Wouldn’t you like to have a quick beer in that inviting hill town, or take a dip in the emerald waters lying in the distance? OK, so we’re missing the likes of Greece, Sweden and Finland, but I still can’t think of another next-gen racer – well, maybe Burnout: Revenge – that matches this one for spectacle and variety of scenery. In the Spanish and Italian tracks it’s tempting to go off-course altogether. In terms of sheer thrills, nothing quite matches MotorStorm’s most fearsome Monument Valley tracks, but the hill-climb up the winding, dusty trails of Pike’s Peak comes close, as does the breakneck rampage through the densely wooded Australian tracks. From British forests and moorlands to Japanese lakes and mountains, the game is almost too picturesque in its scenery, and there are some thrilling combinations of devilishly tight turns and fast narrow, undulating stretches for you to navigate at speed. So what if all this goodness comes at the price of some very occasional slowdown or tearing? You’ll barely notice, and it never affects the playability.ĭiRT also scores big on another area where Forza 2 fell down: the courses.
Watch carefully, and you can see blades of grass bend in the car’s wake. Look at the replays, and you’ll be astonished by the incidental detail. Wheels don’t churn up the track as they do in Sony’s MotorStorm, but there’s certainly enough dust and mud flying around to satisfy any would-be off-roader. The interior views, which actually change and crumple to reflect car damage, are probably the best I’ve ever seen. It does ludicrously lush trackside vegetation, stunningly detailed car models, artful speed blur and beautiful, warm, glowing lighting like no racer ever before. Visually, DiRT is everything Forza 2 isn’t. Reason one is obvious: just look at all the eye candy. DiRT might not be the best rally game ever (I’ll leave it to the purists to argue whether it’s Rallisport Challenge 2, Richard Burns or Colin McRae 4) but if you can leave your preconceptions behind you’ll find that Codemasters has created something different, and it’s still a great racer in its own right. If, however, you can bear this sort of change – read on.
#4K DIRT RALLY IMAGE SERIES#
You’ll just end up gnashing your teeth and wondering why Codemasters has sold the world’s best-loved Rally series down the river in obvious pursuit of the Yankee dollar. You don’t even want to know about the baffling exclusion of Scandinavia from DiRT, or discover how suspiciously arcade-like the handling model has become. In short, if you’re a Rally purist this might be the point where you bail out. I could cope with the massive 4x4s of Rally Raid, but when I found myself doing a hill-climb in what looks like the business end of an articulated lorry, even I started to worry about what was going on.
For some people, the fact that DiRT doesn’t stick to sensible cars and sensible sports is going to be a problem. In fact, throw buggy-racing into the mix and you might well note that several of these events were actually covered in the last instalment of TOCA.
#4K DIRT RALLY IMAGE DRIVER#
DiRT takes it in the same sort of direction that the TOCA Race Driver series has taken TOCA, with Rally itself now only one of a range of motorsport events that includes Rallycross (eight cars on one part mud/part tarmac track), Hill-Climb, Crossover (two cars on two tracks that cross over halfway through), Rally Raid (4x4s in competitive off-road racing) and the US CORR series (dirt-track racing in trucks). If you’re a long-time fan of the Colin McRae series and this sort of thing sets your teeth on edge, prepare yourself. Where have Colin and Nicky Grist disappeared to? Why has everything gone transatlantic? Why is the very first thing you hear when you start the game the voice of US pro-racer and X-games gold medallist Travis Pastrana? Do you want to play a rally game in which your co-driver addresses you as dude? Really, how far does a series have to drift away from its original premise before it all gets a bit ridiculous? Bar the appearance of the Scotsman’s name in the after-race placings and the fact that it’s an off-road racing game, finding elements that link DiRT to previous titles in the Colin McRae series is something of a challenge.
#4K DIRT RALLY IMAGE PC#
”’Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC – Xbox 360 version reviewed.”’