QuickTake: Colin McRae Rally 1-3 had some incredible cheats
Fireballs shouldn't be limited to Mario Kart
Cheats in racing games are a lost art, but once upon a time, the first three Colin McRae Rally games led the way in this. I've been nostalgic for these titles lately due to the recent previews of Forza Horizon 6. Seeing the game's realism and vast landscape of Japan made me nostalgic for the racing games of the late 90s.
Take the first Colin McRae Rally game from 1998. Type in HOVERCRAFT on the Enter Name screen, and your car's wheels will fold up and start floating, just like the Delorean Time Machines from the Back to the Future movies. I miss that randomness in today's games.
So I thought I'd load up 2000's Colin McRae 2.0 and 2002's Colin McRae Rally 3 this week and see what kind of cheats they offered players back in the day. And once again, it reminded me that something's been missing from racing games for a while.
Take Colin McRae 2.0. I typed the following when you're creating a New Driver at the Name Entry screen:
EATTHIS - Press the Circle button to shoot fireballs
BOINGBOINGBOING - Low Gravity
ALLTHEBUTTONS - Unlock All Cars
MINIME - Mini Cooper S Car unlocked
Once a race began in Arcade mode, so did the carnage.
EATTHIS for fireballs.
After that, I kept on playing different tracks and cars, and after realising an hour had passed, I took a break. It was so much fun. Sometimes, you just want to get away from the realism that many games offer and simply blast off some cars with fireballs.
Once my fireball scratch was satisfied, I ran Colin McRae Rally 3 via the PCSX2 emulator to see if there were similar cheats, and I ended up feeling disappointed.
However, trying to type in a cheat offers up an impressive roadblock. When you go to Options > Secrets, you're brought to a screen where you're going to need a tool to input specific cheats to your game. This took me by surprise, as it's a clear effort by the Codemasters team back then to make you work for the cheats. However, thanks to Silent, a developer/modder, you can simply type in the four-digit code, and his tool will give you the right cheats.
Soon after, I was typing in the following:
UMQEXI - Buggy
RSSWAN - Jet Fighter
SAXNYU - Hovercraft
HZUNUARC - Tank Car
OHWIHFALL - All Tracks
There are no cheats to enable flying cars or fireballs this time, but using the Jet and the Tank in several tracks was great fun regardless.
If you do it right, you'll find yourself taking flight with the Jet.
It goes back to cheats being a dying art in today's games. I'd love to see Forza Horizon 6 offer codes that could enable cars to fly in an offline mode, or another where fireballs can cover the tracks in a way that the Mario Kart games have always done.
Nevertheless, the early Colin McRae Rally games showcase just how well the team at Codemasters understood how there was a balance between realism in games and when games were just games. Sometimes you don't need titles to be ultra-realistic; sometimes you just want your car to be a hovercraft covered in green jelly.
Expect more about Colin McRae Rally on Springboard soon.
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