New Review Finally....

So Gamefly finally delivered my game last week and after spending some quality time with DiRT here we go.....

DiRT

DiRT is the fourth game in the Colin Macrae series produced by Codemasters, Now while Codemasters hasn't done much right in video games, this series has always been top notch. The game does a nice job of giving you a rundown of everything you can do the first time you boot it up, I spend all of my time in Career mode which is the bulk of the game. Career mode is set up as a tier system. You start at the bottom tier and as you clear events you unlock more on your tier and eventually the next tier. As you go through events you can buy new cars and will sometimes be forced to because only certain cars can race certain events. The really nice thing about career mode is that you can start of easy and ramp up the difficulty as you get better. Another nice touch is the loading screen you spend a lot of time looking at it but the nice thing is it will give you a rundown of your current stats, such as average finish, longest jump and so on, Its a little touch but its nice to have something engaging to look at while you are waiting for the next event. In addition there is no shortage of information to be had, pressing Y on just about any screen will give you some info about what you are looking at, whether it be the type of even, car or the track itself, its another simple but nice touch that makes this game feel really polished.

Now DiRT is not a standard racer its all about rally racing and there are a few differences in the way rally cars handle as opposed to street racing. The main thing you half to get used to is the looseness of the cars, they really have a tendency to slide on you if your not careful about braking and accelerating properly. Once you get used to it though they really become fun to drive. There are a few different types of races to keep things interesting, and a wealth of different cars. The modes range from straight rally point to point races, to crossover races (you race around a track that crosses paths at the halfway point), to my favorite the Rally Raid which is 6 cars or trucks on the track at once in an off road race. The cars and trucks also came in many forms from standard rally cars to big rigs and each perform like you think they would (the big rigs for instance are slow to get moving and really really loose) it is fun learning how to handle each different type as you come across them.

Now graphically the game is nothing short of amazing, I thought Rallisport Challenge on the original Xbox looked good but this thing blows that out of the water. You can even see individual weeds along the side of the road as you go roaring past. Also the real time damage to your car looks good and behaves like it should, it will even throw mud onto the side of your car as you drive along.

My main gripe with DiRT comes in the repetitiveness, after awhile everything starts to feel the same, sure the cars change but all the events start to feel like the same thing with different pictures after a decent amount of time with the game. Also this type of racing is not for everyone it can be very unforgiving on the higher difficulties and for those reason's my recommendation for DiRT is going to be.........

TRY IT

This is definelty one you want to check out and make sure you like its style before taking the plunge.