Review NaN of 12
, from New Zealand
Price Paid:
$35.00
from Central Park Interactive Summary:
Despite the fact that the original PlayStation console has been bettered by the new consoles of today, it still retains its value. Mainly because of its affordability, and the great arsenal of games it possesses. One of these games is Colin McRae Rally 2.0 by Codemasters. It manages to present to gamers a fine combination of enjoyable gameplay and striking realism while also being pleasing to the eye. For those of us who can't afford one of the more powerful consoles, this is arguably one of the best racing games, if not best games, available to us. I have owned this game for several months and played it for countless ours and I still get a lot of enjoyment out of it. So, ladies and gentlemen, start your engines, as we "slide" (good pun, eh?) into Colin McRae Rally 2.0!
The gameplay…
The first thing that will strike you is the menu format. All menus throughout the game consist of the names of certain options, cars, whatever, separated by vertical lines. This interface is very stylish and easy to use, and a good interface is always a massive plus.
The game, although it may seem a little difficult at first for those not used to rally racing games, is a joy to play. There are three gameplay modes -- rally, arcade and challenge. In rally mode, the main and most realistic mode, you race your choice of car along special stages -- long, narrow stretches of road whose different surfaces can include gravel, mud, ice, tarmac and sand -- as fast as you can, to attempt to be beat stage times set by the computer. You do not race against other cars in this mode, but rather against the clock. You can race a single stage, a single rally, or an entire rally championship in this mode. Your car can also recieve damage in this mode. In arcade mode you race on circuit tracks that are very wide and generally quite easy to drive on against one to five AI cars. This mode also has a short championship mode. In this mode some Gran Turismo-style jostling can occur between the cars on the road, but unlike in rally mode none of the cars can be damaged. Arcade mode really is very similar to that in Gran Turismo 2 as you can hoon around the circuit, crashing into brick walls and flipping and rolling, without damaging the car at all. Undoubtedly this feature was added so that CMR2 would please a wider audience. I quite like this feature, because if I ever get frustrated with the rally mode (which is rare) I can switch over to arcade mode, which is completely different, and vice versa. Challenge mode is a more minor mode, where you race a super special stage against another car in front of a crowd of people in a grandstand. These races are quite boring, but thankfully they don't last that long.
When you play the game for the first time, six different World Rally Cars are available to you. These are the Ford Focus, Subaru Impreza, Toyota Corolla, Mistubishi Lancer, Peugeot 206 and Seat (Fiat) Cordoba. You unlock several more cars (all of which are rally models of yesteryear, such as the Mini Cooper S and Ford Sierra Cosworth) as you progess through the game's championship mode, which I will explain later. All of the cars handle very differently. For example, the Mitsubishi Lancer is slightly heavier than the other World Rally Cars, so it experiences more drift when cornering and has a higher chance of slipping and sliding into the hazardous roadside area. All the cars can also suffer damage. The damage engine is one of game's greatest strengths. Most of the damage is caused by collisions with the scenery, such as trees, brick walls, fences, large rocks and even buildings on the roadside. But even cars that stay on the road for the entire race recieve some damage. You wouldn't expect, in real life, to be able to drive a car at speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour on a rough, windy gravel road ten kilometres in length without suffering damage to the suspension, gearbox and other important components, would you? No. So you shouldn't expect that in CMR2, either. But not to worry -- you have the opportunity to repair your car after every couple of races, at the service area. At the service area, you are also given the opportunity to adjust the settings of your car, such as the softness of the suspension or the type of tread you have on your tires. The cars also handle differently on different surfaces -- snow is much more slippery than tarmac. The game's creators, Codemasters, made sure to maintain consistent realism throughout the game. And with Colin McRae himself and his (now former) real-life co-driver Nicky Grist overseeing its production, who wouldn't have?!
CMR2 features over 90 rally stages set in eight rallies in eight different countries. These countries are Finland, Greece, France, Sweden, Australia, Kenya, Italy and the United Kingdom. All of the countries are very different to each other. It is possible for the road surface to be consistent throughout an individual rally, or for the road surface to vary. Each country has its own weather pattern -- it rains much more often in the UK than it does in Australia. In addition to that, each rally has its own character. For example, Finland has very fast, flowing roads with corners that are quite easy to take at high speeds, whereas in Greece you have to take it quite slowly to be able to stay on the twisty road. When you play the game for the first time, you will only have access to Finland. In order to be able to race on the other rallies' stages, you must reach them in the rally championship mode.
In the rally championship mode, you must work your way through each of the rallies to the "end" of the game. In order to progress to the next rally/country, you must place in the top six finishers in your current rally. Points are awarded to you and the other drivers based on what position you finish in, and the driver with the most points at the end of the championship is crowned champion. So, if you are planning on winning the championship, it is best to try for first place in each rally and not the minimum sixth that you need to progress to the next one. When you've won the championship on the novice difficulty level, you can always crank the difficulty up to intermediate, which is a great challenge (it took me several attempts to win it). If you win intermediate, you can move on to expert -- which is impossible. As in the original Colin McRae Rally game, expert difficulty is absolutely impossible. I can't even win the first race in the championship on expert, and it's the one I'm best at!
The graphics…
I was impressed by the graphics. They are much better than I was expecting from old PlayStation hardware. The roadside scenery is all very good. All of the stages are heavily populated by trees, fences, houses, lakes and walls and there is no noticeable affect on the frame rate. Perhaps the only piece of the scenery that disappointed me was the spectators, who look like cardboard cut-outs. You can clearly see that the road surfaces are rough and covered in stones even though those stones are simply 2D bitmaps pasted onto the road. It is cheap, but strikingly effective. The cars look nice, but not quite as nice as those in Gran Turismo 2. This shortcoming is made up for, however, with good car animations. You can see the car dip to one side as it takes a sharp corner and bounce up and down on its suspension when it lands on the ground again after going over a jump. The damage rendering is also very, very good -- the best on the PlayStation. If you smash your car head on into a tree its bonnet will crumple and flap around as you drive along. If you slide sideways into a wall and damage the side doors, they may come open while you are driving along. Windows crack, bumpers and spoilers break off, smoke billows from the crumpled bonnet -- it's great!
Oh, the humanity…
The sound, in my opinion, is the games only major shortcoming. Codemasters claim that the car sound effects used in the game are the actual sounds they make in real life. This is not so. THEY ARE AWFUL!!! The Ford Focus has probably the worst engine sound of any car on any PlayStation game. To get an idea of what it sounds like without buying the game, inhale some helium, then try to make racing car noises. Or, you could think of Chip & Dale (you know, those cartoon chipmunks?) trying to make racing car noises.
The music, which only plays in the menus and in the arcade mode, is decent, but its repetitiveness becomes unbearable real fast. It's good that you can turn it off.
The best aspect of the sound is Nicky Grist, the co-driver, reading the pace notes out so that you know when a corner's coming up and so on. These are very well done and quite easy to hear, but if you do happen to miss a pace note, you can just look at the icon at the top of the screen.
The end…
I suggest that, if you are a fan of rally racing, general motor racing, or just fun, fast-paced video games, you get this game. It really is worth the price of purchase and will keep you occupied for months, as I have discovered. It’s few shortcomings are made up for by its longcomings. Or whatever.
Report this review >>
|
5 of 5
