Joining
Xbox 360's racing elite class, Codemasters' Dirt is a solid evolution in
the long-running Colin McRae series with a broader scope, more varied race
types and vehicles plus additional gameplay modes including extensive
online modes. Beautiful graphics, highlighted by richly detailed
topography and surface types makes for an impressive title visually. The
gameplay remains as challenging as ever with responsive car handling,
realistic damage modeling and aggressive opponent AI. Another addition
this time around allows you to race against other racers in real time, not
just against the clock. This makes for a more visceral racing experience
that makes Dirt an even more exciting title.
Bringing the spirit and feel of the
Colin McRae rally racing series onto next-generation consoles, Dirt on the
Xbox 360 represents a solid evolution for the franchise. The latest
iteration branches in new directions to create a more expansive scope of
off-road racing. While rally racing remains the heart of Dirt, new game
modes and vehicles add new challenges to the game. Dirt presents the
player with three main modes of play. In Career mode, the objective is to
win races in as many events as possible. Finishing in the top tier allows
you to win points and money which can be used to unlock additional events,
buy additional cars and purchase liveries, which are upgrades that help
your vehicle to stand out from the pack. You can also enter the Rally
Championship mode, which are a series of international cups where you can
win a series of tournaments to win even more points and modes. Players can
also choose to play single races and mix and match events in the Rally
World mode, where every track and vehicle that's been unlocked in the
other modes can be played.
The
game features dozens of courses and tracks, many of which can be unlocked
easily, giving you plenty of variety. Adding to the game's scope, there
are several distinct types of racing disciplines that you have to master
as you progress through Dirt. The Rally discipline offers a standard rally
fare, where you race point-to-point in long challenging races through
different surfaces and environments. To make things more exciting, Dirt
also includes Crossover mode, where two players race head to head on
parallel courses simultaneously. This isn't to be confused with Rally
Cross mode, where players have to race on tracks containing both
traditional and off-road surfaces. Rally Raid mode offers strictly off
road action in long, large and free-roaming courses that test your
endurance with lengthy battles through dusty Western courses. Dirt's Corr
championship mode offers a series of short tracks where super-buggies and
trucks battle it out in tight quarters. Finally, the game offers a
grueling mountain battle with its Hill Climb mode, where you have to drive
straight up from start to finish, requiring a great deal of skill to
navigate and win.
As you'd expect from the legacy of its
previous incarnation, Dirt's elaborate courses are highly detailed with
different types of turns, from hairpin to gentle curves, roadside
obsctacles and unexpected twists that keep you on your toes. The courses
range from long point-to-point rallies in exotic locales, to dirt strewn
off-road tracks and uphill climbs. This gives Dirt plenty of variety as
you play through different styles and racing challenges. While there's a
huge selection of vehicles in the Rally classes, Dirt adds more variety by
including massive trucks and dirt buggies to the mix as well, which
present completely different types of challenges and controls. While the
selection is limited initially, there are dozens of vehicles to unlock in
the game, and these can be purchased by winning races and unlocking
different race types. After you've completed a race, you can enter the
garage and repair damage, upgrade your vehicle and view your points
status. All these features aside, what really matters is what happens on
the road, and this is where Dirt really stands apart. Implementing a
sophisticated and realistic physics engine allows the vehicles to perform
accurately, with the handling and responsiveness you'd expect. The
controls are slick and the game uses either the d-pad or analog stick
which allows you to drive in whichever style you want to.
Controlling the vehicles is easy enough,
though you have to watch out for collisions and accidents, since these
cause damage on your vehicle. The damage looks realistic and it affects
vehicle performance as well, with decreased turning ability or even the
car completely off-balance and listing in one direction during the race.
If your vehicle takes too many collisions, your car will have terminal
damage and being unable to move forward, the race will come to an abrupt
end. This gives you less room for error than in some of the less realistic
games which increases the challenge Dirt presents. Mastering each course
requires you to know how far in advance to brake, learn each curve and
know how to slide through them while avoiding going too far off the track.
You can reset the vehicle, and place it back in its last acceptable
position when you go off the track, but this comes at a heavy cost of
time, which can significantly reduce the likelihood that you'll finish in
a qualifying position. This is definitely one of the more strategic and
thoughtful racing games, requiring much more concentration and stamina
than most arcade racers demand.
Dirt's
visuals are superb, with richly detailed environments, realistic
environmental lighting, a smooth frame rate and fantastically rendered
vehicles working together to create one of the most believable and
coherent racing games to date. The varied track surfaces such as soil, mud
and gravel have all been designed to look as authentic and realistic as
possible, and Dirt's attention to detail is quite impressive. Each vehicle
looks spectacular with windows, wheel chassis and doors all responding to
the road, with the suspensions bouncing with the terrain to make them feel
incredibly realistic. The game's damage modeling is also quite impressive,
with cracked windshields, shattered bumpers and loose wheels giving your
mistakes quite a visceral impact as well. Weather and light effects have
also been given a comprehensive once over, which makes each track feel all
the more authentic and realistic racing aesthetic.
Dirt's lavishly rendered in-game
graphics are impressive but the in-game menus also deserve praise for
their slick design and easy to navigate structure which adds to the
overall experience. In a cool touch, the game shows you statistics about
your progress, such as number of roll-overs or crashes instead of generic
loading screens This helps to mitigate the sometimes long load times
between races. These elements combine in Dirt to achieve a realistic
off-road simulation approach without devolving into the usual 'extreme'
sports clichés that mar so many other releases. With it's increased
variety of vehicles, new versus racing modes, beautiful visuals and
excellent control, Dirt is an enjoyable and intense racing title that
offers an exciting mix of traditional rally racing and off-road racing in
a comprehensive yet accessible package that should please casual and
hard-core players alike.
Grade:
B
