Even on the same course, the surface variations drastically alter the way you drive. Light powdery dirt like that in Australia, heavier dirt like that in the US, and the muddy nastiness of England. When your vehicle swerves off the tarmac and into the dirt, handling changes greatly. If you set up the car with the correct tires, it's easy to see. They show some great variation when on different surfaces. Expectedly, the cars handle differently enough from one to another. They're what make Colin McRae Rally 3 such a luxurious game to play. And since simulation rally racing is all about the little details of the physics and handling, these subtleties make a huge difference.
COLIN MCRAE RALLY 3 WRC DRIVERS
The even distribution of weight seems to keep drivers from over-steering and from accelerating too slowly from a standstill. What I mean by this specifically is that the weight of each car is evenly balanced thankfully they're not as heavy as the cars in Colin McRae Rally 2.0, and they're not as light and twitchy as the cars in V-Rally 3. Regardless of whether you drive the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VII, the Subaru Impreza 22B STI or the game's other 11-plus models, you'll find that each car is carefully balanced and finely tuned. Major upgrades to this year's model are numerous and almost all of them fall into the category of physics and handling.
COLIN MCRAE RALLY 3 WRC PC
It's hard to remember everything that happened in the year 2000 when Colin McRae Rally 2.0 hit PC and PlayStation, but I can honestly tell you that Colin McRae Rally 3 outdoes its predecessor in many ways. It takes more than a few rides to really comprehend the game's silky handling, and it requires more than a few hours to see just how superbly balanced and tremendously smooth these cars really drive. There is nuance and complexity to the way the cars drive, handle, feel and react. Likewise, Codemasters' rally racer is filled with subtleties that don't all appear instantaneously. Virtua Fighter's subtleties are usually lost on gamers who like pure offense and all action, while timing, defense and the art of learning your opponent's strategies are downplayed and forgotten. The Colin McRae series, in its own strange way, is like Sega's Virtua Fighter series. Gameplay Please allow me to draw a silly comparison. The simple answer is this: Go buy the game, but consider yourself warned. So what's a rally fanatic to do? There are few rally games that come close to this series, and on PlayStation 2 the choices for rally games are vast, so one must pick carefully. In fine-tuning the game for these new systems, adding millions more polygons for the cars and levels and tweaking the incredibly luxurious physics system, it's clear the team had to give up something to achieve such a high standard in physics and handling. It offers fewer modes, cars and tracks than its predecessor, but the engine had to be built from the ground up for PS2, Xbox and PC, and that's not an easy task. Like Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 3 A-spec, Colin McRae Rally 3 is slimmed down from its previous generation iteration. But it's also surprisingly short on game modes, and the game's singular dependence on the Ford Focus in the game's Championship mode is a questionable decision. The game's crisp, detailed graphics, nearly perfect physics and handling capabilities - and an excellent set of cars and tracks on which to race - will instantly capture any rally racer's heart. Now, after having led with its first next-gen version on Xbox, Colin McRae Rally 3 the PlayStation 2 version is ready. Bursting onto the English scene in 1998 (and in the US in 1999 under Sony Computer Entertainment America), the original Colin McRae Rally drew tremendous critical acclaim for its sensational realistic take on the sport, which heavily countered Sega's original arcade leanings. Leading the pack over the last four years in the rally genre is, without a doubt, Codemasters' Colin McRae Rally series. The worldwide sport of rally racing has never, and may never, fully bloom in the US, but until then it appears publishers are perpetually willing to haul their great rally efforts over from the UK for the few US fans who simply can't get enough of this extremely explosive, dangerous and incredibly dynamic sport. I like my speed, and I like it dirty, which is why rally racing appeals so much to me. Whether it's by skiing downhill, flying in a jet plane, or by pressing your foot down on the acceleration pedal of a powerful rally car, the experience of traveling fast is downright irresistible. There are few greater sensations than pure, unadulterated speed.