| General CMR Tips |
| First of all, I'd like to say something obvious: "Practice makes perfect". Basically the more you play a stage the better you will get at it. Start by completing the Rally School section, it's fairly easy and you can get used to the feel and set-ups of the car, also you can decide which view suits you best. |
| Once you are comfortable with the car move on to the novice championship, this is exactly what it says i.e. for novices, you should be able to win it relatively easily with any of the cars. It will however give you good practice of racing conditions, set-ups, and a taster of the first six rallies; it'll also open up all the stages for these rallies, enabling you to practice to your heart's content. |
| Once you move onto the intermediate level, you'll notice one main change, rather than being able to set the cars up and save the game every stage, you usually get to do it every couple of stages; this means you have to make educated guesses about your set-up. Pick one car to race and get used to its feel and set-up, most people pick the Subaru Impreza, for obvious reasons. Set-up can make a lot of difference, get it wrong and Colin McRae will be pulling away from you all the time. The most important aspect of set-up is gear ratio (that's assuming you've not stupidly picked the wrong tyres!), most of the other stuff is really down to how you feel the car handles. Generally I find that if the two stages you are about to race require diferent tyres, go for the ones with most grip and if they require different gear ratios, go for the one with most acceleration; of course if you are feeling brave completely ignore me! |
| Now you've got your set-up right, you feel one with the car, all that's left is the easy part and that's beating Colin McRae! Ok so it's not easy, you're making no mistakes and he's seconds ahead of you, well it does take more than a few days to be world rally champ! Obviously the all important factor is speed, in a straight line one Impreza goes the same speed as another with the same set up (even if Colin McRae is driving it!), however they do not go round bends at the same speed. Cornering is where the skill really comes in to play, a good bend can make up seconds, while a bad one can cost you the same. It's corners where you generally slide off the track and encounter all sorts of nasties, many a time has a misplaced pebble sent my Impreza spinning head over heels. Hence generally it's a good idea to stay on the track, brake before the apex of the corner, so you can be accelerating as you turn. One little trick to help you slow down quickly is to put a wheel off the track, this will slow you down quickly and help braking, but be careful not to get both wheels off the track, as this can lead to you spinning off the road. A good move for example would be to use a ditch on your left, by sticking your left wheel in to it to slow you down for a right turn. Now hairpins can slow you down greatly or they can send you into the bushes. To quickly slow down at hairpins you can use the handbrake (hey you knew all those handbrake turns in Tesco carpark would come in handy one day!), chucking your car into turns and accelerating as soon as you are facing the right way. Even more fancy is the power slide, here you steer to the opposite side to the turn, release the accelerator and turn with the corner, about halfway round the bend floor the accelerator and fingers crossed you'll be heading off to the finish. Of course if you do accidently end up heading towards some nasty looking trees, lift up on the accelerator and try to gently turn away, a friendly bump against an obstacle sometimes helps by pushing you in the right direction. Jumps and crests can be hazardous too, especially with sharp bends after them, the problem being that when you are in the air you can't brake. Try to set your car up for the turn as you hit the jump and hopefully you'll be heading the right way when you land, failing that brake early. Hopefully with a bit of practice Colin McRae and friends will be eating your dust! |
