The first season takes place across six countries with seven stages in each with two service areas where you can fix broken parts on your car. Six of these stages are Special Stages which are your basic, rag the car down the road or dirt track as fast as possible; the last stage is called a Super Special Stage, set in a stadium where two cars race on the same track starting at different points, but the tracks are designed in such a way that both cars tend to race pretty much next to each other for the whole course. Each stage has four check points that will give you a split time so you can see how far in front or behind you are.

As in previous CMR games you can tweak your car to make small performance gains by adjusting brakes, chassis, suspension, gearbox, tyres and steering. There are a massive number of combinations available that will affect your cars performance. For people who might not understand the workings of a car or people that just can't be bothered the game will set a comfortable default for each rally.

Each country and sometimes each stage can offer massively different driving conditions. They vary depending on the weather, time of day, country and nature of the individual stage. Some stages can switch from thick mud to tarmac in a matter of seconds and this can really catch you out although, it's even scarier when the contrast is reversed. You can be hurtling down a country lane in England, when suddenly you are directed to take a sharp left straight into dense woodland where the floor is covered with wet leaves which are very slippery. Checking out the stages on the single race mode can be very rewarding when it comes to entering the championship mode.

You will become aware of all the technical parts of each stage, where those nasty trees or road signs are that you clip every time and which way to aim over the large high speed jumps. It also helps you to get used to the cars handling, which is a work of art, the response between car and road are fantastic. If you do have a slight mishap at 90mph you will get to see some superb damage effects. The car can be damaged all over which means damage can become a real factor in the race if you are not paying attention; it doesn't help if you're a bad driver either. Damage can have severe consequences on the cars handling and performance, your gearbox can start to fail, your turbo can break giving you very little power, tyres can blow out making steering difficult, suspension can break and wheels can even come off - in a worst case scenario. Experienced players shouldn't have a problem with the first season; on the normal difficulty level it should be a breeze. As mentioned before different teams will do better than others depending on the surfaces so if you do cock up a rally, you can usually get away with it. The first season does one very important thing; it unlocks loads of cool extras like special tyres for mud and other surfaces that will make the single race mode a lot easier.

Graphically CMR3 is a labour of love; the rain effects are super-real, especially when you are using the in-car view. It's good to see that a better job has been made of the visuals than those of TOCA Race Driver on the PS2. The sensation of going up and down hills has also been captured perfectly, this factor is a personal gripe I have "too many driving games feel great on flat ground but are terrible as you burn up and down hills". The best looking things in CMR3 are definitely the cars and the weather effects. The car detail is great, the Focus reflects the light very nicely and throughout the stages the car gets covered in mud. If your rear bumper comes off you will notice it's nice and clean where it once was. The disc brakes glow and the exhaust rattles and shakes with every rev of the car, it all looks perfect.
Unfortunately, to totally appreciate the effects you have to be viewing the game from inside the car, which is a bit of a shame as driving properly is a really hard task from this view although I think for CMR3 Zen, this view must be your choice

The sound is great, when you're ragging your Ford Focus around the engine sounds great but maybe a little weak and wimp'ish at times. The rasp of the exhaust is also a nice touch. The best sounding car in the game is definitely the Subaru WRC, it's very close to the real thing. One very important aspect if the sound are the pace notes, these are not just for effect, to do well in the game you will have to listen to Grist's shouting "60 3 left, 100 6 right" etc. On some stages your view will be obscured by trees so at times you will have to listen to the pace notes as you can be hurtling in to a blind corner with just the notes to rely on.

Colin McRae Rally 3 is very close to being the perfect rally experience; its handling; damage system and realistic feel are untouchable. Some of the graphical elements of the game are also amazing; the road surfaces, coarse integrity and beautiful skies are truly superb, although, when you are driving there is no time for the eyes to wander around at all. Colin McRae 3 has succeeded in proving a new benchmark for the rally game genre once again.
9.0 out of 10