It’s been 2 years since DiRT and it seems to have flown by as I’m more a tarmac racer myself, and never really fell in love with Codemasters’ last rally game. In the interim Codies’ schizophrenic Racedriver: GRID has come and (thankfully) gone, so I approached DiRT 2 with some trepidation, having been driven into becoming a firm GRID-hater.
McRae Rally games have been slickly presented in the past but DiRT 2 really excels, with X-Games-styled menus and an RV (camper van) that acts as your hub for race selection, online and other options. The X-Games styling of everything might grate with some and the sycophantic comments from your beaten opponents lay the treacle on a bit thick, but it's a superb way of presenting what is basically a race selection screen. After GRID’s awful music selection that had everyone looking for the volume controls, DiRT 2’s music needed to be good and Wow! - how they’ve made up for it with great racing tunes to watch the replays by from the likes of Prodigy, Rise Against, Queens of the Stone Age, Bloc Party, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ladyhawke, the Cribs, Scars on Broadway and… my daughter will be horrified to hear that I even like the Madina Lake track.
Colin McRae: DiRT 2 again uses Codemasters Studios’ Ego engine and puts it to the best use yet. Whatever you thought of Racedriver: GRID (and I hated its arcade, sped-up, weird physics-possessing ass), it was a fantastic looker, and DiRT 2 is even better. The moment you load up a stage or race you get an ultra-close-up look at the vehicles, and in terms of detail they’re peerless, with fully-modelled engines that move on their mounts, rotating driveshafts, tyres that flex and suspension springs that actually compress as you take a bump or land from a jump! As you’d expect in a McRae game the signs of body damage and dirt effects are extremely detailed, with seemingly every single panel on a vehicle being damageable, and in many cases removable if the impact is heavy enough. If anything I’d have liked to see even more dented, dinged, tattered and torn bodywork rather than the entire bumpers/spoilers that seem to fall off with great regularity.
Dirt 2 has an excellent replay mode (complete with Fast-Forward, Rewind and Slow-Motion buttons) and unless you’re extremely hardcore then this becomes an integral part of the game as DiRT 2 re-uses Racedriver: GRID’s Flashback feature, which means if you have a smash (and you will, oh yes you will) you can call up a replay, watch it, then rewind to before things started to go tits-up and re-enter the vehicle and do it right. Or, as I’ve done on occasion, made an even bigger mess of things and crashed even more spectacularly! As in GRID you can alter the difficulty before any race meaning that higher difficulties mean not only faster opponents but also allow you to use fewer flashbacks, with ‘Easy’ allowing you 5 flashbacks and ‘Hardcore’ having none.
The first DiRT’s scenery looked impressive, but with endless draw distances and lush trees, bushes, flowers and allsorts to compliment the detailed buildings and structures and numerous animated spectators, DiRT 2 looks even better and is quite simply one of the best-looking games this gen. The scenery varies from urban settings like London (the track encircles Battersea Power Station!) and Japan to wide open settings like China and Utah and to the lush jungles of Malaysia. Other venues include LA, Croatia, Baja and Morocco.
As in DiRT and GRID there are several different types of vehicle to race in various disciplines. Rally, Raid and Trailblazer are all point-to-point and Rallycross and Landrush are circuit racing events. These events may have additional requirements such as Domination (get the fastest time on each sector to "own" it), Last Man Standing (last man is eliminated till there's just the leader left) and Gatecrasher (smash yellow foam blocks to extend your overall time). Vehicles include: Rally, Rallycross and Trailblazer versions of the Subaru Impreza WRX STi, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, Pontiac Solstice, Nissan 350Z, BMW Z4M Coupe and Mitsubishi Eclipse GT; Landrush and Raid vehicles like the Hummer HX, Dodge Powerwagon, Land Rover Bowler Nemesis and the Hummer H3; Trophy trucks by Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge; Class 1 buggies (that all look the same to me) and unlockable classics like the Metro 6R4 and the Mk II Ford Escort.
There are 3 different types of online racing for 2-8 players, either solo or as a team: 'Pro Tour' is ranked or 'Jam Session' is unranked. ‘Time Bomb’ (Rally and Trailblazer) a no-contact race against the clock against ghosts of the other players; ‘Skirmish’ (Landrush, Rallycross and Raid), full-contact multicar racing with the emphasis on contact; and ‘Ruckus’, (Last Man Standing, Gatecrasher and Domination). I found it to play really well, with few lag problems even when racing against trans-Atlantic opponents. The game engine will ‘ghost out’ anyone who spins and goes the wrong way but collisions are a-plenty due to the rough and ready nature of the circuits. You are heavily punished for any contact with collisions usually resulting in spins for both vehicles and tantrums from the lead driver. The racing is intense and even the straights have kinks or ramps in them meaning you never get a rest, so don’t play it if you’re tired or in a bad mood!
A lack of filters for online games means that guys like me who like to play it ‘real’ and use a manual gearbox and the in-car view (and DiRT 2’s head cam “virtual cockpit” is superb) have to race against automatic, chase cam girlies who never get their vision affected by obstructive scenery, broken windscreens, flapping hoods/bonnets or water splashes. It’s not a huge problem but some way of levelling the playing field would have been cool.
The contrasting types of racing and the X-Games American-friendly styling of DiRT 2 mean that it has distanced itself even more from being the no-nonsense rally game it once was. Having said that, the handling and physics are second to none and supply plenty of excitement and thrills without any of GRID’s over-the-top speeds or aggressive AI. DiRT 2 is ‘simmy’ enough to mean that the easy-to-use tuning options make a huge difference to the performance of the vehicles and can help you shave seconds off your best stage times, whilst cool little touches like being able to play with the loading screen or having your Xbox 360 avatar as a windscreen ornament add some much-appreciated fun to a genre that’s always been in danger of taking itself too seriously. This is a great return to form for Codies Racing Studio after the iffy Racedriver: GRID, and I'm sure Colin would have loved it.
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