Colin McRae Rally 3

"A little disappointing..."

After a couple of weeks playing this game I decided to review it. First of all I have to admit that I have always been a very BIG fan of the Colin McRae series…

I don’t know exactly what to say. This game is good, it looks fine, but… It doesn’t have the “magic” the first two games have had. The biggest disappointment when playing it the first time has been the lack of options this game offers. It’s an insult for all players!!! Only 2 game-modes. Championship or time trial. What if I want to play only a rally, huh? What if I want to play the game in arcade? Nothing, poorly nothing! And even worse is the choice of the car you want to use in the championship. ONLY ONE!!!!!!! :-( You’re allowed to use the solely Focus. It’s far not that what I had expected from a game like this! Colin 2.0 has all the features a gamer could dream of, but its sequel is only his poor brother… :-/ Luckily you can use the other cars during time trial… The appeal of the game lasts only for 2-3 weeks and that is not sufficient!

The gameplay is good, the car turning isn’t too realistic, but not arcade. The biggest problem is that the car slides too much. Especially during the tarmac stages and on the USA-gravel the feeling is not so realistic. It seems as it swims on the road, instead of running on it. But aware of that, the game is pure fun. The stages have the right length and variety… if taken one by one. During a complete rally the SS’s are pretty much too similar one to another and the difficulty level is the same on all stages. A very demanding question is: why has Codemasters taken the “repair-menu” away during the rally? You don’t have the opportunity to decide which part of the car needs to be repaired or not, like in the previous games. It’s all done automatically by the computer. This takes away a big piece of fun… Very awful decision by the programming team! :-( Also the fact that you MUST use Colin isn’t good. I.e. I can’t stand this guy! (I’m a Sainz-Fan…)

What impressed me most were the car-graphics, especially the totally new damage-system. It’s amazing! The best I ever had the chance to wonder. Unbelievable!!! The car can lose nearly every part of the chassis. You’re able to blow a tire, run on 3 or 2 of them, with an opened door which bangs on every jump. Also the cars have never seemed so much like real, as in this game. But… As good the car graphics are, as poor is the stage representation. I.e. the rally of Sweden is really boring. The landscape is pretty much the same everywhere and the most part of the stage you drive through a forest. And what to say about the superspecial-night-stage? I’ve rarely seen so much pop-up in a rally game, like I have in Colin 3! It’s a shame! :-( Even the lights of the cars are not even close to the lights seen in WRC or even Colin 2.0. :-( It seems as there have been 2 different programming-teams to develop this game. The first has done a superb job with the cars, the second has been not far acceptable… Disappointing!

The atmosphere during the first playing is really very good. The cutscenes were all very well made, with superb graphics, but after a while all of that becomes boring. And it’s not funny to wait every time the loading of the rally-start-scene in which the car drives on and off a ramp. It takes away 2 minutes!!! Very good, IMO, is the choice of the developers to make you start first on the road if you are first in the championship, not having the other times to compare with yours. Like in a real rally you have to give all you have in order to make a good pace. But unfortunately you won’t be able to see all the time after the stage is completed. For that you have to wait until the start of the next stage and only after seeing another boring cutscene! All these things brake the rhythm during the play an the fun decreases a bit. :-/

At last I want to know why the England rally has to be so much more difficult than every other rally in the game! It is the first round of the championship in normal mode, and I only manage to arrive third with more than a minute gap from first, but I manage to win every other rally by more than a minute…

In the end, Colin McRae Rally 3 is a good rally game, the best I played so far on the PS2, but not as good as Colin 2.0! His major faults are: 1.) the lack of options/game modes 2.) the controversial “double-face” graphics of the car/landscapes. I expected a bit more from Codemasters… :-/

Graphics: 7/10
Incredible cars and perfect damage system, but poor landscapes and disturbing pop-up.

Audio: 6/10
In the average, but nothing really remarkable

Gameplay: 8/10
Mostly good handling, with minor faults

Options: 2/10
The worse I’ve ever seen in a rally game. Ridiculous! :-(

Buy/Rent?
Lasting for only 2-3 weeks, the game is not worth to be bought. RENT IT!!!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/15/02, Updated 11/15/02