Free-wheelin’ rally racing is way more fun with a gamepad or racing wheel.

 

Most racing games are fun because you rub shoulders—and wheels—with other cars, trying to outmaneuver foes to the finish. Colin McRae Rally Mac instead pits you against times of other drivers, losing that in-the-moment thrill. Depending on the mode, a “ghost” car outline might represent another racer, but physical collisions are impossible. However, the game has so much else, it still places as one of our favorites. Tight controls, imaginative off-road tracks, and punishing but rewarding competitor times make this technical racer a winner.

 

Aside from having you race alone against the clock, rally racing is unique because it combines on- and off-road surfaces in a single course. Colin McRae Rally includes hundreds of tracks loosely based on real-world locations. We had fun bouncing over dry Australian dirt, zipping through dense forests in the American Midwest, and careening over Swedish ice and snow.

 

Colin McRae Rally also includes a navigator, just like real rally racing. His English-accented warnings call out the next series of turns, adding an invaluable backup to the familiar superimposed arrows. Some turns are hard to see without these tips—if you don’t pay attention, you’ll end up wrapped around a tree.

 

Racing controls excel, assuming you play with a gamepad or racing wheel. (Colin McRae Rally supports keyboard input, but that method is frustrating in long-term play.) The game recognized our tangled mess of various gamepads and racing wheels, giving confidence that it’ll be compatible with a range of devices. Using a gamepad, we threw the emergency brake to drift around turns, nudged the stick to stay centered over jumps, and otherwise felt a close connection to the car controls. A racing wheel worked just as well—however, we had problems activating force-feedback to twist against our input. (Feral says it’s a problem on Intel systems with Mac OS 10.4, and Apple fixed the issue in 10.5. We did get it working with the latest OS.)

 

The Mac version of this racer is based on a several-years-old PC game, which shows in the graphics. Colin McRae Rally lacks subtle shadows and other textures common in recent 3D games. But with all of the options turned up, the visuals still held our interest. The more than 30 real-world cars are lovingly detailed, and stationary scenery fluidly pans across the horizon.

 

The bottom line. The incredible depth kept us playing. We often had to race stages again to post times good enough to progress, but we always felt close enough to have fun. Even in the disappointment of losing, we kept coming back for more.

 

COMPANY: Feral Interactive

CONTACT: www.feralinteractive.com

PRICE: $50

REQUIREMENTS: 1.6GHz PowerPC or Intel CPU or faster, Mac OS 10.4 or later, 512MB RAM (1GB recommended), video card with 64MB (128MB recommended) VRAM

Controls feel responsive and fun. Vast number of tracks and real-world cars. Single-Mac multiplayer splits screens or moderates turns. Universal binary.

Doesn’t work with GMA graphics chip that shares memory with main system RAM. Online competition uses external (free) GameRanger service instead of in-game matching. Force-feedback doesn’t work with a 10.4-Intel system.