I played Colin McRae Rally 3 for a while. It made me think how much it reminds Colin McRae Rally 2.0. The game that I mentioned first was released for PlayStation 2 while the game that I mentioned after was released for the first PlayStation. Is it fair to make such a comparison? I think that the answer is yes. Maybe 2.0 is a better game? Would 3 be so much better just because of the more powerful hardware of PS2? You can also consider that with Colin McRae Rally 2.0 the developers had a gaming system like PS1 that they were already familiar with and could also develop a good game for. Also Colin McRae Rally 3 was released early in the considerably long life cycle of PS2.
I have to say that Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was and still is one of my favorite games that was ever developed for PS1. I think it just deserves its status as a great game. It could just be that it is also better than a game from same developers that was released on a more powerful gaming system year or two later. What makes 2.0 so great? It has everything to do with the physics modeling, the way you get to fiddle with the car settings and also the pure and satisfying game play that it has to offer.
Sure, the graphics aren’t that good. Still, I think 2.0 offers the best that PS1 can provide when it comes to the quality of the graphics. Can you honestly say that CMR 3 offers graphically everything that this more modern hardware of PS2 can offer? The answer is probably not. If we think about some PS2 games that look amazing graphically this rally game isn’t going to be mentioned.
We could solve this matter purely by looking through Metacritic and check how are the grades of both of these games. We can also check what the reviewers are writing about these two games. Critics are saying that Colin McRae Rally 3 deserves a grade of 86 while 2.0 receives a grade of 83. Also the users are saying that 3 has a score of 7.6 and 2.0 has a score of 8.6. In the comments Colin McRae Rally 3 is said to be one of the best rally games ever made for PS2. That same can also be said about Colin McRae Rally 2.0. You can say that it is the best rally game of PS1.
Is this basically just a comparison of PS1 and PS2. It looks very much like that. I think it is also a matter of how well you can utilize the hardware of the console you are actually developing the game for. Codemasters had more time with PS1 and developing CMR 2.0. They had spent less time with PS2 when CMR 3 was released.
My favorite out of these two is Colin McRae Rally 2.0. It has more settings to mess around with and the overall control of the vehicle is more comfortable. You also get to drive with several cars while with CMR 3 you only get to experience this one car. These are the most important thoughts that made my mind about this little debate.
Maybe it isn’t necessary to try to decide which one of these two is a better as a rally game? They have been created both by Codemasters. Basically they are both rally games but as games they are very different. The sum these thoughts up for me personally I have to say that I like both of these games. I just happen to like the PS1 game a whole lot more. So, my final thought of this blog post will remain to be this: “Colin McRae 2.0 seems to be a more comfortable and better as a rally game than Colin McRae 3 is”. And still…they are both very good games.