Thursday 31 Jan 2008

It saddens me to even attempt the review of this game where the passion and energy might not be true in the future. Colin McRae passed away not long after the release of this game, but boy, did he leave us gamers with something to remember him by.

The Colin McRae series started way back in 1998 on the PlayStation 1 where V-Rally was its main rival. It’s at that moment that gamers realised that licensed games can truly innovate a genre that has been so-so over the previous years. From there we had several Colin McRae games on PS1, PS2 and Xbox…but this incarnation of the series is really something special. As soon as this game loads you see pure talent behind the amazing production values of this game – Colin McRae was VERY involved with it and it shows.

Overhauled

Instead of just updating the car lists with some new tweaks to the tracks, we have a game that sends you into races with Sand Masters, Trucks and of course Rally cars. As before, it is you against the clock and that is the only feature that has been replicated from Colin McRae 2005.

The handling, graphics, sound, car damage and every little detail of this game have been overhauled to such an extent that I find it difficult to see how any rally game will ever better it in the future. You have six different view points to choose from and with the dashboard view looking as good as those in Project Gotham Racing, it does not really get any better. Your car will collect dust as you progress in the race but the real beauty is in the damage department. Everything on the car has been designed in such a way that if you take this car through too many hazards, parts of the car will fall off at any given time. It’s hard to describe in words, and needs to be seen to understand just how impressive it looks.

The handling of the cars also varies depending on the class you have selected. Rally cars are very nippy, sand masters jump all over the place and the trucks bounce most of the time. When taking a drive in the rally cars it does present an amazing sense of speed that often lacks in these rally games, yet, at the same time you can handle the cars with such precision because of the easy-to-adapt handling.

Online multiplayer

We have the usual suspects when it comes to the locations where the races takes place, such as Australia, Spain and England, which have all been recreated with great detail. After completing a race it’s quite nice to watch the replay as you have a “slow motion” option that slows the footage down to bullet time, quite wonderful to watch really.

Something that is a first for the racing genre is that you can participate in a 100-man race. Obviously you can’t all race together in the same space but you race each other for the best possible time. The most online participants I could get online at the same time was 24 players and could just imagine how exciting it must be to race 99 other players around the world, picture how ecstatic you would be if you had to win!

Fasten your seatbelt

Disappointingly there is no head-to-head races in multiplayer mode, just “race against the clock” mode. At least there is some kind of offline multiplayer element (unlike Motorstorm) but they really could have gone the extra mile. One last moan – there is no rain or snow to be seen anywhere. It was on the PS2 and Xbox so why can’t the next generation consoles handle it? Hopefully it was a time constraint. Those small quibbles do not take anything away from the overall balance Codemasters has achieved with this game.

What the next game holds in store for us is anyone’s guess. However, if this is the last game in the series (which I doubt) then I would tell you to fasten your seatbelt…and race down to the shops to buy it, before I kick DiRT in your face.

Pros: Crazy in-car views; great sense of speed; 100-man online races.

Cons: No rain, no snow; offline multiplayer should have had head-to-head.

Rating:
Contributor:	Dawid

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