Colin McRae Rally

"The definitive rally experience on PSOne..."

I have fond memories of Colin McRae Rally on Playstation. It was the week before spring break of my senior year of high school, and I was browsing the internet during my Windows Certification class. An interesting rally title was collecting positive reviews from a great deal of sources, and within a day or two of inquiry, Codemasters had won itself a customer. I rushed down to my local store and ecstatically found that the game was in.

It wasn't long into my initial play that I realized what a wonderful gaming experience Colin McRae would be, and it seemed that at last the hype was genuine. My Subaru Impreza nimbly power-slid around the dirt track, my eyes opened in astonishment as the rainy weather caked my car with mud, and my mind became excited by the fact that these were point-to-point courses, not boring oval tracks! Everything seemed to fit just right!

A rally is different from your typical race. Emphasis is placed on time, not physical position, and for good reason; the treacherous courses you drive across are unlike anything you may be accustomed to seeing. These aren't your friendly Nascar paved ovals! Picture the worst, most dangerous back road you can imagine, and it's a good bet that it would make an ideal rally course. Curvy stretches of mud, sand, snow, ice; it's all fair game, and like the US Postal Service, no amount of weather is going to stop the race.

Colin McRae Rally allows you to hone those basic skills in the Driver's School, practice a single course or locale, and go for the gold in the World Rally Championship. Let me establish the fact that the championship mode will take you a significant time investment to complete successfully, as it takes you through nearly 50 grueling courses across varying regions of the world. Each course is unique in layout, weather, time of day, distance, technique, difficulty, and appearance. For instance, you may find yourself racing through deep woods in a rainstorm, across icy ravines during a snowstorm, alongside dangerous mountain cliffs in pitch black night, or through a paved village road at unprecedented speeds. Each world region brings with it a new racing style to learn and a great deal of tuned adjustments to your car. The effect this has on gameplay is enormous; it's tough to get bored with the season when everything changes just as you begin to get complacent with the current setup.

Graphically speaking, Colin McRae is not outstanding, but its appearance is more than adequate. Texture detail is not terribly high, many roadside objects are simple 2D bitmaps, and there is a fair amount of pop-up in the distance. However, the most important visual aspect, the frame rate, stays at a consistent 30 fps (with a secret option to boost that to an awe-inspiring 60). The smooth frame rate makes the game a sweet experience. Additionally, the car models are quite good, with visible damage and awesome dirt and grime accumulation (trust me on that one).

There is no music during the race, allowing the focus of your attention to be on the co-pilot's instructions, which, I might add, are spot on and essential to success.

Colin McRae is just one of those games that seems to do all the important things right. The control is fantastic, the frame rate is excellent, the variety is unparalleled, and that unique ''experience'' is present and accounted for. Flying around a lonely stretch of back-country, trying to keep your car in one piece is absolutely classic. There is just something very satisfying with the game mechanics, and the challenge and technique required are dead-on; you can almost feel when you're doing well, long before the split timer reflects the fact. Similarly, you can tell when you're doing poorly, and you know it's the fault of the person behind the controls, not the game's.

To this day, I still like to give the first Colin McRae a drive now and then. The graphically improved sequel seemed to me like a step backwards in overall design; the setup was over-complicated, the control worsened, and the overall balance wavered. In my honest opinion, the original Colin McRae Rally is the definitive rally experience for the Playstation, and a heck of a game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/02, Updated 03/07/02