Colin McRae's rally world is split in two right now. On the one hand are his real-life exploits, which aren't so good. Crashing out of the New Zealand Rally with a sweary, on-camera post-script is not the mark of a champion. But balancing that on the other hand is his fantastic third video game.

Colin McRae Rally has become a video game institution in a remarkably short period of time. The first game on PSone established a benchmark of brilliant handling and edge-of-the-seat rallying. The sequel was fantastic too, and now the series is appearing on a console with as much grunt under the bonnet as a World Rally Championship-spec Ford Focus.

Thankfully, McRae on Xbox delivers the goods. Third time out, the game is as compulsive as ever, drawing you into the muddy, soggy, exhilarating world of rally driving, If off-road turns you on, you need to sit behind McRae's wheel. But you might not think CMR3 is up to speed at first glance. Graphically, the game isn't top of the Xbox tree, a fact that won't be lost on those with RalliSport Challenge somewhere in their games pile.

Some of the textures are very bland, making some courses look particularly spartan and washed out. There are even some pixelly cardboard cut-out spectators lining the tracks, although they rarely get close enough to the car to look truly bad.

Still, the courses with a bit more going on in them manage to look good despite these visual minus points. The US rally that takes you over mountain tops and alongside huge lakes springs to mind, as do the narrow, heavily wooded roads of snowy Sweden.

There are also some excellent effects to counteract the unimpressive textures. When using the in-car view, the rain effect is very impressive. The wipers struggling to keep the view clear; the droplets reacting to the car's inertia and wind resistance.

The damage model is great, too, with broken bits of your car flapping about before being torn loose by a heavy impact. But more of that later.

Codemasters could perhaps have squeezed a little more out of the Xbox graphics chip, leaving visuals that are good and solid, but unspectacular. It's a real shame that the game wasn't developed primarily for Xbox and ported to PlayStation 2, rather than vice versa.

But that's the big whinge over. Fancy looks would have been nice, of course, but Colin McRae has never really been about stunning visuals. It's all about getting dirty on tortuous rally courses, and becoming one with your car.

And again, weirdly, you might not think the trademark handling is quite right when you first settle down with CMR3.

The car feels a tiny bit too light, and it's hard to judge its reaction to the different surfaces you're asked to throw it across.

But, after playing the first few rallies, everything comes together. Before you know it you'll have played for hours.

You'll know Colin's Ford Focus almost as intimately as he does. You'll instinctively know how fast to take bends, coaxing the screaming beast around the most awkward of curves at the highest possible speeds.

What's more, the different surfaces you face soon begin to aid you in your quest for good times. After a few rallies, you can deliberately dip your front tyre into the muddy rut at the side of the road, using it to drag the car around at a higher speed. It's incredibly satisfying, and taking bends at insane velocities is about as addictive as video game driving gets.

The authenticity of the driving experience is enhanced by the game's structure. The Championship mode takes you through a Rally season, where each rally consists of several individual stages.

Unfortunately, each rally only has one or two breaks where your car can be repaired, meaning you'll often carry damage through one, two or three further stages. The upshot of this is that you really, really care about your car. It's not unfeasible that you will at some point smash it up so much that you can't get out of first or second gear. If that happens, you will be forced to retire from a rally, which will scupper your chances in the championship, and that's bad.

Another excellent concession to reality is that you don't find out how you're doing in the rally until you're about to begin the next stage. The car's damage modelling plays a key role here. If you take a spectacular tumble, your motor will start to fall apart.

Seeing your bonnet break off and a flapping door wrenched off the car is heart-breaking. But because you don't know how you're doing compared with other cars, you want to push on, risking the car in the process.

Each rally thus demands you drive as aggressively as you dare, balancing the need for speed against a sensible respect for your valuable car. Exciting it most certainly is. There are a couple of things we really should mention before you go forth and drive like nutters. Firstly, the loading times are a bit on the long side for an Xbox game - perhaps, like the occasionally spartan textures, an echo of the PS2 version. However, each stage of a rally is pretty long, so you're not interrupted too often.

The only other slightly annoying thing is that some of the trackside objects occasionally provide more resistance to your speeding car than they should.

We've no problem with losing our bonnet and windscreen to a nasty brick wall, but we reckon a Ford Focus travelling at 80mph should decimate a weedy little sapling, not the other way around.

But that's as far as it goes with complaints. This delivers exactly what we hoped for - great handling and truly scintillating rallying with a more realistic edge than its rival, the now second-best rally game on Xbox, RalliSport Challenge. Top work, Colin.

1. Sublime car handling
2. Excellent variety of courses
3. Realistic, exciting game structure

1. Some of the visuals are disappointing
2. Loading times are a bit long

Power
Nice effects don't make up for uninspired PS2-style texturing and loading times...

Style
...but the front end is very stylish, and the well-designed tracks show off varied locations.

Immersion
Once you 'get' the car's handling, this offers incredibly intense and addictive rallying.

Lifespan
There are more than enough stages over which to hone your skills. The Championship mode is top fun.

Summary
An excellent, superbly playable game that tops the rally podium. Could have looked a bit better, but this is a class act.