It's good to see that Colin McRaes legacy still
lives on after his shock death in September 2007. Dirt 2 is the sequel
to Colin McRae: Dirt and is the first game in the McRae series since
his death.
While the game does pay homage to the late rally
driver, it is also trying to appeal to a new, younger generation as
well. Some rally purist might not agree with what DiRT 2 is trying to
achieve, with the career mode only featuring around twenty-percent of
pure rally. But that aside I'm sure rally fans and racing fans alike
will find a lot to like about this game.
Dirt 2's interface works around a RV that you take
around the world. You can access things like the world map which has
100 different events to unlock and compete in, a TV that displays
instructional videos before an event and even a folder that keeps stats
of your races like your longest jump or how many times you have rolled
a car.
Outside your trailer is were the business starts.
You can buy and customize new cars, see the latest tournament results
and start the next race.
The game play of Dirt 2 revolves around Career
Mode, which sees you as a rookie driver on the up-and-coming and your
goal is to build yourself into a champion. Each race earns you
experience points, which in turn increases your driver's level.
As you progress through the levels you gain new
liveries, unlock new races and earn some little extras. These include
dashboard items such as a skull with googley eyes and some fully sick
dice that hang from your rear view mirror while in cockpit view. Little
rewards like this give you a great sense of achievement and are a great
touch.
Through the course of Career Mode you can choose
from six different difficulties before you enter an event, they don't
affect your progression - but you earn a little less cash and
experience on easier settings.
So you start with Amateur events, moving up
through the Pro events and finishing off with some challenging All-Star
races. The 100 events are locked based on experience level, cars owned,
or specific races you need to win.
There is also a series of special races to unlock
as you progress through the game, like X-Games (Asia, Europe, and North
America), five World Cup tournaments, each in a different race style
i.e Rally, Gate Crash etc. There's even a special Colin McRae tribute
event, which is pretty cool.
Dirt 2 isn't short on race locations either. Rally
games can tend to give you a sense of déjà vu from time to time, but
unique locations like the marshes of Malaysia, small villages of
Morocco with their narrow streets and the serene hillsides of China
make DiRT 2 standout from the rest.
Driving physics aren't as realistic as Grand
Turismo or previous Colin McRae titles, but I think that is what keeps
DiRT 2 being fun. The rally cars do have a sense of weight to them and
give that feeling that you're almost going to fall off the edge of the
road or panic when you almost hit the rear of your car on a tree.
The trucks and buggies don't measure up in the
same way, they are a lot harder to control which can be frustrating at
times. The bigger vehicles offer more of an arcade style handling than
compared to the rally and cross rally cars – but both aren't too
technical.
DiRT 2 has done well with its Career Mode, it
offers a great balance of skill level and a good variety of locations,
tracks and events. Even though this isn't a pure rally game it sure is
exciting to play and there is more than enough events and disciplines
to keep you happy.
There are five normal racing disciplines and three
special disciplines, so eight in total which include:
Rally
- is raced on long, varied point-to-point tracks, while your co-driver
provides you with audible track notes.
Rally
Cross - takes place on tight circuits for wheel-to-wheel
racing with up to eight competitors. Circuits are 50% off-road and 50%
tarmac.
Trail
Blazer – is raced on long open, point-to-point stages.
Staggered starts are used, allowing players to overtake or be
overtaken, at any time.
Land
Rush – is a wild multi-class racing event that is 100% off
road, where eight vehicles take on jumps, drops and each other for the
win.
Raid
– is a wide off-road point-to-point stage littered with natural
obstacles like jagged rocks, trenches and tress. Perfect for
heavyweight vehicles.
Special
Disciplines:
Domination
– is based on Land Rush or Rally Cross events, but the key is to set
the fastest time through a circuit sector to claim it as your own.
Points are awarded by how many sectors won and final race position.
Last
Man Standing – eight racers race around a circuit while a
timer counts down, find yourself in last place and you will be
eliminated. Last man standing wins.
Gate
Crasher – Precision is key here, smash through as many
gates as possible adds time to your personal race clock, run out of
time and your race is over.
One very handy feature that you may recognise if
you have ever played Grid is the “Flashback” feature. Flashbacks allow
you to stop a race at any time, watch a replay of the last few seconds
and rewind to a previous point. This is very handy and can spare you
from a potentially race-ending accident or allow you to retry a corner.
However flashback isn't limitless and is tied directly to the
difficulty, with Easy offering five uses per race and Hardcore allowing
for none.
A great little addition is the missions, which are
in-race tasks that earn you bonus XP. There are only a few, but each
have five tiers. They include things like how many times you've
overtaken another driver, amount of time spent in the air and time
spent on two wheels.
The developers have done a great job on the
graphics and rendering. The cars look sweet while maintain an
impressive level of damage modelling, the game runs smoothly and the
location rendering is very easy on the eye.
One of the standouts for me is the cockpit view
(different for each car). Drive through puddles and mud splashes the
windshield, temporarily blinding you until your wipers can swipe away
the muck. The sense of urgency while other drivers are right beside you
scraping along the side of you is conveyed well through this view.
In addition to Career Mode, DiRT 2 has a rich
multiplayer. Every event type can be played online with up to seven
people racing against you.
Online game play runs smoothly and is a lot of fun
bashing around tracks with your mates. You can also do point-to-point
racing, which should satisfy those rally purests who crave something
closer to the real thing.
Dirt 2 is well worth a look, whether it be rally
fans or someone looking for a new racer, even new comers will enjoy.
With more variety in tracks and functional multiplayer offerings, it's
hard to over look DiRT 2.
It may not focus on pure time-trial rally races,
but I think rally is moving in a new direction and the game conveys
this rather well.
My only gripe about DiRT 2 is there is no
multiplayer split-screen functionality, but the online options are
impressive to say the least.
I think Dirt 2 is a solid racer, the other
disciplines are a whole lot of fun to play and I think that racing fans
are going to love what Dirt 2 has to offer.
Game: Colin McRae DiRT 2 System: Xbox 360
Players: 1-8 Online: Yes Developer: Codemaster
Distributor: Codemaster
