Hel-lo? Anyone? Colin McRae Rally 2005 impressions?

[Glockstar]

Anyone? *cough* *cough* Darwin! I'm talking to you!

I've seen you on Live playing CMR'05. Well... ?
;)

[Darwin]

I suppose I am late on giving out my impressions. And since the game is Live aware, I cannot hide the fact that I have it. I've been meaning to lay down a post, but just keep getting distracted by ... hey what's over there?

I gotta head for work soon, so I'm gonna have to do this in several shorter posts. And I won't sugar coat it neither, I'll tell it like I see it.

1) Fuzzy Math: First of all, there are NOT 300 tracks in the game. I don't know which website came up with that number (sounds just like the nurses at my hospital, because they can't count either). There are 9 countries with 8 stages each (4 have an additional super special stage), giving a total of (9 x 8 = 72 + 4 =) 76 stages. 76 < 300, m'kay?!

Let's get one thing straight: running a track in reverse does not make a new track. Running the same track in the rain does not make a new track. I'm thinking this is where ebgames.com came up with this 300 tracks in the game number.


2) What's different/same since the previous installments:

The Colin McRae (CM) series has become the "Madden" or "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" for Codemasters, releasing yearly (or semi-yearly in this case) installments of the same game with minor upgrades and other little tricks to make it appear like a totally new game. And just like with the Madden or Hawk series, the latest CM game is the overall best of all of them, but only mildly improved upon its predecessor. So, newcomers who want a sim-based rally game will be totally blown away, while vetrans (like us) will be pleased with more of the same but still wish more could be done.

- The overall physics and car setup are virtually identical to MC04 (which was an improvement over CM03). I cannot even tell a difference between 04 and 05.
- Recycling is good for the environment, but is it good for gaming? Codemasters has put in about 50% new material and recycled 50% old material when it comes to the level designs. And they've developed a new trick: running the track in reverse. I guess this is a good thing, since it helps extend the "life" of a track. But I would have preferred to see more tracks instead.
- ALL TRACKS can now be run with different wheather and at different times of day. In time trial mode, you can actually choose these. Once again, it's nice to give this option to gamers, but seems to be a cheaper subsitute than making more (or longer) tracks.
- Damage seems to have been improved. Not only is it more accurate, but it's also more detailed. Now they have axle damage, and if you bust this it really hurts the car.
- Despite the recycling of some tracks, the tracks have been overall tweaked to be much MORE challenging. Yes, the tracks are, IMO, the more technical than what we saw in CM03 and CM04.
- The career mode has become much longer than the two previous installments.

...... gotta run. More to come after these commercial breaks.

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

Glock and Darwin I broke down and bought BO3 for Xbox on going to be on live tonight. R U down.

Oh and Darwin I switched my GT to Drunkenthumbs I sent you a request but your list was full if you delete Drunkenlhumbs I'll send you another Friends request or you can send me one. Looking to play BO3 on line.

[Darwin]

Glock and Darwin I broke down and bought BO3 for Xbox on going to be on live tonight. R U down.

Oh and Darwin I switched my GT to Drunkenthumbs I sent you a request but your list was full if you delete Drunkenlhumbs I'll send you another Friends request or you can send me one. Looking to play BO3 on line.

Word. I'll need to write myself a little note to do that. If you see me on CM05, I'll just be playing the single player and can save-and-quit at any time, so send me an invite. Hah, I haven't played Burnout in a long time. Just remember that if you host, you will only be able to access the courses and cars that you've already unlocked in single player. We'll see who has the most unlocked and get them to host it.

Actually, now that I think about it, if we see Tappy Tibbons online, we should ask him to host a game for us. He should be finished with the single player and he's online with Burnout a lot.

[Glockstar]

R U down.

Not Me; not with BO3. Soory.

-

More to come after these commercial breaks.

**tap tap tap tap tap** ... Waiting...

:p

I like what I'm reading, Methane. So far.
But, why do I have the feeling that there's a "but" coming?

I traded in my '04, because when I heard that they were putting full-Live implementation - with online gameplay - into the '05 version I knew I had to get it.

But then I started reading about other "improvements", and knowing how well many "improvements" actually go, I lost a little confidence in the game.

So I guess there's a couple of specific things that I'm hoping you'll comment on, but you know the main one: XBox Live! ;)

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

I went to 3 gamestops in my area to find the game and no one had it. Is this game selling that good or did EA figure it wasn't going to be a multimillion sellar and didn't print and ship many copies? I think it's latter because while the net is all a buzz over this game there isn't a big marketing push for it. And all my gamer friends who are EA (sports) whores thru and thru have never even heard of it.

I have a few EB's in the city but I had an experience there and said I would never go back. I should find it somewhere this weekend though.

Got the FR meth.

[Darwin]

(cont'd)

3) Xbox Live play: CM05 incorporates multiplayer on Live, as well as scoreboards, and Live aware when playing in single player.

- Online multiplayer is a mixed bag. It stays true to the game, but this doesn't always make for the most exciting racing. It's just you on screen. You are racing against all the others in real time, but they are on their screen and you are on yours, and you don't see the other cars. (I think you can see their progress on the little time-line at the top of the screen, but I turned mine off in the options menu.) You get messages every time someone crashes and everytime a new leader appears. You get to choose who you hear during the actual race: your codriver, or the other guys in the room. Obviously, if you want to be competative, you will need to pick the codriver. But even with this option, you still get to talk to the other gamers in the lobby.

The host can choose to run it in stages or whole rallies (i.e. he can mix and match stages or just go through all the stages of a country in order.) Hosts can only choose those stages that he has already unlocked in single player, and people are limited to cars they have already unlocked. The host can pick the regular or severe damage model. The host can set the car type allowed or allow for any car to be used, but cannot force one specific car. The host can change the car type allowed after each race if he wants.

Here's the letdown: a lot of the things that make a realistic rally game competative have been REMOVED from the online component (not even an option for the host). The damage is not carried over from stage to stage, so damage is automatically fixed after each stage. Likewise, players can choose a different car for each stage, so there is no continuity of using the same car for the whole rally. Also, there NO CAR SETUP when playing online. Everybody runs what the game chooses as the default setup. And none of those upgrades that you earned in single player are used online.

HOWEVER, this may have been done to help facilitate a more "jump-in-and-play-at-anytime" type of environment. Those gamers who join in after everyone else has already run a few stages will have the same chance as those already in the game. If damage was carried over from stage to stage, how would it be fair for gamers who just joined in ... assign the new gamers random damage? You see the dilemma.

Still, not having car setups makes no sense. That is part of the strategy of the game. Also, why not give the host the option to have continuous damage? Perhaps they want to run a league and are doing a weekly event where you wouldn't have public gamers joining in in the middle of the rally ... anyway, I digress.

The scoreboards have been improved since the last game. There are all-time time trial records and weekly time-trial records. The scoreboard also shows the number of time retried, the weather chosen, and the car chosen (which is very important). Now we can get a better comparison. HOWEVER, there is no filtered scoreboard where, let's say, here are the times for the class B cars and here are the times for the 2 wheel drive cars.

There is a ranking system and your rank goes up or down if you play online in a ranked game. It is based on an ELO system, and is very similar to Toca 2.

Lastly: the friends list online is one of those "siezure friends lists", like we saw in Fable or Driver 3. When trying to view your friends, you cursor will jump back to the top of the list randomly. It is very annoying to view the friends list and makes it harder to send out invites.

[Darwin]

Here's a few more pieces of info about CM05's Live features:

- Cannot upload times to the Live scoreboard that you acheived while offline in time trial mode. I will paste a thread that I found on the codemaster's site to explain why:

Poster: "You can't upload offline Stages times next time you connect to Live :(
In CM04 you could play the "Stages" offline and then it would upload them next time you connected to Live, this feature seems to have gone. It doesn't do it automatically and I couldn't find an option. Sad if it has gone, it was useful to some of us who have to share internet connection etc."

Administrator: "I think this is an anti-cheat measure. it stops one method of cheating where the savegame is edited offline, then the time is passed to XBL on connnection."

So, what this means is that if you want to post a time on the Live scoreboards, you must first log onto Live and then play the Time Trial mode.

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- Times in the Live scoreboards are from the Time Trials only in the Challenge mode (part of the single player portion of the game). Times you acheive when playing online multiplayer or when playing through career mode are NOT uploaded to the Live scoreboards.

Also, the Hall of Fame results (which you get a code and must enter it on a website) and the Live scoreboards are seperate entities, although you acheive the best for both at the same time when you run in time trials.

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- Possible online multiplayer problems: there are a few small case reports on message boards of people having problems when in Online Multiplayer. In these cases, the gamer reports that the stage ends for them prematurely (after the second or third split time) and then reports false info about their finishing time. They then remain stuck at the finish line and are unable to communicate with the others in the game even after they finish, forcing the gamer to quit from the game and thus lose ranking points. I only report this because I have seen a few gamers on different sites report this exact same problem. There is a theory that this bug might occur when racing a stage that you have not unlocked in your single player game.

Personally, I have played 8 races in Online Multiplayerm and actually did online before I did any of the single player stuff. I had no problems whatsoever.