DiRT

Before we get into the review of the game at hand, there’s a small confession I need to make and it won’t be easy for some of you to digest but well, here it comes nevertheless … I did not like Forza Motorsport 2… There I said it! Now before you go ahead and brand me a heretic you should know that I have nothing against this particular game per say; it’s just that I don’t like racing sims as such and driving around at painstakingly slow speeds just doesn’t appeal to me. So why am I reviewing DiRT? Well for starters we really didn’t have anyone else to review it (Nikhil was busy working on GRAW2) and more importantly, the game isn’t as anal and as Sim-ish (and by Sim I mean Simulator, not the EA game) as I expected. It’s fast, enjoyable, a lot more forgiving than most racing sims on the block and is something casual gamers can sink their teeth into.

The first thing that hits you as soon as you fire up the game is the sleek way in which the game’s main menus have been presented. Once you’re done drooling over the snazzy visuals you can choose to take part in a multitude of events that include Career, Championship, and Rally World and Xbox Live. As the name suggests, Career is the game’s single player campaign that’s divided into eleven tiers and before you can start racing you have Travis Pastrana (freestyle motocross champion) giving you the lowdown on how you can go about handling your DiRT-y career. Each of the above mentioned tiers are divided into a bunch of varied races like Rally, Rallycross, Hillclimb, CORR, Crossover etc. and it’s this variety that keeps the game from becoming monotonous. But unfortunately, a lot of the tracks look and feel the same so I would suggest playing the game at regular intervals (unless you’re a fan of the series). Every race requires you to choose a particular vehicle most suited for that terrain so you’ll be blazing through the desert in your dune buggies while you can tear up the concrete tracks with your Mitsubishi Evo.
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In DiRT, the higher difficulty you play at, the more money you make, but if you still feel like playing at the Rookie level (no one’s judging you), you’ll be able to do so without worrying about monetary consequences. If this is your first time with racing sims or any Colin McRae game, I suggest you swallow your pride and start the playing with the Rookie difficulty level but once you get the hang of the game you can bump up the difficulty to Clubman, Amateur, Pro am or Pro. Now I have to give it up to Codemasters because they’ve made this game extremely accessible to the casual gamer thanks to an awesome control scheme that’s pretty forgiving to newcomers. But this doesn’t mean you can simply push the pedal to the metal because it is a simulator at the end of the day and the trick over here (this helped me out through most of the races) is not to accelerate fully and gently tap the brake while turning. While this strategy works for most of the game, there are times when you have long straight stretches of empty road during which you can literally tear the road up.

Now that we’ve spoken about gameplay and racing I’d like to take a minute to talk about DiRT’s Damage System which in all honesty will blow your f*****g mind away. As and when you knowingly or unknowingly drive your car into any object you will be treated to one of the finest damaging systems ever seen in a racing game; windscreens shatter, cars crumple, doors and bumpers fall off and if the impact is really bad, you’ll even find your car split into two. Now while this damage system may not affect performance at lower difficulty levels, you’ll find it difficult to control your beat up ride at higher difficulty levels but if you’re in a two round race, the game allows you to repair your car in between rounds.

As far as visuals go DiRT looks absolutely phenomenal in a look but don’t touch way which means you can soak in all the beauty around you but can’t do anything about it. There were times when I wish I could just stop my car, get out and stroll along the picturesque country side…. it’s that gorgeous (if Codemasters ever decide to make a free roaming game, this should be the engine they use). Cars are well detailed, the damage system rocks and each and every track looks beautiful, but the thing I liked the most was the way your car transforms physically from a sleek looking set of wheels to a dirty mangled beast that’s emerged from the Loch Ness at the end of the race; only weird thing here is that your car has the magical ability to attract muck and mud even on concrete tracks devoid of any sort of muck. But all this above mentioned beauty comes at a small price since the frame rates tend to dip at times while it gets a little hectic on screen.
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The High Dynamic Range lighting (HDR) used in this game does enhance the whole dreamy effect but it’s been used a bit excessively at times and there are moments when it borders on overkill. Loading screens are pretty cool in their own way too because unlike normal Loading Screens you’re constantly fed your Statistics while a particular level loads; not that this affects gameplay in anyway but it’s a cool touch nevertheless.

While this game is all that on the Xbox 360, the PC port on the other hand is a total mess. For starters, the game is highly un-optimized and has some extremely steep system requirements and even when we ran the game on a rig packing an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor, a GeForce 8800 GTS video card and 3 GB of Corsair 667 Ram, we were constantly treated to graphical hiccups and sub-par frame rates. Besides performance issues, the game controls horribly on the PC so we whole heartedly recommend the Xbox 360 version of this game.

At the end of the day DiRT is an addictive game that can be enjoyed by fans of the series and newcomers alike. Veterans can hike up the challenge to enjoy an authentic Colin McRae experience while n00bs can enjoy the game as well, at simpler difficulty levels. Add to that some mind blowing visuals, awesome sound, arcady controls and you have one polished off road racer that definitely belongs in your collection.