Colin Mcrae Rally 2005

This time for Colin McRae Rally 2005, Codemasters hasn��t skimped on the multiplayer: Up to eight players can have at it (in ghost-car form) on any of the tracks in the game. RalliSport Challenge 2��s fancy tournament options are nowhere to be seen, but it��s still a fine online effort.

There��s little to no market in the United States for European rally games, so it��s a surprise to see Codemasters take the opposite route from Microsoft, making a rally game pleasing the hardcore, almost at the expense of everyone else.

The fifth game in the series, and the second to go Stateside in six months, Colin McRae Rally 2005 is showing signs of Madden NFL�Cstyle rehashing. There��s a new country (Germany) to race in this time, and all the other areas have two new stages, but this still means that a good half of the tracks here were already seen in Colin McRae Rally 04. The clean, white Ikea-like interface is mostly borrowed from the previous installment, and the same Irish copilot is back, although he��s remarkably more intelligible to American ears now.

Despite all this, 2005 is still the strongest entry in the series and a serious contender for RalliSport 2��s plastic folding chair of a throne. Why? For one, the graphics are a night-and-day improvement��this is the first McRae to include real weather, real shadows, and other little effects taken for granted in other racers. The career mode gives you more room to choose your next race, making single-player driving far less linear and frustrating. Most important of all: The incredibly precise car controls, as well as the deviously realistic difficulty level, which is impossible to find anywhere else in racedom. If you��re ready for RalliSport Challenge 3 right this minute, either buy this or prepare to wait for a long, long time.

08 OUT OF TEN

PUBLISHER: Codemasters // DEVELOPER: Codemasters // PLAYERS: 1-8 // LIVE: Yes // MSRP: $29.99 // ESRB: E

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Xbox Nation.