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Platform: Xbox
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Colin McRae Rally 2005 Score: 8.5 / 10 |
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Pros: - Incredibly realistic driving physics - More than 30 cars with noticeably distinct handling - Excellent, easy to learn menu interface between stages - Damage modeling goes beyond graphics to impact handling in ways ranging from subtle to drastic
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Cons: - Casual players may be disappointed in the inability to race against multiple computer-generated opponents |
Related Links: Review: Rallisport Challenge 2 (XB) |
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"...go back to driving in a circle, Yank." |
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If you're the type who likes to drive cars down narrow gravel roads at dangerously high speeds, then the Colin McRae Rally series has probably already gotten your attention. In this latest installment, Colin McRae 2005, the team from Codemasters has produced an excellent rally game, nailing key aspects such as handling physics and stage-by-stage car customization, and rounding out the package with attractive graphics, an extensive selection of balanced, challenging courses and an online world ranking system for Xbox Live.
That online ranking system, however, shores up the otherwise tepid competitive feel of the game. Players do have the opportunity to race split screen against the translucent ghosts of up to three friends, and there's also the option to race against your own best time in ghost mode, but the inability to race against computer generated opponents really reduced the replay value for me. True rally fans may have a quibble with that assessment. And I use the word "quibble" because it is a word that only European speakers of English would use, and rally racing is really a European sport. European racing is really about the car and its driver versus the intricacies of the road, whereas American racing is really about drinking beer and watching cars drive in a big circle until one flips over and explodes. Apparently, hating Jeff Gordon plays some role as well. I'm not taking sides here. I like watching cars blow up just as much as the next guy, and while playing CMR 2005, the loneliness of the open road is mediated by your co-driver—a British man who continues to narrate in calm, scientific detail the upcoming twists and turns of the road as you slam into trees and ditches. Personally, though, I find that the satisfaction of learning a track really well is generally trumped by the thrill of the overtake. And even though there are more than 30 unlockable cars to choose from, each with impressively distinct handling, players never feel the satisfaction of knocking a Peugeot off a cliff with their Citroen. All that said, the game does rally racing impeccably. In career mode—a great new feature of this year's CMR—players begin by selecting a nationality. I chose Ireland and drove like Micheal Martin fleeing a County Mayo pub-owners convention. This approach proved ineffective, though. The VW with which I began my career took a lot of noticeable damage driving at full tilt through the woods. Smashed side doors, dislocated transmissions and crushed bumpers manifest not only as realistic graphic damage modeling, but also affect shifting, steering, acceleration and aerodynamics. Most racing games do this to some extent, or at least claim to, but in CMR 2005, damage to different parts of your car affects driving in unique ways, all built on a sliding scale of subtle to drastic. Between each stage, players enter the service area—a simple, comprehensive interface that allows you to assess and repair damage sustained during the most recent stage. True to rally racing form, your crew has limited time to perform repairs, and will incur a time penalty |
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during the next stage if that limit is exceeded. As a result, repairs must be prioritized, which the interface makes easy with a simple menu listing the extent of damage sustained by various parts, such as the transmission, engine, cooling system or car body, alongside the time it will require your crew to restore each part to full functionality. In cases of extensive damage, players can opt to withdraw from the next rally stage in order to spend more time on repairs.
In the service area, players can also view basic information about the driving conditions on the stage ahead, such as the type of road surface, weather forecasts and stage maps. |
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Based on those conditions, players can also have their crews customize their car—again through a set of simple menus—tweaking gear ratios, brake balance, suspension height, roll-bar and shock hardness, etc., etc. Similar to the ultra-realistic damage system, these tweaks all have a clear impact on how your car will perform based on road conditions. Set your suspension low, and the car will be somewhat easier to control around turns, but you'll also bottom out more often when going over jumps, damaging components of your car's undercarriage. (In "Championship Mode," where players have the opportunity to compete as Colin McRae himself, I made this mistake, inflicting extravagant damage on my gearbox. In the service area, McRae stared at me sternly from a banner on the screen as if to say, "go back to driving in a circle, Yank.")
I'll admit, while the attention to detail is once again impressive, much of this type of customization went beyond my limited understanding of both the sport and cars in general. The interface does offer basic explanations of how different types of changes will impact car performance, but after a few unfortunate results like the one described above, most of my own tweaking involved checking the road conditions, selecting appropriate tires and keeping my fingers crossed. The game also offers tips on loading screens, and unlike the tips offered in many games, these were actually pretty enlightening. Suggestions to use the "hard steer" function in certain types of hairpin turns, rather than the emergency brake actually worked. Another tip described the "Scandinavian Flick" a technique that involved steering briefly in the opposite direction of a turn before sharply steering the other way. At the risk of sounding like a moron, I have to say I'd never tried that before in a racing game, and it worked surprisingly well, causing the back end of the car to whip around without braking and losing momentum. All in all, Codemasters' obsessive attention to detail make CMR 2005 easily one of the most realistic driving simulations on the market. For fans of rally racing and closet gearheads, it plays like a dream, and the Xbox Live world ranking system is certain to keep those types up nights endlessly tweaking their rides in an attempt to clock the best time possible on every virtual backroad of Europe. For more casual players, the simple repair and customization interfaces serve up a crash course in the intricacies of the sport, but many may find the inability to race against computer generated opponents a drawback. - M. Enis (March 3, 2005)
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