Colin McRae Rally 2.0 25 years on: If in doubt, flat out

Two years after the wider gaming world was introduced to a laconic Scotsman and his blue Subaru Impreza, Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was released, published and developed by Codemasters.

The sequel to 1998’s Colin McRae Rally saw Codemasters double down on realism, offering eight rally environments, a bump in rally car numbers (16 distinct models, including the Ford Escort Mk I found on the PC version) and a pleasingly weighty handling model influenced by McRae’s feedback.

Perhaps acknowledging the step up in difficulty, Codemasters implemented a separate Arcade mode, featuring closed-circuit racing against up to five AI-controlled opponents and more forgiving handling.

However, the game lacked a full World Rally Championship (WRC) licence (which was nabbed by Sony for  2001’s imaginatively titled World Rally Championship), which is why 2.0 features only two real-world drivers: McRae and his former Subaru team-mate Kenneth Eriksson.

Despite this, 2.0 is widely seen as one of the best rally games ever created, pushing the hardware limits of the PlayStation (PSX) while improving upon its predecessor’s gameplay in almost every area, cementing Codemasters as the leading developer of racing titles.

More of everything

Sure, CMR had a diverse range of surfaces, stages and cars, but 2.0 built on this by adding even more. Environment design had also improved, with each of the game’s 90 stages featuring longer draw distances, more verticality and better set dressing. 

Some rallies had as many as 11 tests, including super-special stages, with snow, gravel and asphalt surfaces, simulated weather and night stages. 

There were more cars, and despite the lack of official driver names, all the manufacturers from the 1999-2000 WRC seasons were present, barring Skoda and Hyundai, replete with official liveries. 

There were a few legendary rally vehicles sprinkled in there for good measure, too, including the Lancia Delta Integrale, the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth (represented in Jimmy McRae’s British Championship-winning Gemini livery) and the MG Metro 6R4, among many others.

Puma geekery

For rally aficionados, there was also the Ford Racing Puma 4WD, a one-off technical exercise that used parts from the redundant Escort WRC car. This was something of a coup at the time, as M-Sport had taken control of Ford’s WRC program in 1997 from its own Ford Motorsport division. 

The Puma 4WD was perhaps a forlorn attempt by Boreham to wrest the contract from Malcolm Wilson’s squad, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. To see it in 2.0 underlines Codemasters’ rally fanaticism.

Omissions

Although much of 2.0’s new content was received warmly, there were some stark omissions. The original game’s Rally School mode had been jettisoned, for example, so players could no longer be berated by a dour Scotsman for driving poorly. Sad.

Also, despite the car count rising in 2.0, some of the original game’s roster had disappeared, including the popular Renault Megane, Volkswagen Golf, Skoda Felicia and Seat Ibiza kit cars. Gone too were the Audi Sport Quattro S1 and the Toyota Celica GT-Four (which ironically was only available via a cheat code. Art imitating life, eh?).

Having period-correct WRC cars and liveries did cushion the blow, however (although some versions of the game replaced the ‘555’ Subaru livery with Toshihiro “Toshi” Arai’s more generic paint scheme owing to cigarette sponsorship rules.

Scandi-flicks

2.0’s secret sauce, however, was its handling. In 2000, you’d be hard pushed to find a better-feeling racing game. There was real weight to its physics, with your car ducking and diving under braking, providing a proper sense of inertia. Copying McRae’s renowned flamboyance in-game was a tangible goal; from the epic jumps of Finland to the slick snow drifts of Sweden, every stage was a chance to emulate the Scot’s ‘if in doubt, flat out’ mantra.

The weightiness would have helped PSX players in particular, given that a significant portion had yet to upgrade to analogue thumbsticks in 2000. The handling made negotiating the game’s varied stages a joy, with the difficulty pitched just right, in my opinion. Seasoned rally gamers could breeze through novice and intermediate difficulties, with expert mode proving tough enough to punish mistakes.

Suspension was simulated independently (something Richard Burns Rally would nail four years later), while the realism was ramped up thanks to mid-rally repairs. This mimicked real-world rally servicing rules by giving players 60 minutes to repair all the scenery-based damage they’d caused. Engine damage took longer to fix than bodywork, for example, so there was an element of strategy to proceedings (who needs a gearbox anyway?).

The engine sounds have aged a bit across 2.0’s cars, as you’d expect, but pops, bangs and flames caused by anti-lag and ignition cuts are sublimely done, especially considering the game’s age. 

And speaking of ‘bangs’, what about that theme tune by Jonathan Colling? Spot on. Spot on.

Although Derek Ringer had since departed McRae’s passenger seat, Welsh wizard Nicky Grist was on hand to deliver pace notes in the Scotsman’s favoured gear-based nomenclature (‘Five right’ was a right-hander to be taken in fifth gear, for example).

Arcade (bin) fire

Arcade mode, on the other hand, was as convincing as Gwyndalf Evans’s comb-over. Your car feels a little more urgent and chuckable in these circuit-style races, but one feels that the courses should’ve been more than just repurposed rally stages. A proper rallycross-style makeover would’ve made this so much better, but one wonders if the developer had time to fully flesh this mode out.

As a result, Arcade mode feels like an ephemeral addition and perhaps a missed opportunity, especially given the circuit racing expertise Codemasters showed in its TOCA franchise (TOCA World Touring Cars, also known as Jarrett & Labonte Stock Car Racing in North America, was also released in 2000).

Crucially, though, the car physics were still fun, and potentially even better when battling with a friend in split-screen.

Cheat mode enabled

What would a 20+ year old Codemasters racing game be without a range of insane cheats to play around with? Seen in its TOCA games and CMR, Codemasters games had a series of hilarious – and sometimes useful – cheats to play around with.

Players could enter their driver name as ‘easyroller’ on PSX and treat their classic Mini to some monster truck wheels. ‘rubbertrees’ unlocked over-the-top collision effects, sending your car pinging all over the landscape after a crash. Incidentally, in 1992, McRae used this cheat to great effect in Finland…

However, most players’ favourite was ‘greatballsof’, which launched fireballs from your car, with catastrophic consequences for your Arcade mode opponents. 

Thank goodness Gigi Galli never had access to this…

Friendly fire

The game could also be enjoyed with several friends, with the career mode playable by up to four people. Thanks to the point-to-point nature of rally, players could run each stage consecutively, with split-screen play also possible for you and a friend.

Online play (of sorts) arrived with the PC version, with up to eight players able to compete via LAN, but Challenge mode also offered a knockout-style competition for eight players locally. All you’d need was seven hardcore rally fans to play it with…

The start of something special?

For many, 2.0 represented the zenith of both the Colin McRae and DiRT series of games, and this was reflected in its commercial performance, outselling its predecessor 2:1 at launch.

Despite a successful PC release, Codemasters decided not to port it to the Dreamcast after some initial development, which was a blow to many given the extra horsepower of Sega’s machine. However, it’s likely the studio had reservations about the console’s popularity (rightly so, as it turned out).

A remastered version of the game did come out for mobile devices across 2013-14 (oddly titled Colin McRae Rally), but it omitted a swathe of content despite retaining much of the original’s feel.

Colin McRae Rally 3 largely followed in the footsteps of 2.0 as the series made its PlayStation 2 and Xbox debut, but further iterations felt a bit less inventive, losing some of the sparkle that made the originals special.

It’s no surprise, then, that Codemasters opted to slap the ‘2.0’ moniker on DiRT Rally’s follow-up in 2019, which again revitalised the rally genre with an approachable and realistic take on rally (and this time with a properly arcadey rallycross mode). It even had the ‘Colin McRae: FLAT OUT Pack’ DLC, including some of the Scotsman’s iconic rally machines and a selection of stages from his homeland.

The future

Codemasters’ last rally title, EA SPORTS WRC, was released in 2023, and it’s likely to be the studio’s final foray in the genre, with parent company EA instigating layoffs and putting a stop to the studio’s off-road excursions – a frankly egregious turn of events given the company’s billion-dollar profits.

Ignoring nostalgia, Colin McRae Rally 2.0 remains a high point for rally video games, featuring weighty handling, realistic visuals and superb attention to detail. Sadly, just like the game’s genius cover star, we may never see its like again.