE definitive World Rally Cup simulation, nothing else comes close!

Graphics: 22/25

Gameplay: 23/25

Sound: 17/20

Fun Factor: 14/15

Multiplayer: 4/5

Overall: 9/10

Rally Championships notwithstanding, this is by far the most realistic rally sim I have ever played. Most enjoyable, too - it combines the Screamer Rally eyecandy with the realism of IRC. But less drooling, more to the point. There are two modes of play in CMR - Novice and Intermediate (there's Expert, as well, but the most important differences are drawn between Novice and Intermediate). As a Novice, you're limited to front-wheel drive cars, which are a slight bit easier to control, have a smaller wheelbase, and a lower bhp rating. At Intermediate, your opposition becomes more sophisticated, provides more of a challenge, and the real class of cars is unlocked: the four-wheel drive ones. Among your choices, the Subaru Impreza, the Ford Escort, theMitsubishi Lancer, and the Toyota Corolla in the 4WD class, and the Renault Maxi Megane, Seat Ibiza, VW Golf GTI and Skoda Felicia in the FWD class. One of the most notable things about the game is that picking a car does more than change the paint on a pre-defined model; it actually behaves differently on the road. Most people will probably not notice the subtle variations in cornering, handling, acceleration abilities - but anyone who actually cares to compare, will.

But you don't race about the same track, either. There are six exquisitely-detailed stages per each track, as well as eight just as exquisitely-detailed tracks themselves. You get to eat dust in New Zealand, bite asphalt in Greece, dig the snow in Monte-Carlo, chase the kangaroos in Australia, surf the road in Sweden, impress the Dons in Corsica, protest against exploitation in Indonesia and impress Her Majesty in the UK. Cheesy way of putting it, but there you have it. You also have different road conditions, including mud, gravel, wet mud, wet gravel, snow, tarmac, and more - all requiring different approaches and different car setups. Tracks differ in difficulty, and obstacles differ, too - here you have a stone right after a crest and during a square right turn; here you have a ditch, a bank and a tight hairpin; here you got a 'four, right, narrows into five, right, narrows into tight hairpin through narrow gate: caution, ditch'. That's about as you hear your navigator talk to you - and the voice sounds really good, even though it's pretty obvious it pieces together different words depending on the situation. One of my complaints is that sometimes his directions flow at you faster than you can drive, i.e. he'll warn you of the path four turns ahead, but you'll end up missing that he said 'tight hairpin right, through narrow gate'. At other times whatever he says would be a little bit too soon, like 'one, right into hairpin, right' - but the 'one, right' comes out to be a 'long one, right, over crest' - but you don't know that, so you wham your handbrake at the crest, only to find out you've been shafted and just lost 10 seconds.

Which brings me to a yet another digression. In rally, the idea is that you race against the stopwatch, rather than a live opponent, one of the primary reasons being that sometimes the track is a bit too narrow for one car, let alone for two. Of course, there is usually more than one car per track (otherwise each event would take years, considering how many cars compete) - but they're spread apart so that they have no chance of catching up to one another. So when you lose a place, or gain a place, you don't have to wonder, "Whom did I just pass?" - you know it. Or maybe you don't. Point is, there are never any other cars on the same track as you, except the special stages - but you're separated in such a way as to never encounter one another.

But if you were looking for some hard-on bulldozer action, don't quite despair yet. You can still make mincemeat out of your car, bodywork included. Unfortunately, the amount of damage you can inflict to your bodywork is somewhat limited (check out my endeavours in the screenshots), but your mechanics are a lot more vulnerable. Don't be surprised if you roll the car a few times and start losing gears, the car starts to pull to one side, brakes no longer work well, lights are out, and so forth. Incidentally, the 'pull to one side' seems to be always limited to right - I have never yet had my car pull to the left, and I'm not sure if there's a particular mechanical reason, or a glitch in the game, or laziness on the part of the developers. I tried hard, but it would always pull to the right - never left.

When a stage is completed, you get to fix all the damage you've done. Fine print: that usually happens after two stages, and you only have 60 minutes to repair your damage - and depending on what kind of driver you are, you might need 58 just to repair the gears. What does that mean? That means you'll have an underachieving car in the next race. You might have enough time to only repair your handling, but end up with gears only up to 3; or repair the gears, but have a damaged engine; and so forth. You can also tweak your car - adjust the suspension, tyre type, brake balance, steering sensitivity, suspension type. Problem is, you would probably do it at the beginning of the race and never touch it again - chances are you won't have much time to change them later, as it'll be spent on repairing incurred damage.

Once you're in a race, you get to admire the beautiful job the designers did in the graphics department. There are slight glitches once in a while, but overall, it looks impressive. As Umax mentioned it, one of the coolest effects is dirt, snow, etc. sticking to your car - so by the time you end the race your car looks like a Camel Trophy Land Rover. Lots of other neat effects are present, like dust clouds, snow clouds, rain, drizzle, snow (but no meteor showers). The headlights are neat, too - unlike in IRC, where the engine couldn't allow more than one light source per scene, the headlights are light sources in CMR, thereby actually becoming useful to the driving. Other effects include bodywork bending (though there isn't enough for my taste), taillights breaking, windows shattering (though you'll never see a window break out completely - it just cracks). And, as you might have come to expect these days, lens flares are also there. But the cool things don't end there. If you switch to the in-cabin view, you see the hands on the steering wheel, which are assumably yours (that's not the cool part, though) - when you use the handbrake, or switch gears, the right hand actually gets taken off the wheel! That's pretty impressive. It's one of those other things from the 'This is so normal, and yet I haven't ever seen it any other games.' That's unfortunately so, considering many games, ahem, don't even give you a dashboard.

The acoustics in the game are perfectly timed with the gameplay. The car engine sound differs whether it's on a straightaway, or under stress climbing a hill, or under stress when the driver rides the car straight into a ditch. The car handles differently in a ditch, too - once a wheel is in a ditch, law of magnetism pulls all the other wheels in, riding for a fun experience of climbing back out and losing a good deal of time. Breaking sounds are readily available for the eager apprentice, too - metal hitting wood, metal hitting concrete, windshield breaking, roof hitting ground, repeat in fast succession when the car rolls, sound of dead silence as a black screen descends on you to show you that you shouldn't do that. Then your car gets deposited on the road again, in somewhat less showroomy condition, available to try the fascinating experience all over again.

The realism of the game is astounding. Wait, I already mentioned that. The car physics are impeccable, with powerslides, loss of acceleration due to steep hills, loss of traction due to driving on grass (and not loss of speed in geometric progression, like in Psygnosis' Formula 1!). One thing I didn't find too exciting were the car rolls: they were nowhere nearly as bad as in the Need for Speed series, where every roll forces you to end up upside down, but I still think a few times the car should've ended on its wheels, while it ended up on the side or on the roof. To counteract that, though, this is the only game I know where you could drive on two wheels - not for the whole track, but for a few meters, anyway. And it's not a glitch, a bug, a backfired feature or a defect of the engine - it's meant to be, and if you're skillfull enough, you can keep the car on two wheels for a lot longer than a few meters. Impressive.

Overall, CMR is a great attempt to bring the exciting world of rally to the PC. A successful attempt, I might say. Incidentally, for those of you who don't remember, Codemasters is the company who brought us Micro Machines way back when, which was probably the funnest game of the time. It was just neat. And though I didn't think they could pull off such a realistic game as CMR, I was proved wrong - and I'm glad. Although this game requires some skill (unlike so many of today's games), it's well worth it. Unlocking the tracks is a bit of an annoying thing, but once you win the championship, you'll be set. (Not as easy as it sounds; results may vary.) A definite winner in its category (too bad there isn't much competition there, though.)

Graphics: 23/25

Gameplay: 24/25

Sound: 17/20

Fun Factor: 15/15

Multiplayer: 4/5

Overall: 9/10