Silicon Fusion >> Reviews >> Colin McRae Rally 4

	All Platforms
	Xbox
	GameCube
	PlayStation 2
	PC
	Game Boy Advance

Site Sections:

	Updates
	News
	Games
	Publishers
	Developers
	Reviews
	Previews
	Release Dates
	Editorials
	Glossary
	Contact Us

Review:

2nd October 2003:
Colin McRae Rally 4
Slightly let down by Colin's 2003 game we listened to the claims that this would be much better with slight worry. How silly that seems now...
Posted by Chris Barnett - Xbox,GameCube,PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe

The Colin McRae series has a unique place in gamers' hearts due to the reason it's one that created a 'nostalgia moment'. To elaborate, a 'nostalgia moment' is a moment in gaming that you remember forever; the first time you played Pac Man, the first fireball you pulled off in Street Fighter II and the first time you saw Mario 64 are all examples. And Colin McRae Rally on the PlayStation will be remembered for having the guts to stand up to Gran Turismo, and impressing on a different level; no one had seen a rally game on that level before. Sega Rally was good as an arcade game, but Colin allowed actual rally tracks to be played with more realistic handling. And when a game has one of those moments it will hold a place in the hearts of all gamers, no matter how long the series goes on. You feel indebted to the game for some reason.

So when the 2003 edition let us down slightly due to frame rate and pop-up issues this theory was put to practice - we wanted the 2004 edition more than ever! And the reason for this was the promise that all of the problems would be removed, improved upon and new features would be added. In other words, Codemasters played the PR like a dream, turning a negative into a positive before the game was even released. And now we have our hands on the finished game we can test their claims to the maximum.

To approach a game with such hype surrounding it can be a bad thing, if the game is not very good. But with Colin McRae 04 the hype is actually beneficial; we were expecting a graphical update of 2003 but what we have been given is so much more. That's not to say that the graphics are not improved - they are quite impressive.

To give an idea of the graphics, they are pretty close to perfect, especially the car models. Each of the cars (of which there are more than 20) looks great no matter how badly disfigured or splattered they get. In fact, the damage is one of the best looking things in the game. Bumpers hang off and lights get smashed, but not in the usual racing game way. This damage appears more realistic, less exaggerated than usual games but with no fewer spectacles. As the cars bounce over crests and humps they wobble realistically depending on the level of suspension damage, often looking graceful if the jump is taken correctly. And it is that grace that gives the game a strange feel, a sensation of speed. As you watch rally on TV and see cars leap, you are in admiration of them. And this game gives you the chance to do that yourself.

The sense of speed is also realistic and the cars feel as though they are going at the speeds that they are supposed to. The scenery flashes by and the distant objects come into view realistically with no pop-up that is not intentional. The dust effects on some of the tracks are remarkable as a veil hovers above the ground and even appears to blow in a certain direction (even if you stop dead you will be impressed with the effect). Equally impressive are the other track effects: snow falls at various levels of severity, water splashes harshly and grass blows in the wind. The blowing trackside vegetation is especially impressive, with all bushes and leaves blowing in time with one another. Some of them get a little distorted when you get close, but that is a minor gripe when you consider how many there are spread around the tracks. In fact, such a minor thing as these blowing plants really adds to the realism of the game. Something that you don't really care about seems to impress more than something blatant like the paintwork on cars.

As promised, there are no frame rate issues that we have seen, no matter how dusty or crashed the events get. The game looks, quite simply, real. On the replays you could be forgiven (with a little squint of the eye) for mistaking the game for real footage, it's that good. These are definitely the best graphics seen in a racing game on the PlayStation 2 and well up with other games too (such as Primal and Final Fantasy X).

But graphics do not make a game in any way; in most cases the graphics spoil a game as they are worked to hard in favour of gameplay, but in this case they add to the control of the game. Cars move so smoothly that the controls are allowed to be equally fluid. Slides on dusty surfaces are satisfyingly portrayed with different levels of dust having a noticeable effect on the level of slide. As the surface changes, so does the handling. A change from tarmac to gravel to water is as varied in handling as it sounds, especially is you don't have the exact right tyre choice. This tyre choice is done (in Championship mode) before every two races and so the track details must be analysed in advance. This allows a strategy to be used where a tyre that is suited to a great deal of the track but is useless on another part to be selected. It is a gamble that you can take. If you are really good with one type of tyre it may be worth the gamble and it certainly adds to the nervousness of the game. When you reach the section of the track that you know has the incompatible surface you will take it extra carefully, or find out why it is such.

The nervousness touched on above is a result of the handling, track design and graphics. It could not work if any one of these was not up to standard, and as they are the game is given a 'butterflies in the stomach' quality to it. The best example of this is on the mountainside tracks (which suitably have the dust effect touched upon earlier) where you are hurtling on a narrow road; one side a jagged mountain face, the other side a fall. And falling off or flipping the car does not end the race; it just ruins your car somewhat and takes a while for the car to be corrected on the track. This may anger some people as they may feel you should be punished with the race terminating, but that would certainly spoil the whole competitive nature of the game. No matter how badly damaged your car becomes, you will feel the urge to press on with the knowledge that you can still finish in less time than some slacker down the leaderboard.

The leaderboard is the yardstick in Championship mode, keeping you updated on your standing after every race. This allows you to play to your advantages. On some courses you may be really bad and finish in 10th place, but on the next track you may be great and finish in 1st, but the ranking will not have mattered, as it is the progressive time that matters. Your overall time for all the stages in an individual country is what ranks you for that country and the collection of all these countries' rally times will give you an overall ranking for the entire championship. This may sound boring in concept, but with the up and down nature of races (good at one track, bad at another; hang in there) it really adds to the enjoyment of the game.

The damage is also handled in a simple way. As you race your car will become damaged, even taking jumps wrong will damage suspension. Then after every two tracks you will get a chance to repair your car (except if the country has a Super Special Stage, where you will not be given change to repair after the two preceding tracks). The repairs allowed take different lengths of time and you are only allowed 60 minutes of time for these repairs. If the car is especially badly damaged you will be forced to perform consider all of the possible repairs; you can repair the essential elements and leave some un-repaired or you could repair everything at the cost of a (usually hefty) time penalty. This could be great in theory but it is silly in some respects, there are no graduations in the repair times. This means that if your turbo is only 3% damaged it will still take the same time to repair as if it were 99% damaged, giving the impression that there is no such thing as a repair in the true sense of the word (surely the entire turbo system would not need to be repaired for just 3% damage). But with all respects, this is known to the gamer, so you must plan accordingly, or better still; try not to get the car damaged. Starting a track after repairs with many damages still there is a real challenge, but if you do well enough you will thank yourself for not enduring a time penalty on behalf of full repairs.

At the points when you can perform repairs (and before the start of the first track of a rally) you can also adjust things like brake bias and tyre type to improve your performance. You can even test out the changes before committing them to the actual rally, which gives a schoolboy-like feel of messing around. These changes do make a difference, but are not really complicated or distracting. The only thing that these tweaks have that other rally games have not is the use of earned parts. These parts must be earned by passing a small test, usually a test drive on a track (but they can take place in a testing lab). If the test is passed within two attempts you will gain the part you were testing, if not you will carry on without it. The tests on tracks are really pointless as you simply drive like normal and find yourself passing them, but the ones in the labs are quite original (revving the car within limits is great). It is also silly that you are only given two attempts at each test since the part is usually essential for the next few tracks and so most people will simply quit the game and reload a save in order to try again. This should not be required and could be overcome by giving the player the part along with a time penalty upon failure, without the option to reload (so cheating would be removed).

In addition to the main Championship mode there is a rally mode (where individual countries' rallies can be raced, or custom rallies can be created using any tracks previously raced in the Championship mode) and a stages mode (offering a race on an individual track that has been previously raced in the Championship mode). These two modes each allow two-player split screen racing or 1 to 4 player racing by alternate runs. The split screen has all the handling of the one player game with reduced graphics, though it does suffer a little slow down in certain situations. It is enjoyable but should only really be needed when playing with impatient children. Most people will prefer the alternate mode as it reflects the true nature of rally and allows maximum concentration.

A ghost car is also available for showing the best time on tracks, but in rally games it is not really required as constant updates are given on the progress of your race in relation to others, so the memory card space required is not really worth it.

Just before we close though, we must mention the sound as it is varied in success. The actual quality of the sound (especially in Pro Logic II) is very good, but the sounds that are given are questionable. The co-driver voice is great, as are the engine sounds, but the lack of trackside sounds is quite a let down. You never hear blowing winds, screaming fans (or even talking fans for that matter) or rustling branches (in the wind, not caused by you colliding with them), which is a missed opportunity. The co-driver voice could maybe have emotion too as he carries on in the same tone even if you do really badly. If you crash hundreds of times he will still say "Into one right" as if he were narrating an edition of The Teletubbies.

So the game is very good, the best rally game in fact. With a few tweaks it could be perfect, but it really is difficult to see how you could get much better. The only things that could improve the graphics are less pixellated views of trackside objects and a bump mapped floor. This may seem a strange time to bring up the bump mapping issue, but we didn't want to close without it. What it is really is a flat track appearance when you slow down. As you move fast everything looks fine, but when you slow down it is apparent that the track surface is simply a texture pasted onto a flat plane. This is pretty noticeable at the end of a race when the camera pans around the car to show the surroundings; everything is really detailed and textured except the floor which looks like a set of kitchen tiles textured with a track surface (not on the snow stages though). And another minor point that we must make is that the loading times are pretty long, even for a PlayStation 2 game, which could be improved we are sure.

If you own a PlayStation 2 then you should really own this game, as there is no rally game to rival it. You may be waiting for Gran Turismo 4 but that will not offer the rally quality on offer here, trust us. Due to the varied tracks and cars there will be no limit to the life of the game. In fact the only thing that would stop is playing this is a better rally game!

As a small footnote we have played the GameCube and Xbox versions and can give you a little comparison here:

Xbox: The best graphics of the three, with slightly sharper edges and textures. The best sound too due to 5.1 surround sound. The ability to save a ghost on each track without worry of memory cards is quite pleasing. Also offers a 1-4 player split screen, which does not really add anything, as alternate play is still best.

GameCube: Better graphics that the PlayStation 2 version with faster loading times. Probably the best controls of the three versions due to the shape of the pad, not the response time.

Chris Barnett

Latest Images:

Review Scores:

Graphics:
Sound:
Gameplay:
Length:
Overall:
Click here for our Review Score Guidelines .

Review Summary:

A milestone in rally games and racing games in general. Almost perfect right down to uncluttered menus!

Related Games:

Colin McRae Rally 4
for Xbox

Screenshots

Review