Colin McRae Rally

Colin McRae Rally series
Developer(s)	Codemasters, Ideaworks Game Studio (N-Gage version) Feral Interactive (Mac OS X)
Publisher(s)	Codemasters Feral Interactive (Mac OS X)
Platform(s)	Windows Android Macintosh iOS PlayStation PlayStation 2 PlayStation Portable PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Xbox Xbox 360 Xbox One Wii Wii U Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance N-Gage
Genre(s)	Racing

Colin McRae Rally and more recently; Dirt, is a racing video game series developed and published by Codemasters. Colin McRae Rally and Dirt 2 have since been developed and published for Mac OS X by Feral Interactive.

Started in 1998, the franchise has been a critical and commercial success and is generally acknowledged as a pioneer of realistic rally sports racing games. The series is named after the World Rally Championship driver Colin McRae, who provided technical advice during development.

Despite McRae's death in September 2007, Codemasters retained the use of his name on their rally games until the release of Dirt 3, where the moniker was dropped.

Games

Colin McRae Rally

Colin McRae Rally, the first title in the series, was released for the PC and PlayStation platforms in January 1998 in the United Kingdom and in September 1999 in the United States. The game featured real cars and drivers from the 1998 World Rally Championship season. Colin McRae's Subaru Impreza was featured on the game's cover.

In Novice mode there are only 3 stages per rally, each followed by a Service Area, making it easier to adjust the vehicle to the different conditions of each stage and repair the damage.

Colin McRae Rally 2.0

There are 3 difficulty levels, namely Novice, Intermediate and Expert. New features include Arcade mode, with direct head-to-head competition against AI drivers or another player, and a cleaner and more minimalistic menu system, which would be retained for the rest of the series until the release of DiRT 2 in 2009. The game was a bestseller in the UK upon release,^[2] and again later in the year.^[3] A version for the iOS was released in June 2013.^[4][5] IGN gave it a score of very high 9.4/10.

Colin McRae Rally 3

This was the first Colin McRae game released for the PlayStation 2, as well as the Xbox. A GameCube version was announced but it was cancelled. It uses an autosave feature. IGN ranked it as the 91st best PlayStation 2 game. The staff praised its improvement and technology.^[6]

Colin McRae Rally 04

This fourth incarnation of the Colin McRae Rally series, unlike in the previous three games, has no official WRC team license. All of the cars' liveries are either fictitious or taken from championships other than the WRC.

Colin McRae Rally 2005

The 2005 incarnation of the McRae franchise was released for Windows, PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox and Macintosh and has over 70 stages spread over nine countries. There are over 30 cars available. There is also a revised graphics and damage engine that enables paint scratches on the car, and a new 'career' mode where the player starts out in the lower club leagues and works their way up to compete with Colin McRae in his 2004 Dakar Rally Nissan Pick-Up. In 'Championship' mode the player competes as Colin himself competing in 6 Rallies using any 4WD car.

The game's graphic engine allows for more realistic damage effects and a blurred vision effect if the player comes into contact with a hard object.

A Mac version of this game, renamed as Colin McRae Rally Mac, has been published by Feral Interactive and developed by Robosoft Technologies and represents the first Macintosh release of a CMR series game. It was released on 26 October 2007, just six weeks after McRae's death in a helicopter crash. The development of the game was fraught with problems. Apple's switch to Intel Macs, some behind-the-scenes changes at Feral and other issues conspired to keep CMR:Mac from being released until fairly late into 2007, despite it being based on PC-game underpinnings that Windows gamers had been enjoying since late 2004. Feral chose to make this release as independent of the PC franchise as possible to avoid any issues that might date it, calling it "Colin McRae Rally Mac" rather than attaching a year to it. Two mobile game versions of this game were created, a J2ME title developed by IOMO and published by Digital Bridges and a N-Gage title developed by Ideaworks3D. Both were nominated for BAFTAs in the Mobile and Handheld categories respectively.

Colin McRae: Dirt

At E3 2006, Codemasters revealed that a new McRae game was in development for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC. On 20 July 2006, Codemasters announced that the title of the new game would be Colin McRae: Dirt in Europe, and Dirt: Colin McRae Off-Road in the United States.

The title was released on 15 June 2007 in Europe and on 19 June 2007 in North America for the Xbox 360 and PC. The PlayStation 3 version was released on 14 September 2007.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2

In November 2008, Codemasters unveiled a sequel to the successful Colin McRae: Dirt; it was released in September 2009. As well as appearing on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC, the game is available on the Nintendo DS, Wii and PlayStation Portable. The game is built upon an improved version of the EGO game engine that powered the previous game, as well as a comprehensive online mode. The Game was a dedication to Colin McRae featuring videos and a special tournament in his honor.^[7]

Dirt 3

Dirt 3 was announced in early 2010 and released on 24 May 2011, but the Colin McRae name was not used in the title.

Dirt: Showdown

Dirt: Showdown, an "arcade-style spin-off", was announced on 11 December 2011. Released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in May 2012.

Dirt Rally

Dirt Rally is a racing video game focused on rallying. It was announced on April 27, 2015, and was released into Steam's early access that day and seeing its full release on December 7, 2015.^[8] The PS4 version was released in April 2016.

References

External links

• Macintosh version game developers site
• Footage of Cancelled Colin McRae 2.0 for Sega Dreamcast

Codemasters
Franchises	Brian Lara Cricket Colin McRae Rally Dirt Dizzy Formula One Grid LMA Manager Micro Machines Operation Flashpoint Overlord TOCA Touring Car
Related articles	Sega Racing Studio David Darling Anil Ambani Reliance Big Entertainment List of Codemasters video games
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