Colin McRae Rally 04 review

A car

Sport does funny things to the British people. When an international football tournament is taking place the English, Scottish and Welsh fans all cheer on their respective teams and hate everyone else.
But as soon the rally season starts, everyone in the country cheers for the same man. A Scotsman, no less. Things return to normal after a few beers, as everyone hates each other again.

It seems that Codemasters have been talking to 80s pop group Duran Duran recently. Short of a few quid, they decided to do a 'comeback' gig in order to pay for the rent this month. Enter Colin McRae 04, the latest game in the rallying series.

What’s Going On?

Watch out for the speed trap

RPG fans will be upset with this game as there is no plot and certainly no story. If you want an angsty teenager, go and talk to your younger brother. This bunch of polygons is all about cars, mud, snow, tarmac and ploughing into a crowd of people on the trackside. You even get a mini-game were you have to decipher what "easy left maybe" means in English.

The main part of the game is the championship mode. Here you choose a car (2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive or the more powerful 'Group B' cars) and compete in a full rallying season that takes you all over the globe. You progress through each country in turn and there are various stages in each country.

For those not in the 'know', you don't ever actually race against other cars. You race on each stage by yourself in an attempt to get as fast a time as possible. The times are recorded and whoever has the fastest time overall at the end of all the stages is the winner for that country. Points are awarded to drivers according to what position they finished in. At the end of the season, the person with the most points is the season champion - hurrah!

Damage Litigation

Remember kids, don't ever look at the sun

You need to be careful with your car as you drive it around. As you crash into trees and rocks, the car will become damaged and less efficient. Drive too rashly and watch as your bumper flies off and your tyres shred themselves to ribbons. It's faintly amusing when you see your dented car doors swing open when you go round a corner...

Luckily, you can repair your car halfway through a rally. You have a set amount of time available for repairs and the more damaged an area is the more time it will take to repair. This means you will often have to decide which parts you will repair and which parts you will leave damaged. Other options let you tinker with the car as well with things like gear ratio, steering speed and brake bias being customisable. You can even turn your car into a futuristic Buck Rogers machine by upgrading some of the car parts. This is achieved by taking part in some mini-games that crop up between rallies. Pass the test and you get the new gearbox/engine/tyres added to your car.

The cars in this game look very nice, and Codemasters have obviously spent quite some time on them. Car damage is well modelled and the feeling of limping home with only two tyres left on the car is well placed. It is a shame that the same care has not been extended to the environment that you race in though, as the courses are not really all that attractive and many of the trees look like higher-res PS one models.

The courses struck me as being rather generic at times, with you often just racing through a tunnel of trees for much of the time. Other rally games have given the illusion that there is a whole world that you could drive off the track and go to. With CM4 this feeling is pretty non-existent and to be honest many of the tracks in Top Gear Rally on the N64 were more interesting. Bizarrely, you will come across bouts of slowdown on some corners, which is pretty shocking given that very little is happening on screen at once. About the only time I was impressed was in Greece when the sun obscured your view, as it was very well realised. Other effects like when it is snowing look very cheap and lightweight.

Surrounded

Just a little further...

Dolby Pro Logic II is supported in this game, presumably so you can hear when the enemy trees are sneaking up on you with a knife. Car sounds are as good as you would expect, with engines screaming convincingly and tyres skidding across gravel noisily. Use the in-car view, and the sound is scarily authentic. The co-driver has an annoying accent and isn't always very coherent either.

In some ways this game feels slightly empty. You have the championship mode, and that’s about it really. You have the usual quick race option, where you can race around a single rally but that is to be expected. What is really missing are some circuit races where you can race against other cars. You can't even do this in multiplayer split-screen mode either - you only get to see a 'ghost' of your opponent’s car as you race. The closest you get to anything like this is on the super special stages, but these are merely single-lap affairs with no bumper-to-bumper action at all.

That isn't to say that the game is not enjoyable, because it is. The handling is nice enough, though being stopped dead by a small sapling is extremely annoying at times. The car set-up options add some strategy, and trying to repair your car will often leave you with a couple of dilemmas.

However, this is the fourth game in the Colin McRae series and so there isn't really much excuse for Codemasters not to add extras to the game. Sure, you can unlock extra cars including some old classics but that is hardly anything to write home about. More recent games have given you more cars and more things to do - so why are the Codies lagging behind...?