Colin McRae Rally Developer: Codemasters Publisher: Codemasters Category: Rally Racing System Req: P200, 32Mb Ram, 20Mb HD, D3D/3dfx card, Win95/98 Might look like: Network Q Rally Date posted: 20 November '98 Written By: Bjorn - This game was tested on PlayDevil.com Game Machine - A little Introduction Rally games don't need a real introduction. It's racing! The Manual Colin McRae's Manual is pretty ok. It features all the most frequently sections that you always find in almost every manual. The European version of this game is also multilanguage and that is a nice option. It features 3 languages: french, dutch and portuguese. It has several screenshots of the game providing you with excellent info concerning how to handle your car, etc ... A good manual but isn't really needed here (just like the manual of NFS III: Hot Pursuit) because most of the information that is in it, you already know. Colin, who? Colin McRae Rally. To tell you the truth, I may have heard his name once but I didn't really knew him. And more, I didn't even knew that he won several rally championships either. Shame on me, I know. Once, several years ago, I had this game which was then the best racing game I ever played. It was called Network Q Rally. And that was a hell of a game. Made by Europress if I'm not mistaken. It had excellent graphics, not 3d-accelerated but it beated the others, excellent controls and excellent gameplay. I played this title over and over, trying to beat my records over and over again. Sometimes I managed, sometimes I didn't. Lets say: most of the time I didn't :-). Now, years later, there is a new rally game out. It is made and published by a succesfull company called Codemasters. They have already the racing experience from games like TOCA Racing and others. I heard somewhere that this game, Colin McRae Rally beats the crap out of any other racing game that is currently avialable. Is it true or is it just a lie made up by some smart marketing people? Lets find out!    Colin, who? As you might know or not, Colin McRae is a hotshot in the rally community. Not only did he won the Network Q Rally Championship and many other championships, he's also the champion of the WRC (World Rally Championship). So, he's probably someone who knows what he is doing in this sport and that is exactly what Codemasters needed, someone with a lot of experience and that they can put 'that' in a game, it would certainly sell. And if you know that 'Colin' did a very big part in the game development stage by providing the voice-overs and has helped the Codemasters team with the handling of the cars. I should say, pretty good!! A sweeet installation program Now, lets begin with the installation of this game. CMR has a setup language option included. This means that you can choose in which language the entire game will be in. English, French, German and Spanish. Neat if you really want to play an entire game in your mother language but I prefer just plain English. It has also several installation options that are depending on how big your hard drive is. This has always been a feature that I loved. Some games just don't have that included in their installation program and I'm sometimes furious when I see that a particular game takes up 500megs, with no other type available, and that you just have 300 megs free on your hard drive. This means just one thing: erase other important data on your HD to make place for the game OR just don't play it. So, I immediately loved McRae :-). This game has 4 different installation types. We have the minimum that just takes about 20MB. Very, very little but you better have a very fast CD-Rom drive. I have a 6x speed (I know, I'm getting behind) and it takes almost a minute or more to load something. And a minut is long. Just take your watch and look at it for a entire minute. You will be surprised how long that really is. Next, we have the medium type. It installs almost everything, except the music and the FMV. Takes about 315MB. Of course for those who have large harddisks, you can install everything and will eat about 510MB. The last option is for playing on a "Network". You just need 320MB and then you can play without the original cd, except that one gamer has it in his drive. Next Page Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. Any problems and/or suggestions are always appreciated on webmaster@playdevil.com Nothing of this entire Site, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, written or otherwise without the prior permission of PlayDevil. Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners. All Rights Reserved. PlayDevil Productions © 199/8-199/9 "rip your own stuff"