Colin McRae Rally 3 Preview

By Scott Osborne, GameSpotPosted May 23, 2003 1:58 pm PT

We go hands-on with Colin McRae Rally 3, a racing game that will attempt to strike a balance between realism and all-out action.

Recently, console game players have enjoyed a wealth of top-quality rally racing games. Sadly, things haven't been quite so good for fans of PC rally racing. Outside of last year's Rallisport Challenge (originally released on the Xbox), PC gamers have often had to turn to games released two or three years ago to find a really good depiction of this thrilling sport. Hopefully things will look better this summer when Codemasters releases Colin McRae Rally 3 for the PC. It certainly bodes well that the game comes from a popular rally racing series, and that the console version has already enjoyed critical acclaim.

Colin McRae racing in his Ford Focus.

True to its name, the game will star Colin McRae, the famed "Flying Scotsman." McRae has been thrilling fans all over the world for years now with his daring driving style. He was the youngest driver to win a World Rally Championship title, and he's already chalked up a whopping 25 World Rally wins.

The early version of the game we played was far from complete, so we were unable to try out many of the game's major features, including the championship mode. The console versions of the game are a good indication of what we can expect from the championship mode, which will let you play only as McRae, and only during his days with the Ford team--despite the fact that he's now with Citroën. This means you'll be driving his Ford Focus RS World Rally car throughout each championship run. As you progress through the championship, you'll get to unlock new parts for the Ford Focus, and you'll also unlock new stages and different cars that you can then access in a quick race mode.

The fact that the championship mode is so focused may seem a bit limiting, but Codemasters hopes that the game will let you "really connect with the feeling of being McRae...and work with codriver Nicky Grist, and the Ford team as a whole." According to Mark Whitaker, director of Ford Racing, Codemasters was granted "unprecedented" access to the Ford team, which should hopefully ensure that the Ford Focus car looks and handles realistically in the game.

Racing across the fields of the UK.

Outside of the championship mode, you'll also get to race through single stages for some quick action. Overall, you'll find 56 stages in eight countries: Spain, the UK, Greece, the USA, Japan, Sweden, Australia, and Finland. Most of these stages were unavailable in the version we played, but the tracks we tried out looked impressive in terms of variety, not to mention the challenges they offered. You'll be roaring up hills, powersliding through hairpin turns in dense forests, blasting across asphalt roads that suddenly turn into muddy dirt tracks, and much more. Bad weather doesn't stop real-world rally drivers, and that should hold true in Colin McRae Rally 3. Along with mastering the varied terrain to achieve a top time, you'll also be battling the elements, such as rain, fog, sleet, and snow.

Following a trend in rally game design, the stages we saw were fictionalized yet meant to convey the feel of real rally stages throughout the world. They were also quite short. The ones we got to play could be finished in a couple of minutes--quite a contrast to some rally games, like the classic Mobil 1 Rally Championship, which had you driving for 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch across meticulous re-creations of real stages. The short stages in Colin McRae Rally 3 might come as something of a disappointment to fans of real rally racing, since the sport is known for its grueling tests of endurance and concentration. Nevertheless, they should let you sneak in a race or two without requiring you to set aside a big block of time to play. We certainly found some of the stages we played exciting, regardless of how long they lasted, so that bodes well for the final game.

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1 Comments

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jakeboudville
Posted Sep 14, 2006 9:51 pm PT

looks nice
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