Armchair Rally RacingI've created a mailing list for all interested parties for the purpose of coordinating games. Use the links below. Colin McRae Rally 2.0 (CMR2) is a fantastic rally game that is available on PC and a few consoles. I can't speak about the console versions, as I only have the PC version. You can typically find the game on eBay for less than $30. The real strengths of this game are that you can skin the cars to make them look like other cars, and you can play other people over the internet. The game thankfully supports force-feedback 3-axis analog steering-wheels (and pedal-boxes). The realization of the force-feedback, I'm told, is fantastic. There are plenty of sites out there with way more information than mine. Here are a few that I found helpful:
Audi UrQ [v1 (1.6MB)|
v2 (1.9MB)] | Audi S1 Sport
Quattro [v1 (662kB)| v2
(669kB)] Skinning your cars allows your cars to look like other cars. Unfortunately, CMR2 does not allow you to load entirely new cars with different physical models and driving behavior. Instead, all you can do is change how the car looks and how the car sounds, but the car will still drive the same as the car distributed with the game. There are two sets of cars -- the regular set, and the bonus set. You have to complete rallies in high finishing order to unlock the bonus cars, but there are cheats to get around that! You can skin either set. Here are the instructions for skinning either set of cars, shamelessly stolen from here:
The network play is pretty darned awesome. The game uses Microsoft's DirectPlay to play across the internet. I have been told that broadband is a must when playing this game. I have never played anyone over a modem, so I can't vouch for that piece of information. In order to get through a firewall or a NAT'ing router, you either need to put your gaming machine into the DMZ or forward a bunch of TCP and UDP ports. I put my machine into the DMZ just because it's easier, but if you don't have that option, going directly into your broadband adapter is pretty much the same thing. Make sure you have internet connection firewall turned off if you are running Windows XP. For firewall ports, I do not know the definitive answer, but from the DiretX SDK documentation and searching through the web, you'll probably need:
To join a game that is already being hosted, start the game. Goto Network and select TCP/IP as the network type. Then choose "Search for session" and a little box will pop up for you to put in an IP address. Fill in the IP address of the host machine and wait. If you are successful, you will see a game name pop up in the upper half of the screen. Select "Select session" and select the game you are interested in (probably the one that showed up). Voila. Select a car, transmission, and mark yourself "ready". You can chat in the text window above. To host a network game, start the game, goto Network, and select TCP/IP as the network type, then select "Host". Select parameters as you see fit and select OK. Then instruct your buddies to connect. Game Voice Share v1.5 [local]| Game Voice Server [local] GameVoice is a pretty darned cool product from Microsoft. It's a piece of software and optional hardware headset/keypad doo-hicky. You can find the basic information at www.gamevoice.com. In short, gamevoice allows people to have a multi-person voice chat over the internet. All you need is a microphone, speakers, decent bandwidth to the internet, and the software. A headset is recommended as it will eliminate that pesky feedback and makes you look extra dorky when playing games. Trust me, your wife/girlfriend/SO will laugh heartily when you are yelling into a boom mic attached to a headset and shaking your fist at the computer. Installation is a simple click away, and the software works pretty well. Again, if you are behind a NAT, follow the instructions given in the NAT Configuration Guide. Basically, you need to just open up any old port and forward it to your machine, then configure a few options in the software to tell it your real-world externally-addressable IP. If you have a spare Windows machine with lots of bandwidth, you can host a chat server. This is advantageous as it will reduce the bandwidth requirements of all the chat participants at the cost of the CPU power required to mix all the different signals together and rebroadcast them to everyone. It is also nice to have a "permanent" place to log into to see if anyone is "around". Well worth the effort. Like any great game, there are cheat codes to get you up to speed without doing the work. To enter these codes, go to the create new profile screen in the Driver menu. Enter junk at the initials entry page and enter the cheat code as the name and OK it. If the cheat code worked, you will be returned to the Driver menu and no profile will actually be created. Here are some codes gleaned from around the net.
I propose that the Audifans community members that are interested in playing together have a common set of skins applied in the same fashion. That way, everyone will see everyone else's car selection. I also suggest that we set up a place and perhaps a time that we can meet online to get races going. Perhaps a particular weekend day, or late in the evening during the weekday? I can get an IRC channel or set up an IRC server for this purpose, as it seems frank.mercea.net is down at the moment. I might even have the extra bandwidth to set up a GameVoice server so that we can all save a little bandwidth while voice chatting. That way we can just pop our virtual heads (and voices) in somewhere and get a game going. I'll make a up schedule and get the technical stuff up and running in the next few days. Emails will be sent out to the various lists. |