Colin McRae Rally series

Colin McRae Rally, the first title in the series, was released for the PC and PlayStation platforms in late 1998 in the United Kingdom and in early 2000 in the United States. The game featured real cars and drivers from the 1998 World Rally Championship. Colin McRae's Subaru Impreza was featured on the game's cover.

The game contains stages in eight countries; New Zealand, Greece, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Corsica, Indonesia and the United Kingdom. The PC version also includes four unlockable tracks to which real-world locations are not attributed.

This second game features both the 1999 and 2000 spec Ford Focus WRC, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI, Subaru Impreza WRC2000, Peugeot 206 WRC, Toyota Corolla WRC and Seat Cordoba WRC, among others.

The countries included are Kenya, Finland, UK, Sweden, Australia, Japan, France (Corsica), Greece, and Italy.

Gameplay:

Cars included in this version are the Subaru Impreza WRX (44S), Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VII, Citroën Xsara Kit Car, Citroën Saxo VTR, MG ZR, Ford Racing Puma, and Fiat Punto. There are eight countries: Sweden, Japan, UK, Finland, Spain, Australia, USA, and Greece.

The championship takes place over three years (2002, 2003, 2004) as you race to try and become the Sparco Rally Champion in Colin McRae's Ford Focus RS WRC '02. Six rallies take place each season.

Colin McRae Rally 3 was released on both Xbox and PlayStation 2 platforms. A GameCube version was announced but never released.

This is the fourth incarnation of the Colin McRae Rally series. The cars included are the 2003-spec Citroën Xsara WRC, Subaru Impreza WRC, Peugeot 206 WRC, Mitsubishi Lancer, and the 2001-spec Ford Focus WRC. Two-wheel drive (2wd) cars included are Citroën Saxo, Ford RallyeSport Puma, Fiat Punto, VW Golf GTi and MG ZR. There are also Group B cars: Lancia 037, Peugeot 205 T16, Ford RS200 and Audi Sport Quattro S1.

The countries are: Spain, UK, Greece, USA, Japan, Sweden, Australia and Finland. There are six championships to complete, including expert mode, 2wd normal/advanced, 4wd normal/advanced and Group B normal.

For the PS2, CMR04 was only released in PAL format.

The 2005 edition of the McRae franchise has over 300 stages spread over nine countries: Australia, Japan, Finland, Greece, UK, Spain, USA, Sweden, and newcomer Germany. There are over 30 cars available, including Ford Focus WRC '01, Subaru Impreza WRX Sti '04, Citroën Xsara WRC '04, Peugeot 206 WRC2003, and Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VIII.

There is a new 'career' mode where the player starts out in the lower club leagues and works his/her 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.

As with the previous title, CMR 2005 was only made available in PAL format on the PS2.

Incredible graphics for a handheld!

Colin McRae: DiRT (shortened to DiRT in North America) is the sixth racing game in the Colin McRae Rally series, developed by Codemasters, and the last of the series to be published before Colin McRae's death. It features new graphics, audio, physics engine, new vehicles and a new game engine which was co-developed between Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment. The game features a variety of off road racing categories as well as World Rally Championship style events.

Akarimco's Review:

Despite being praised for leading-edge graphics, many CMR rally fans of the series have been hugely disappointed by the PC version. Steering wheel & pedals are rendered next to useless due to poor support from Codemasters, and DiRT is easily the most 'arcade' feeling version of CMR to date.

Prelude's Review:

The PS3 version was released in mid-september, just days before a tragic helicopter crash claimed the life of Mr McRae, his son Johnny, and two other people. In response to the death and after an agreement was made with the McRae family, Codemasters have withdrawn a major advertising campaign for the PlayStation 3 version.

Colin McRae Rally Mac is the first Macintosh release of a CMR series game, and is based on the PC version of CMR 2005, not the newer DiRT. It was released on October 26, 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 underpinnings from 2004.

Marketing attempted to make this release as independent of the PC franchise as possible to avoid dating it, calling it "Colin McRae Rally Mac" rather than attaching a year to it.