Colin McRae has been a regular guest on video game consoles for years now through the legendary rallying series that bears his name. What some racing fans may not know is that the off-road racing series has been a mainstay on the PC for just as long. Colin McRae Rally 2005, the franchise's latest iteration, plays just as well as its console cousin, with the additional advantage of some gorgeous graphics.

Big air jumps mean big boom landings in Colin McRae 2005 for PC.

The driving model that fans of the series have come to depend on is still rock solid in the PC version of CMR 2005. The game chooses to err on the side of a driving simulation and isn't necessarily a simple pick-up-and-play experience. If this is your first experience with the series, expect to spend large amounts of time offtrack. This is rally racing, after all, where no road surface is taboo: smooth asphalt, muddy gravel, and even frozen ice are all an option.

The vehicles in CMR 2005, of which there are more than 30, have a tangible sense of weight that is especially noticeable when making jumps. There are no floaty physics here, as the cars require a tremendous amount of speed to get airborne before they quite literally slam to the ground when they land. The sense of suspension trauma is noticeable and thrilling, especially when using the game's cockpit view.

The best-known rally cars are all here--the Subaru Impreza WRX, the Lancer Evolution VIII, the Peugeot 206, and the Ford Focus, among others--but CMR 2005 also features a number of classic rally cars, including 2-wheel drive models such as the VW Polo, the Citroën Saxo, and the VW Golf GTi. Notably missing from the game's car list is the Toyota Corolla, a model that found a good deal of real-life rallying success in the late 1990s. Cars from disparate classes feel quite different from one another, as there is a great deal of performance difference between an Audi A3 and a Mini Cooper S. What's interesting in CMR 2005, though, is the diversity in handling between cars of the same performance class. The 2WD VW Polo, for instance, seems to have slower acceleration off the line than the MG ZR, which is also a 2WD.

Diverse car selection means little without a similar variety of tracks to drive on. CMR 2005 delivers here as well, with nine rally events available: UK, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Spain, Japan, Greece, USA, and the newly introduced German course. Each event includes eight drivable stages, and some events include an additional enclosed super special course. Unfortunately, the stage list in the PC version of the CMR 2005 is identical to that found in the console version of the game. It would have been nice to see some additional PC-only stages not found in the console version.

While the individual stages change from one version of CMR to the next, the characteristics of each rally event have remained true to life throughout the series. As in previous versions, the Finland rally event in CMR 2005 is blindingly quick, full of harrowing hairpin turns in dense forest, full-throttle gravel straights, and some of the most dramatic jumps in the world. Greece, on the other hand, is a test of endurance both for the driver and the car, with heavy gravel, narrow roads, and precipitous drop-offs.

CMR 2005 pulls off these tactile differences in track surfaces and conditions to great effect. The game realistically conveys the feel of each course with a convincing combination of vibration support (of which there is a wide range when using a gamepad) and excellent visual feedback in the handling of the car. The bumps and undulations found in stages, particularly those in Greece or the UK, are a perfect example. The bumps are most noticeable in one of the three first-person camera perspectives, where your car is tossed all over the course, especially at higher speeds. It can certainly make for a thrilling ride.

The only major complaint with the tracks is the relatively short length of each rally stage. Most stages in the game take between three to four minutes to complete. This is in stark contrast to some of the behemoth tracks real rally drivers face in competition, which generally average nine or more miles in length. For the PC version of CMR 2005 (arriving on DVD, no less), inclusion of tracks of this length would have been a welcome addition to the series.

Pay attention to the weather before heading out on a rally stage. Your car, and your codriver, will thank you.

Because conditions vary so widely between events, correct car setups are critical to your success as a rally driver. As in previous installments in the series, CMR 2005 lets you adjust a number of different aspects of your car before hitting the road, including tires (the choices of which change depending on the event), ride height, springs, antiroll bar, brake bias, steering, and gearbox. Each adjustment you make can have a dramatic effect on how your car performs once you're on the road. As such, it's important to make the right modification for the right situation.

Here is where CMR 2005 falls flat, however. Even though the game gives you preview information on the next two stages, the information presented is fairly threadbare, consisting mainly of length, weather conditions, time of day, the types of surfaces you will encounter on the road, and a zoomable map that outlines each sector of the stages. More information is often needed to make intelligent setup choices, especially regarding weather conditions, which can often change dramatically between stages. Similarly, drastic elevation changes (which often call for lower gearbox settings) are not noted at all. As a player, you are left to either memorize the stage's characteristics, or try to guess at the conditions based on what you know about the event locale in general.