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DiRT 4 possibilities?

By JZStudios, in DiRT Rally 2.0

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BrySkye    14

BrySkye
Posted
The 98 Subaru = the 22b.

I agree that the mix of game and name were the perfect storm, you needed both to make the powerhouse that became the Codemasters Colin McRae DiRT series. But the original game would not have sold as well if it had been called Codemasters Rally. At the time of it's release Colin was the biggest name in Rallying.
That's exactly the point. The association is strongest with the 22b, or the Martini Ford Focus, which are not the cars he won the WRC in.
Famous driver/car combinations are usually winning ones, so it's quite telling in-itself.

My perfect storm was the game and it's timing. Not the name. :P So we're actually not really agreeing there, lol.

We'll never know for sure. I think we'll generally have to agree to disagree in just how important the name was to the games success.
It had been 3 years since Colin had won the WRC. While popular amongst rally fans for his style, I think by 98 his name was already fading from the public conciousness at large, especially outside the UK and amongst younger people.
The games changed that and ensured his name would endure far, far longer than his competitors.
I'd certainly never heard of Colin McRae before the game.

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SkiddyMcCrash    311

SkiddyMcCrash
Posted
But I already do know for sure because I've talked Codies staff about the first game, the inspiration for it, the which came first, the idea for the game or the use of Colin's name. The idea for the game came from Colin's 95 Championship win, without the win, no game.

You start thinking about making a game near the end of 95, you sell that game sometime in 98 (the idea for DiRT Rally started about 18 months or so ago - It reaches the end of r+d around Xmas time).

The car Colin was driving by the time the game was released was the 22b, which is why it is in the game. At the time of the release Colin was the biggest name in Rallying, his star didn't start falling until he was halfway through his stint at Ford and even when Citroen dropped him they didn't do it because he was a has been with no fans. They chose Carlos over Colin because of financial reasons, they had to sell more cars in Spain than they did in the UK, look it up.


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Rallycameraman    241

Rallycameraman
Posted
Here's something few of you probably know. Colin was due to make his WRC comeback in 2008 with Prodrive and Subaru. Sadly that never happened. Also Seb Loeb so very nearly signed for Prodrive in 2002 to drive in 2003. Contracts had been drawn up and everything. I wonder how different things would've been had Seb moved from Citroen.

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Rallycameraman    241

Rallycameraman
Posted
Trust me they're definitely not the same. @tbtstt knows more about it. All they have in common is looks. Although the WRC has wider front arches.

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tbtstt    2,387

tbtstt
Posted
tbtstt said:
The 98 Subaru = the 22b.
The 1998 Impreza WRC and the 22B are not the same thing.  ;)
How many times has that been posted on these forums now haha
22B posts are my party piece!  :D

Apologies for those of you who have read it before, but for anyone who hasn't then here is the low down on the 22B:

The 22B was a road car released in 1998 and designed to emulate the look of the 1997/1998 Impreza World Rally Car. The two door, wide arch, Impreza World Rally Cars were on stages for well over a year before the 22B hit showrooms and its name is actually homage to the rally car: "22B" is hexdecimal for "555". 

There is a lot of confusion between the 22B and the World Rally Cars of the era. This is compounded by the fact that there are a huge number of online articles about the 22B that contain incorrect information. 

Officially there were 424 22B's (400 for the JDM, 24 for export). Of the 24 export cars, 16 were for the UK, 5 for Australia and 3 were prototypes. As with a lot of Subaru limited edition runs though, some of the numbers are a little hazy. It was originally stated that there were three #000 prototype cars (which were given to Colin McRae, Nicky Grist and David Lapworth), however a #000 was recently identified in the STI Mitaka showroom, which implies there were four #000 cars (I have subsequently read that David Lapworth actually got #400, but that's not been verified). 

Concerning the World Rally Cars, Prodrive used a "S" number to designate the various generations of Impreza World Rally Car they built. The '97-'98 World Rally Car was the S4, the '99 World Rally Car was S5, the '00 World Rally Car was S6... you get the idea. (Prodrive also used a similar system for their Group N cars, except they are identified by an "N" prefix, not an "S"). The only exception to the rule is the 2007 Impreza WRC, which was identified as the S12b WRC (rather than S13 as you would expect). The Japanese are a superstitious bunch and so Prodrive avoided the number with their car designation. There is actually a minor error in DiRT 3 relating to this, as an Impreza is referred to as "N13". 

Incidentally the 22B came with a 2.2L engine: WRC regulations of the era limited turbo cars to 2.0L so, by its very nature, the 22B couldn't be a rally car. As @Rallycameraman has already said, although they look similar, the S4 WRC and 22B have different panels. If you look at the two side-by-side you can see it, it's most noticeable around the front end and rear arches. A number of rally games have included the 22B instead of the proper Impreza WRCar though as, to the layman, they look the same. The S4 WRC is the car in Colin McRae Rally 1. 

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DocStrangelove    165

DocStrangelove
Posted
tbtstt said:
f1 1997 of psygnosis is the best f1 game for me ever...
Second only to Geoff Crammond Grand Prix on the Amiga. ;)
What are you guys talking about, nothing beats Pole Position on C64

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enamel    0

enamel
Posted
Tommi Makkinen Rally was the PlayStation version of International Rally Championship on the PC.
Interesting, I remember International Rally Championship but not having a playstation I never knew of the Tommi Makinen branding.

But they wouldn't, people bought into the game because of Colin McRae.
I am guessing you are from the UK because that is a very British perspective on it. People in the UK and the EU might have known who he was, thus driving some sales in those markets, but in the US where the game was very successful with the mainstream, no one had the slightest clue who Colin McRae was. People here thought he was a big name game designer, like Sid Meier.

I think attributing the success of the series to it's namesake does a big disservice to the quality of the game itself. I would argue the game did more for his reputation than he did for the game's reputation outside of the UK.

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SkiddyMcCrash    311

SkiddyMcCrash
Posted
Your point was, the game could have been named after anyone and it still would have been successful but the game wouldn't have gotten to US if Colin hadn't won the 95 championship, because the game wouldn't have existed.

I already know that in the US most people were unaware of Colin McRae, there was a joke on the WRC show years ago about Americans being surprised to find out that 'Dark Lord Tommi Makkinen' was a real person. The game wouldn't have got a release in the US if sales in UK and EU hadn't taken off, UK and EU is the center of the WRC (that's why it wasn't released in the US until 2 years after it had it's EU release, in 2000 EU was playing CMR 2.0)

I'm not doing Codemasters any disservice by saying that the games success was down to Colin's involvement either, I've already said the 2 combining was the perfect storm. The series wouldn't have been as successful as it's been if either component wasn't there at the beginning.

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enamel    0

enamel
Posted
SkiddyMcCrash said:
Your point was, the game could have been named after anyone and it still would have been successful but the game wouldn't have gotten to US if Colin hadn't won the 95 championship, because the game wouldn't have existed.
In that case we aren't even having the same conversation lmao

You are 100% correct, the game would not have been successful if it had never been made. :smile: 

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Barnestah    0

Barnestah
Posted
enamel said:
Ken Block's Monster Energy™®© XTREME Rally


*runs and hides*
Oh now come on. Don't forget your coat on the way out lol. ;)

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SkiddyMcCrash    311

SkiddyMcCrash
Posted
BrySkye said:
Tommi may have been the World Champion but Colin was the peoples Champion.
That may be the case for you, but for the population at large?
I'm afraid to say that it was more the game that made Colin McRae a pop culture icon, rather than him making the game a smash.
Yes, the population at large, I'll prove it. Listen to what David Richards says in the video 23 minutes into the video. Bear in mind this video was made after Hamilton won Sports Personality of the Year.

https://youtu.be/ex6Vufkr2l0?t=23m

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