CMR3 Mini review... StAnZo\'s Played it..

Well, my initial thoughts on the game were correct. this game is definatly the last nail in Codemasters coffin imho.
this is a really poor effort, the game graphically looks just like CMR2 on the PC and it seems
that Codemasters have used the graphics engine from it as a base for CMR3. this is a big cash-in game.

Right, the main part of a rally game is to listen to the co-driver, so why doesn\'t he call half of the corners until
you are halfway through them. this is really annoying as you can\'t get prepaired for certain corners.
take SS 1 in the championship mode.. this is where it all starts. co-driver calls are way off and no,
it isnt a problem with my ps2, it\'s just stupid. WRC2 has gone an alternative route by calling about 4 corners ahead.
yeah, this may be strange to some people as it is me, and it will take time to master corner calls in WRC2
but i\'d rather know whats comming up than being told what\'s corner i\'m in whilst half way around it.

The car models are very good, but nowhere near the resolution that i\'d have expected. check out the closeups of the cars
and you can tell that hardly any texture memory was used on the exteriors and decals.
The handling has gone downhill from CMR2 and that wasn\'t that great either. you\'ll be struggling to keep the car
in CMR3 in a straight line. the physics are arse. Codemasters shouldn\'t get away with the shite they put out.

Man, i could rant about this game for hours.. please,please,please wait until you have played the game until you consider a purchase. it definatly isn\'t worth £35 of your hard earned cash.
the learning difficulty is quite high aswell so if this puts you off then go elsewhere.
I have played it for about 2 hours and me alongside 2 friends seriously pulled the game apart. we wanted to like it
but there just simply isn\'t enough good points to wipe out the bad.

A demo is supposedly out with OPSM2 mag in Europe come November 1st. it will have demos of CMR3 & WRC2
compare them for yourself. i played WRC1 after CMR3 and CMR3 just didn\'t compete. seriously.

Dont say i didn\'t warn you. Codemasters, expect this copy of CMR3 back on the trade shelf even before
the proper release date.. hows that for advertising. arseholes, i tell ya.

[Kurt Angle]

Thanks for the information. I\'ve had a bad feeling about this game for a while now. Looks like I will pass this over and get WRCII instead.

Well, I actually have to agree with you StanZo this time around. What a disappointment this was. The handling is really bad in this one. I liked CMR 1 and 2 a lot but this is nowhere near those two, it just feels really unrealistic. I can live with the bland textures etc but the gameplay has taken a nosedive as well.

Bah, I was hoping that the impressions I heard before wasn’t true.  

This suxxorz, first TOCA (with the doctored pictures) and now one of my fav Racing series.

Codemasters have been caught in a deadly spin towards the rock solid ground.

Thanks JP, i\'m glad that i aint alone in thinking that this game was worse than the previous 2.

Codemasters, i think it\'s time to throw in the towel, your done.

damn i loved cm1, hadling was excellent.. played a demo of cm2, didnt like it, the handling was more arcadey, and dint like how it looked, real big shame cos i loved cm1, and was thinking of buying this

Codemasters hasn\'t been a decent company since... erm.. well I can\'t remember when, and that means it\'s been a LONG assed time. Last nail in the coffin? More like just another shovel full of dirt on top of the casket.

Stanzo,

do you think your expectations could have just been too high? I mean, its obvious that your a hardcore gamer, one that filters through news columns, previews etc to find every scrap of detail on the game.

Going by the movies, the graphics are amazing. Sure, Codemasters could have screwed all PS2 owners over again and used CG imatating RT but I doubt it. You say its based on CM2 PC graphics wise, why is this bad? CM2 had excellent graphics on PC at its time.

The gameplay looks classic CM to me, especially in the vids, seeing the cars the way they handle.

I dunno, its just I doubt that Codemasters would have really screwed up a second time. Have you tried the XBOX version?

Whats your opinion of all the evironmental effects? The rain droplets, dust, mud, shadows, good lighting?

Racer, there is allways a posibility that my expectations could have been too high m8. but i think that i
approached the game with the previous 2 versions in mind. i have been playing CMR2 nearly all last week
and came away with the impressions that i quite liked it. there is no denying that resolution wise
CMR3 is rather good imho, it\'s just the game mechanics. i really do think that they
have taken a step back. i havn\'t played it enough tho\' to open up the wet/muddy stages. i have seen a snow stage
but that was bieng played by another friend, so i can\'t comment on the driving changes brought along with the
different surface. i have raced the aus Rally (sandy gravel) and some of another country (pure Tarmac) the tarmac
levels are rather hard to control, there really isn\'t any consistancy in the car. you just dont know how the car is going to
react in corners. That siad, they definatly havnt used CG this time to show the game. they are as they are.
After playing again last night (my mate thought it was so bad, he\'s left it here for me to lend) i have tried a GB SS
and graphically, that stage looked far better than some of the earlier stages that you get to play in Championship mode.
you went through a mini-forest which looked better than CMR2, due to the fact that trees littered around the road were
3 to 4 deep before going to that horrible wall of flat textures that we know all about in previous CMR games.
yeah, i like that but i\'m going to put some more time into it today but i stand by my claims of poor corner calls.
it doesn\'t happen all the time, but it is off putting. the lighting is good. but not as good as GT3. there are no shadows
comming from the trees which i think could have been done but this is probably me being picky. i\'d like to see the
X-Box version for comparison. another good thing is that it is pure 60 FPS whilst racing, i encountered no slowdowns
whilst playing. oh, iv\'e also been playing Rally Trophy for the PC and i\'d love it if they could make a WRC version
of that game and bring it to the consoles. have you ever played RT Racer? now that\'s what i call excelent modeling of
suspension and grip levels. that game has kinda spoiled me somewhat.

StAnZo

Stanzo,

There is a new effects video over at Codemasters.com

It would be interesting to see if all the effects they show in the video are actually in the final PS2 version. It depicts real time shadows, reflections off the road, drifting fog (which looks really cool) and wind.

I respect your opinion, thats why I thought I would really stick it into you. Gameplay impressions seem to indict that nothings changed from CM2, which isn\'t necessarily bad. Graphics and interface is what I would love to suss out.

Is it better then V-Rally 3 graphically, gameplay wise?

[GmanJoe]

Stanzo, would you say VRally3 is a better choice?

erm.. well, i prefered V-rally 3 over this.. the front end is very good in CMR3. the real-time drifting mists look
quite decent and add an element to the driving. i didnt encounter real thick mist tho\' as i havn\'t raced on the wet circuits.
Shame really, my mate has now took the game and sold it on, he came this morning to pick it up before i could play it
further. the shadows on the car are fine, it\'s just that there are no shadows on the trees.
i really wanted to like this game but thats not to say you wouldn\'t. my main concern is that someone like yourself
would go out and pay about £40 for this and come away dissapointed. if you can hold out, i\'d say wait for the demo on the OPSM2 mag (Nov1st) or even better, try to find it on
rental. i hope someone can get on with it. myself, i think i have played too many Rally games to give an honest
representation of CMR3. i have nearly played all the Rally games on the PC aswell as the consoles.. i love rallying and
theres a possibility that this could get in the way of my final judgement. i hope this is some help to you Racer,
if there is anymore i can answer, then i will. but the total playing time i had with CMR3 was around 2.5 hours.

Bottom line tho\' is that i think V-Rally 3 had better environments and more geometry than CMR3, but CMR3 is about the
same in the resolution department. there very different looking games. V-rally looks more organic WRC even more so
but CMR3 does the job in a good way, it\'s lots better than Toca.
The only gripe i could possibly have with the graphics is the poor repeating of textures and 50 pence peice corners.

I\'d like to have spent more time with it to see if i could be turned. but initial impressions are not favourable.

if you can Racer, try and see if you can play it before purchase. i\'d hate to see you waste your money if you didn\'t like it.

Hmm,

I have wanted a reason to buy an XBOX, and this just might be it. I don\'t exactly need one, and I think I am growing out of games as I haven\'t really played any in weeks, but I just want to be able to say I have one

That could actually be a bad thing...

Mmm indeed. i brought an x-box not too long ago.. honestly, i took it back the next day for a refund. i was rather
glad that i was able to get my money back, but the new pricepoint does look attractive. i\'d give it some time myself
and hear what people say.. if you goto the high gear forums or the codemasters.com forums, people are
raving about CMR3. it may just be me..

Wow, I\'m sorry to hear such a bad review for this title.

Poor codriver pace notes and slow load times were the main problems I had with WRC.  WRC definitely screwed me up often by calling corners just as I was entering them, and I was hoping an upcoming rally game would allow you to set how far in advance you wanted to hear them.  IN ADDITION, I was hoping some game would present more accurate pace notes.  I\'d like to hear more authentic calls like "slight right, Kay right, hard right," instead of the synthetic numerical system in WRC.  Any idea on whether this will happen?