Despite maintaining a considerable level of popularity across the pond, rally racing has never managed to rise above niche status on North American shores. In the interests of reaching new markets, Codemasters has rethought and re-branded the Colin McRae racing franchise as DiRT. The developers have broadened the focus of the game and added more race types, tweaked the physics and controls with some arcade sensibilities, pushed vehicular destruction to the forefront, and wrapped the whole thing up with the best graphics seen on the 360 since Gears of War. Fans of more traditional rally racing and the Colin McRae franchise in particular may be upset by the change in direction, but after years of incremental updates this was exactly the kind of overhaul the series needed heading into the next generation.

From the moment the game boots up DiRT smacks players in the face with its sharp presentation and jaw-dropping graphics. The franchise has made an enormous leap across the generational gap, from the functional menus of the past to a stylish new user-interface, from middle-of-the-pack visuals to setting a new bar for the genre, it’s clear from the onset that Codemasters is trying to send a message that DiRT is an entirely new beast. Message received, loud and clear. On the track DiRT is like poetry in motion with perfectly-modeled vehicles, meticulously detailed tracks, and an exhilarating sensation of speed. A perfect storm of bump-mapping, lighting and particle effects come together with a pinch of motion-blur to push the game within a hair’s breadth of photorealism. Unfortunately the view isn’t always perfect, since issues like screen-tearing, pop-up and slowdown all appear from time to time. Small and infrequent annoyances aside, DiRT stands alongside Gears of War as a showpiece for what the 360 hardware is capable of.

Outside of hot women in revealing clothing, there’s nothing that will grab the attention of American males quite like the sight of watching **** get banged up. Hell, there are hordes of people that watch NASCAR just for the prospect of a crash that doesn’t even happen nine times out of ten. Codemasters has put a lot of effort into the advanced real-time damage modeling in DiRT, and the results are impressive. Collisions can leave effects ranging anywhere from shattered windshields to caved-in-chasses, but the effect never comes off as a cheap exchange of game resources. There’s no obvious repetition of the different damage effects, no split-second change where the ‘clean’ textures and geometry are swapped for pre-made ‘damaged’ resources – it feels as though the glass, metal and carbon-fiber are all reacting appropriately to each specific incident in real-time. The damage isn’t just for show either – dealing enough damage to any of nine core components will result in significant performance loss.





So far so good, right? It’s hard to argue with improvements like gorgeous graphics and detailed damage modeling – those elements of the game should please just about everybody. When it comes to gameplay however, Codemasters is drawing a line in the sand between the fans they had and the gamers they want. Long-time fans of the Colin McRae franchise aren’t likely to appreciate just how far DiRT pushes the series toward the arcade end of the racing spectrum. All of the cars have an extraordinary amount of grip on the road, they all have extremely tight controls and they all feel weightless. All of those characteristics would be fine – beneficial even – in a game like Burnout, where the sole focus of the experience is to give players a speed-induced adrenaline overload. DiRT is a rally racer, and it’s fair to expect a rally racer to provide a sense of being behind the wheel of a rally car. Rally cars are powerful things that bounce and slide around tracks and keep the driver straddling the line between control and the complete loss of it. Players won’t even approach that line in DiRT since all of the cars can stop on a dime, glide over uneven terrain like it was pavement, and generally feel too responsive to be real. The racing in DiRT is fast, exhilarating and yes, fun, but it doesn’t feel like rally racing anymore

Unfortunately, Codemasters haven’t developed the feature set enough to appeal to the kind of casual gamer or general racing fan that would disregard the lack of accuracy for the increase in accessibility. The biggest offender is the multiplayer component, which is little more than a communal time trial mode book-ended by a truly horrible lobby system. Players are dropped into a lobby and vote on what track to play on. The list of tracks to vote on is random, and every player has to use the same vehicle. There’s also no way to search for games on specific tracks or using specific vehicles. Things improve once the race starts up, but only marginally. Up to 100 players can compete against each other online, but each player is driving on a separate instance of the same track and will never see another car on the road with them. Checking the real-time standings is pretty much the only way to deduce who the hell is ‘wining’. Players can chat with each other as they’re racing, but most of the chatter we experienced revolved around getting back to Gears of War or Forza Motorsport 2. Simple put, a $60 game with no real multiplayer options is not a particularly attractive product your average Xbox 360 owner. Devoted rally fans might have been willing to overlook the lack of multiplayer had the game provided an authentic representation of rally racing, but that ship has sailed.




Rally fans and casual gamers alike will probably feel a little patronized by the blatant attempts Codemasters has made to ‘Americanize’ the game. We North Americans don’t really have much of a right to complain about hurt feelings since so many of the games made on our shores contain sweeping generalizations of other cultures, so we’ll just focus on the game experience. First and foremost, we must have misplaced the memo announcing that rally racing was now an extreme sport in the vein of motocross or skateboarding and thus needed to be presented by Gen X stereotypes. Motocross star Travis Pastrana serves as the voice for the game, and most gamers will probably find themselves searching for some way to shut him up by the end of the first race. He’s trying too hard to save a terrible script with enthusiasm (or straight-up cheese), and it gets grating quickly. The sloppy inclusion of rally raid and CORR race types, as well as a litany of vehicles that have no business on a rally track feels like a misguided attempt to appeal to a stereotypical American love of ‘big damn trucks’, and playing through such races in the career mode is a chore. Great games crush cultural boundaries – Codemasters should have focused on making the best possible game instead of trying to sell itself to this skewed image of the average American racing fan.

Despite a range of flaws both large and small, DiRT remains a worthy purchase for racing fans. Diehard followers of rally racing and the Colin McRae franchise may not appreciate the new direction the series has taken, but the actual racing is as exhilarating as it is accessible, even despite a drop in authenticity. Codemasters still has some work ahead of them if they hope to open up the franchise to a new, mass market audience, but they’ve taken some solid steps with this game. Better online functionality, more visceral feedback from the road surface and more accurate car handling would all help make for a much-improved sequel. We’re looking forward to seeing Codemaster’s next effort.