Thrills, Spills and Realism, this game has it all! (Colin McRae Rally 3 (Xbox))

Member Name: GR-Design

Product:	Colin McRae Rally 3 (Xbox)
Date:	06/01/03 (242 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: the game itself!

Disadvantages: none!

Colin Mcrae Rally 3.0 was the first rally game I had played on either the playstation or the Playstation 2, it was also the first Colin Mcrae game I have ever played, and to sum it all up in 3 word?s, I?m VERY impressed? I got this as part of my wonderfull Christmas presents this year. This has got to be my second best playstation 2 game so far, next to the number 1 slot of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

I love games that are realistic, I hate games where you car drive a car into a wall at 100mph and not even scratch it?s shiny metallic paint (Gran Turismo, take note). This is why I love Colin Mcrae rally so much, it?s just so realistic, and too the words of OPM2 (whoever they are) ? closer than anything else to the physical and mental demands of the sport?. Needless to say, it?s a damn good, and damn realistic game.

As Colin Mcrae, you get to rally your way through 64 stages with your co-driver Nicky Grist. Codemasters have bought us a game that really doe?s make you sit up and take notice, really doe?s give you that on the edge feeling when you end up in a tree, and really doe?s bring you back for more.

THE GAME

You have 2 choices in this game, to play under the championship mode or to play the single stages mode. The single stages mode allows you to rally in any country and try out any of the ?standard? cars that you are given at the start of the game, it?s an excellent way to tune up your skills and a very good way of getting to know the countries unique differences. Racing around the woods and fields of the UK, to the rocky mountains of Spain, the dusty roads of Australia and the snow filled tracks of Sweden, you really will have a different feel to the game presented to you in each country you race in.

The championship mode is the better of the two modes in my view, and really gives you a sense of achievement when you make your way through the stages. In this mode you have to race through each country. The countries
comprise of 6 tracks each, with a pit stop between each 3. The pit stops allow your men to work on your car, repairing any damage you have inflicted on your car in the previous 3 stages. Slow down though, don?t think you can go through each stage hitting every tree around, you only carry one spare wheel and that has got to last you through the 3 stages, and you only have an allotted amount of time that your workmen are allowed to spend on the car. They will work on what they consider to be the most critical damage and leave the rest if they don?t have time. So if you have a wheel missing and a damaged exhaust, your wheel might get fixed, but you?ll have to battle through the next 3 stages of the country with a damaged old noisy exhaust.

You can play around with your car, tune it up if you like aswell, creating your own little car or you can just carry on through the game with the default settings tailored to that race. It depends on whether you agree with your workmen and their tuning of your car or if you want to dice with death (and failure!) and tune your car up yourself.

Once your making your way through the championship mode and through the countries, your rewarded at the end of each country with a new tyre type, or something new for the car, and if you do really well, you?ll be rewarded with a whole new car to play around with in the stages mode of the game, and of the two cars I have been rewarded with at the moment, I have found the metro to be the most fun since one of those big bouncy things we all used to have as kids which we used to sit on, hold on to, bounce twice, get tired and then go back to it later, only to do the same again (you all know what I?m talking about, they used to have faces on them and ears which you held on to!)?anyyyywayyy, back to the game!

With you at all times you will have Nicky Grist warning you of the corners and dangers lying ahead of you in the game. You tend to ignore him at first, but on the oth
er hand, you tend to fail miserably and end up with just a chassis left at the end of the stage if you do ignore him. Once your playing the game to win, you?ll find him not only helpful, but invaluable to the game and the aim of the game, to win!

This game really does provide you with the best realism I?ll challenge you to find in any game, I?m still slapping myself with a wet leek trying to get over how realistic this game actually is.

For a start, you have the damage. Damage is a factor of rallying, there is no way of getting away with it and completing a stage without damaging your car. Even if you have been extra careful around all those nasty corners, you will still have wear, weather it be your wheels, shocks or exhaust and these will all be repaired for you in your services, but can affect how your car performs.

Then you have the real damage, the fun damage as I like to call it! This is the damage incurred by you for going way to fast round those corners or running yourself off a cliff! The detail of the damage is good, from broken windows, broken doors, no doors, bumpers falling off?.infact, it?s so realistic that when your bumper falls half way off and is blocking your exhaust pipe, the sound of the exhaust will change!

Then theres the weather, and this will effect you in all manor of ways, from the rain coming down making it slippy on the road and making your screen blurry as your wipers go, just like it would in the rain. Then you have snow, which is as you would expect, pretty hard to drive on and to see, then you have the hot deserts making your car slip and slide over the dusty tracks.

The stages as you go through the game get harder, the roads get narrower, tree?s get closer to the tracks, and you find yourself trying to rally through even harder weather conditions, plus, your competitors in the race get faster, making it much harder for you to achieve your number 1 position, which is pretty easy in the
first few stages once you have got used to the car.

2 Player Mode makes things a bit more competitive. The game gives you the option of playing one at a time, or in split screen mode. I find split screen a lot more fun as it gives you more of an incentive to win. There is a downside though, you wi;; only have 2 views, the bonnet and outside of the car (whereas you have 3 in one player mode). Playing with split screen enables you to see your progress and also your opponents progress on the side of the screen, marked as distance markers throughout the track. It?s nice to win! And it?s nice to see your opponent get upset when they are struggling to get to the finish and your already there!

All in all this is one classy game which keeps you engrossed in what your playing and doesn?t let you get to sleep at night as your always wanting to get this stage over, and the next, and the next, oooo, and then theres the added bonus of the bonuses at the end of the country, so you just want to get that over aswell!

Would I recommend it? Highly!!!

Price: Around £39.99

Summary: