Colin times two

Back story

Although rally racers existed prior to Sega Rally, it was that very arcade hit which spiralled the off-road motorsport into fame for gaming worldwide. It became the benchmark of which rally games were based, and inspired similar experiences as the 3D race of the mid-nineties developed rapidly.

However, it wasn't true to the real-life motorsport. Sure, it had licensed rally cars and was all about power sliding through mud and on gravel, but the goal was overtaking as many cars as possible on circuits. Although it had similarities to rallycross, it made its own videogame rules up. Only the fourth bonus stage is reminiscent of the proper rally motorsport, where it featured a point-to-point stage against a timer.

Similar titles, like V-Rally and Rally Cross, were about racing against cars off-road circuits. For 3D racing, the groundbreaking titles aiming at replicating the true nature of rally were the PC exclusives; Rally Championship in 1996 and its sequel International Rally Championship in 1997, albeit with a semi-arcade feel and basic pace notes.

The title which changed it all and truly replicated proper rally was Colin McRae Rally in 1998. Endorsed by the famous Scottish rally champion of the 90s, which sadly passed away in 2007. By utilising their TOCA Touring Cars game engine from 1997, Codemasters built a racer based close to the real motorsport. Moving away from the arcade scene and focusing on realism. Even taking some inspiration from the newly released Gran Turismo by adding shiny car bodies!

Recently, I decided to go back to the franchise beginnings and finally play this rally classic. I remember reading about in a review of The Official UK PlayStation Magazine from August 1998, issue 35, and being excited about trying it myself:

It scored a healthy, and well deserved, nine out of ten. I also recall seeing it on a PlayStation demo kiosk in the shop Game in Sunderland, thinking it looked genuinely nice depicting nature and woodlands!

Later that year, a friend got hold of it and played it, but back then I didn't really grasp the whole rally scene and was put off by the solo races against a timer. It wasn't until many years later I really got hooked into rally titles. I've played many of the later Colin McRae Dirt titles.

Let's take a closer look at the first two!

Review

Played on: PlayStation
Released: 1998

After a loud and 90s styled CGI intro, we're introduced to a small handful of modes conveniently placed in a circle around a globe on the main menu:

Rally is single stages spread countries, while time-trial is up against your own times on the same stages. The tutorial mode, Rally School, is a neat way of teaching players how to properly drive a rally car, as there are a few key differences in the way you cut corners, use the handbrake and power slide sideways. Neatly, this mode is narrated by Colin McRae himself!

The main feature though, is Championship; which takes you through a full season of rally. With point-to-point stages, each featuring a predetermined weather and time of day, spread across eight countries: New Zealand, Greece, Monaco, Australia, Sweden, Corsica, Indonesia and England. Each location features the typical nature and road surface unique for that country. From the easier gravel roads in New Zealand to the slippery ice lakes of Sweden.

Each surface feels different too, from bumpy to muddy, and will require adjusting how sharp you take corners, what speed you maintain and braking lengths. Weather adds another impact on handling too, while night races really push your risk taking to the maximum as you cautiously navigate the darkness. Between every second stage is a service stop, here you can use an allotted 60 minutes of repair to fix damages to your car. I found the damage gained through stages extremely lenient considering crashes I'd had.

There are three difficulties: Novice which has slower FWD cars and three stages per country, Intermediate has the more powerful 4WD rally cars and six stages per country and lastly there's Expert which has the fastest competitors. I wanted to drive Colin's iconic Subaru and opted for Intermediate, but it became a tricky season, which I lost before the final destination.

I found the stage times of the competitors a bit random, especially countries with snow and tarmac held extremely fast times to beat. I'd recommend beginners to try the slower FWD cars in Novice, which only requires three stages for each country.

For those unaware, and what the developers took a risk at introducing, was the point-to-point races against a timer. For casuals it seems a little underwhelming; simply speeding along a country road all alone against a clock. 

However, Codemasters cleverly made lots of checkpoints along the way and a display showing either a green or red box at each checkpoint. This instantly gives you a sign if you're falling behind or gaining time during a stage. It's a clever way of keeping the player updated and engaged against competitors even though you're driving alone.

In addition, the pace notes by the co-driver are more advanced and truer to real life compared to earlier rally titles. Each type of corner has a symbol and a number between 1 to 6. The higher the number the less sharp is the turn. With detailed pace notes, including warnings about cutting corners or jumps ahead, teaches you to properly listen. They even got Colin McRae's own co-driver, Nicky Grist, to voice all the pace notes. Things we take for granted in the rally genre today but back then Codemasters was paving new territory.

Handling holds its ground surprisingly well as the car veers from side to side, keeping a steady power slide feels controllable. Cars have proper weight and the handling doesn't suffer from being nervous and twitchy. Various surfaces offer different nuisances to the feel of the car and handling.

I played with a DualShock, as the analogue steering is far better suited for taking turns gradually, I also set the accelerate/brake as analogue. Using you handbrake is satisfying for getting the rear end of the car around the hairpin turns. I can't see how people managed to play this with the standard d-pad controller back in the day.

Should you have a NeGcon it works great with that too, allowing even more granular steering. If you're on the DuckStation emulator, a pro tip is mapping a modern controller like an Xbox one as a NeGcon. Allowing you to put analogue accelerate/brake to the triggers and analogue steering to the left stick. It works incredibly well!

This is probably one of the better handling racers on the system in hindsight, leaning closer to how modern racers feel and fairly realistic as such. Often racers from this era have an arcade styled, almost quirky handling model, but this plays how you’d expect a semi realistic racer to do.

For viewing options, there are five camera angles. Bumper and bonnet are best for immersion, while the cockpit view looks way to simple and primitive these days. External are close and distant, the latter is too far away for my taste, but the close one is just right. To my surprise, the external camera allows lots of tilt from left to right, its satisfying seeing the car sideways as you throw it into corners! A far cry the awkward and stiff external cameras typical of this era.

Car damage is visually subtle, but it's possible to smash rear lights and get dents in your car. More impressively, is the lighting which glows nicely from the brake lights as you slam your foot down to slow down. Equally, both the red glow and the bright headlights play a vital role in depicting a convincing night scene during races in the dark. Working headlights wasn't something that was overly common back then.

Otherwise, scenery is done quite well, leaning into an organic and subdued natural colour palette which suits the environments well. It's fairly sparse in raw geometry detail but compensates with a great draw distance in an era of extreme pop-up. It’s clearly one of the better visuals of racers on the system, especially other off-road based ones.

There's a fair bit of variation within the nature themes of each country, although some of forest sections give a vibe of being a tree-textured corridor. Overall, a very decent job the developers, especially considering these types of lengthy rally stages were far from common compared to the circuits of other racers.

As mentioned, each stage is predetermined with weather and time of day, something that has changed dramatically since then with dynamic weather. However, it at least gives the impression of variation as there isn't much visual variety between each stage within a country. When you replay the game though, you're stuck with the same conditions on each stage, making it the opposite of the unpredictable nature rally in real life is.

Outside of the questionable stage times of the competitors, basically forcing newcomers into the less cooler FWD cars, there's not much to point out as negative. Sure, it's visually dated if you're not used to this era and there's subtle variation during stages. The organic and subdued colour palette, which suits rally stages, makes it stand out less too.

Choosing analogue control is a key factor, as tapping away on a d-pad will make it very tricky during long power slides. Keep also in mind that the trickier stages in mud and snow will have a steep difficulty to get ahead of your competitors.

Colin McRae Rally has often been cited as revolutionising off-road racers the same way Gran Turismo did for circuit based racers, which I think is very true. Not only did it change how rally racers were made; daring to make it all about racing against a clock when most off-road racers were trying to be Sega Rally, it also managed to make driving alone on a country road exciting! Much thanks to how the checkpoints are visually illustrated.

In addition, the detailed pace notes and the proper rally season elevates it in a way to become much closer to the real-life motorsport. It also made off-road environments look believable and stages just long enough to feel at least somewhat close to reality. The way handling changes through surfaces and weather is also impressive compared to most racers of the time.

If you're into racers from this era, you can't go wrong with this one. Just do yourself a favour and go analogue for steering and begin on Novice!

Review

Played on: PlayStation
Released: 2000

At first glance, the PlayStation version of CMR2 almost looks rougher than the first game. Perhaps a result of a late release on the ageing PS1 hardware, with no luxuries of anti-aliasing or high resolution. PC players could enjoy a visually more striking title for sure! However, once you settle into it, you really appreciate the changes made and how solid an upgrade CMR2 truly is.

From the get-go there's a thumping electronic and modern looking main menu, clearly inspired by wip3out. Black and white font on a grey background, minimalist through and through. It gives a sleek and modern impression, which is reflected in the HUD as you race too; with a digital speedometer and modern lettering.

Ironically, as CMR1 moved away from Sega Rally arcade style towards realism, an arcade mode is added in CMR2. Catering for the more casual play of rally racing against other cars, although I wonder why they just didn't implement rallycross as they do in modern rally titles!

With competition from V-Rally 2, which came out a year prior to this, catering for both semi-realism through timed stages as well as circuit racers against other cars, I guess Codemasters felt the need for an arcade mode.

It serves perfectly fine for what it does at least with cut down effects and simpler car models, allowing you to race against five other rally cars on a few select racetracks. A neat addition for those looking for a little more action to their rally games but other titles are better suited for this.

However, the star of the show is the Championship mode where were once again are taken through a season of rally. Featuring multiple stages spread across eight countries, featuring; Finland, Greece, France, Sweden, Australia, Kenya, Italy and the UK.

Weather comes across as slightly more random here, with stages changing from sun to rain during a stage, weather types can also be chosen when you race the stages individually outside the championship. However, time of day is still a preset, featuring bright sun, atmospheric sunsets and dark nighttime stages.

This time around the difficulties all feature the high-powered, 4WD rally cars. Novice is only four stages in each country, with one service stop in the middle and more lenient stage times to beat. While Intermediate and Expert have eight stages per country, with a service stops between every second stage, tallying in at three. The stage times are considerably harder to beat in these difficulties too.

Car selection has 90s classics like the Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer, Peugeot 206 and Toyota Corolla, to name some. Colin McRae himself had by this point moved away from Subaru and is driving a Ford Focus in this game. Nicky Grist joins him as the co-driver giving you pace notes.

Car control has improved, even though CMR1 is one of the stronger PS1 titles as such from this era, there's an immediate sense of more direct input to the handling here. A faster, more satisfying feedback to input if you want. The raw sense of control is further heightened by the exhaust pipes crackling loudly and flames spitting out of them. Really giving it a cool look and crunchy sound as you throw your car sideways.

Doing power slides around corners seems even better to control now and the variety in road surface, even within a stage, is heightened by even more variety. Crashes seem better detected and give immediate damage to your service stops, forcing you to make tactical choices as to which parts you fix, as your allotted service time won't cover them all. 

Just like my part on controllers in the previous review; it's all about using analogue options. The standard d-pad controller just won't cut it for a rally racer like this. DualShock is the immediate and easier controller to find and use, while a NeGcon will allow you even more nuisanced steering. For emulation, map an Xbox controller as a NeGcon, like I described earlier.

Visually, CMR2 goes up against V-Rally 2 on the PS1. VR2 really pushed the graphics far from its predecessor, with environments and the car models especially. That said, CMR2 is more ambitious in its stage lengths, their width and overall variety. This is about capturing the real motorsport after all, and CMR2 just goes further in making it look more realistic as such.

While car models aren't quite as rounded as V-Rally 2's, with rougher edges, they look proportionally more correct at least. Comparing it to CMR1, which perhaps looked more refined as whole, but I guess it comes down to better lighting and damage modelling here. The way the exhaust crackles light up the cars with a flame and sunlight bounces off the bodywork is a step up though!

With a more advanced lighting system in place and beefier car models, CMR2 offers more variety but at the cost of a rougher look at times. At first glance the first game almost looks better, more organic looking in its natural environments, but as you begin playing through the stages the variety and the new way your car reacts to both light and environment begin to shine through.

Framerate also sees some hits in areas with just a little too much background detail, I didn't notice this in CMR1. Nothing too bad, but it kind of puts you out of momentum as you're speeding through a corner and it all stutters. That's if you're playing on original hardware, regardless of PS1 & PS2, but on DuckStation you can smooth it over by overclocking the PS1.

Stages see a more ambitious design with various colour schemes as each stage seems to be set at various times of a day. Roadside variety is better too, more added landmarks and detail, making each stage more memorable. With a broader colour palette, sunsets and weather plays an impact to the visual variety. Forest areas also lose some of that corridor sensation the first game had. Night races are once again nicely lit up by the car in complete darkness.

The refined feedback and immediate sense of car control make CMR2 just even more fun to play, even though the first game was great too, plus there's more content collected here to make a truly solid rally package. The season seems closer to the way modern rally games are built too.

Although just refinement, it's upgrades in all departments. With such a great starting point in the first game, I realise why CMR2 is so highly regard among rally fans. Just a remarkable sense of sliding around gravel and muddy roads, on a console this old. The way they've allowed newcomers to play in novice without having to fall back on slower cars is smart, and reducing the number of stages to four with a service point in between allows everyone a taste of how rally is, regardless of difficulty.

The increased visual variation in stages with increased roadside detail, as well as various lighting during day with sunsets, fog, rain and snow to give the playthrough the variety needed to make it exciting when you're racing alone in nature environments really come together well.

Both these CMR titles are great, but this sequel is probably the more accessible and visually fun for newcomers to the genre! They both have the same playtime for their seasonal modes and skills needed, but CMR2 just feels a little more immediate when controlling the cars and has that extra layer of visual feedback and variety to make it more interesting. Even though, the immediate visual impression of CMR1 looks more well-rounded and less rough around egdes.

Probably the best point to point rally title on the PS1, with only V-Rally 2 rivalling it as a whole package and visual finesse, but when it comes to car handling and control, nothing can top the Colin games on PS1!

Summary

There's no denying that Codemasters truly revolutionized the rally genre in a big way with these games. They managed to make a solo race experience into a competitive sensation and nail how a rally car power slides around corners with a realistic touch. Sure, they've aged, but considering their time of release and the the hardware they ran on, they're fantastic racers.

Which one you choose is probably nothing to worry about if you want to try this particular type of racing genre from this era. My hunch says that the second game will appeal a little more though!

For European PAL gamers out there, both these games are fully optimised for PAL on the PS1 and are the preferred versions. That doesn't happen so often!

Otherwise, on PC there are options to keep these games alive on modern Windows and hardware, especially CMR2 can really look stunning on PC as the PS1 version was cut back quite a bit by the time of 2000 when the consoles hardware was really showing its age.

Regardless of where you play them and if you’re into retrogaming; enjoy those power slides in the countryside with Colin McRae!