The championship mode in Colin McRae Rally 3 can be played only from behind the wheel of McRae's Ford Focus. The damage and subsequent repairs in the game definitely add an extra edge to the competition, and since the three seasons included in the championship mode all get progressively harder and feature a slightly altered selection of rallies, there's no reason you can't enjoy playing through the championship mode more than once. You can bet that your race times will suffer dramatically even if the handling doesn't, though, so succeeding in the game's championship mode can really feel like a balancing act as you attempt to achieve the fastest times you can without risking damage. Like the visual damage in the game, the effects on handling are initially quite subtle-almost to the point that the only reason you notice them is because the sound of your engine is altered slightly. Winning the first two stages on a given day will, of course, give you a little time to spare when it comes to the final race of the day, but if your car is a wreck before you even get off the starting line, it's unlikely that your lead will be wide enough once all your times are added together. Because any damage you sustain adversely affects your car's handling, there are times when you might make a conscious decision to ease off the gas in order to avoid damage that could prove costly in subsequent races. What makes the two-day events particularly challenging is the fact that, even though you're completing seven individual stages, you get only two chances to make repairs and alterations to your car.
COLIN MCRAE RALLY 3 PS2 ISO SERIES
The handling of the cars in Colin McRae Rally 3 strikes a near-perfect balance between realism and gameplay.Ī single season in the game's championship mode consists of a series of two-day rallies, each made up of six conventional stages and a super special stage in which you get to race head-to-head with one of your rivals in a stadium of sorts. The setup options are varied enough that you'll notice a difference in performance if you take advantage of the "shakedown" test-drive option before actually racing, but it's unfortunate that Codemasters didn't see fit to include descriptions of the parts and their effects in order to make the setup screen accessible to players without a knowledge of cars. On the whole, the parts that are unlocked as you progress through a season are items that will prove useful in the next rally, and while your mechanics will automatically provide you with a decent setup before you start each day, it's possible to make changes yourself. It's just that the ability to play it as someone other than Colin McRae would've greatly improved the mode's replay value, particularly since progressing through each season unlocks additional parts for your Ford Focus and new cars for use in the single event mode. Make no mistake-the three-season championship mode is superbly challenging. This lack of choice could perhaps have been forgiven if the game had actually done something to make players feel like they were wearing the coveralls of Scotland's champion driver, but in truth the championship mode doesn't actually do anything other than offer fairly generic setup screens between rally days.
COLIN MCRAE RALLY 3 PS2 ISO DRIVER
Perhaps in an attempt to replicate the role-playing elements of Pro Race Driver in some way, or maybe just because Codemasters worked more closely with Ford than with any of the other car manufacturers featured in the game, the championship mode in Colin McRae Rally 3 can be played only from behind the wheel of McRae's Ford Focus. Colin McRae Rally 3 is one of the most realistic-looking games to appear on the Xbox to date.Ĭolin McRae Rally 3 features only single event and championship modes, and since most of the 58 different stages in the game need to be unlocked in a championship, it's not really worth arranging a rally session with friends until you've completed at least a few of the game's two-day rally events. Codemasters' offering is much more realistic than the competition and is also very easy on the eyes, but it offers very little in the way of gameplay options and can occasionally prove frustrating because it makes you overly dependent on the instructions of codriver Nicky Grist. In truth, Colin McRae Rally 3 isn't necessarily a game that should replace Rallisport Challenge in your collection, but it's definitely one that deserves a space right alongside it. If rally racing is your thing, you're almost certainly curious to find out if Codemasters' latest Colin McRae-endorsed racer is on a par with Microsoft's Rallisport Challenge, which recently celebrated its first birthday.
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