DiRT 2 review :racer:
I have been looking forward to DiRT's sequel all year. I enjoyed DiRT 1 but the handling was a bit floaty, the brakes were too strong and the career mode was frankly boring. This year Codemasters improved on almost every aspect of the game.
Graphics and Sound
The visuals in this game are superb! I have no complaints at all. It is very photo realistic. The cars are very detailed and in dash view is amazing. When water hits the windshield, while the same no matter how you hit a patch of water, is jaw dropping. It is better looking than last year's version and one of the best looking racers on the market.
The sound is good but not great. Nothing revolutionary here, the cars sound like cars but nothing really pops like the new NFS: Shift game does. Don't expect anything crazy here. Racing around the track you will here your fellow racers get mad, praise you and add some other comments. These are funny but can get repetitive. I like how they have real life Rally racers in the game. Most of you will recognize names like Dave Mirra, Travis Pastrana, and Ken Block from miscellaneous X Games.
Gameplay
Codemasters took everything from DiRT 1 and improved on it. The cars handle beautifully. I can't say it is 100% sim but it just feels nice. There are no assists in this game to turn on or off but I don’t think you would need them. Once you learn the tracks, the differences in cars and the simple concept of braking at proper points and letting go of the gas around big turns anyone will do just fine.
The game steals the rewind concept from GRID and inserts it exactly into this game. I love this feature. It is a goal not to use it but it is great to be there especially after you have been racing for 10 minutes and screw up on the last turn.
This game has 6 different Difficulty settings: Easy, Amateur, Serious, Hard, Savage, and Hardcore. (I think those are the titles) My review is based all on the "serious" difficulty. While not that hard but hard enough to where you can't go bumping around the course and not hitting the proper race line and expect to make the podium. The harder the difficulty the more XP and cash you get and the less rewind tries. On Hardcore there are no rewind tries.
What I do like about the racing is while you will do you fair share of trading paint I don’t encourage it. Banging into cars especially at higher speeds ends up throwing you off course more often than not. This isn’t Gran Turismo (hehe). The learning curve is not steep anyone can jump and race. Just use the brake and don’t full throttle it the whole course. You need to learn where you cars are going to get thrown around; there are little bumps in the road that can really screw you up if you are mashing the gas. And listen to your co-driver on trail blazers she is a savior!
There are car setup settings that I needed to tweak in order to win some races. I like this it adds another dimension to the racing experience. You can also save the car setups. I have 3 setups saved at the current moment. (check these out in video 2)
Lasting Appeal
The variety in the DiRT career is great. There are Trophy Trucks, 4X4s, Buggys and Rally Cars. There is also a nice pallet of races including, point to point, Rally Cross, Elimination (last man standing), Domination (earn fastest times in the certain racing sectors), Time Trials, one on one races and team races. I love the Elimination races!
You will race in a multitude of racing regions and as you gain more XP the more regions, races, X Games events, and invitational events open up. The invitational event requires qualifiers. As with any racing games as you get further the races get longer and the events require you to compete in more races to complete. I kind of wish the AI and caliber of racers would improve. That is the way GRID is as the drivers at the end were ruthless! There are about 100 events and placing 1st in all of them could take quite a while.
You can also check your race times against your friends as like last year. Except this year it is more of pain to check it. Last year it displayed at the end of each race. This year you have to go into "My Stuff" in the trailer and choose the specific race to compare. That was a stupid decision IMO.
Online: I haven’t ventured into any online races yet but I am expecting it to be much of the same with any other online racers. This is not a precision game so trading paint is not as frowned upon like Forza so I could see it being very fun.
Strengths: Graphics, Variety of races and the RACING!
Weaknesses: Sound could be better, no real visual customization of the cars, a pain comparing my times to VASteelahs.
Overall I would give this game a 9.0/10
It is worth a purchase.
Check out the 2 random video on posted on YouTube of some game play and a little replay.
[youtube]mbhRHjLRIvU[/youtube]
[youtube]JcSftIdMLok[/youtube]
I have been looking forward to DiRT's sequel all year. I enjoyed DiRT 1 but the handling was a bit floaty, the brakes were too strong and the career mode was frankly boring. This year Codemasters improved on almost every aspect of the game.
Graphics and Sound
The visuals in this game are superb! I have no complaints at all. It is very photo realistic. The cars are very detailed and in dash view is amazing. When water hits the windshield, while the same no matter how you hit a patch of water, is jaw dropping. It is better looking than last year's version and one of the best looking racers on the market.
The sound is good but not great. Nothing revolutionary here, the cars sound like cars but nothing really pops like the new NFS: Shift game does. Don't expect anything crazy here. Racing around the track you will here your fellow racers get mad, praise you and add some other comments. These are funny but can get repetitive. I like how they have real life Rally racers in the game. Most of you will recognize names like Dave Mirra, Travis Pastrana, and Ken Block from miscellaneous X Games.
Gameplay
Codemasters took everything from DiRT 1 and improved on it. The cars handle beautifully. I can't say it is 100% sim but it just feels nice. There are no assists in this game to turn on or off but I don’t think you would need them. Once you learn the tracks, the differences in cars and the simple concept of braking at proper points and letting go of the gas around big turns anyone will do just fine.
The game steals the rewind concept from GRID and inserts it exactly into this game. I love this feature. It is a goal not to use it but it is great to be there especially after you have been racing for 10 minutes and screw up on the last turn.
This game has 6 different Difficulty settings: Easy, Amateur, Serious, Hard, Savage, and Hardcore. (I think those are the titles) My review is based all on the "serious" difficulty. While not that hard but hard enough to where you can't go bumping around the course and not hitting the proper race line and expect to make the podium. The harder the difficulty the more XP and cash you get and the less rewind tries. On Hardcore there are no rewind tries.
What I do like about the racing is while you will do you fair share of trading paint I don’t encourage it. Banging into cars especially at higher speeds ends up throwing you off course more often than not. This isn’t Gran Turismo (hehe). The learning curve is not steep anyone can jump and race. Just use the brake and don’t full throttle it the whole course. You need to learn where you cars are going to get thrown around; there are little bumps in the road that can really screw you up if you are mashing the gas. And listen to your co-driver on trail blazers she is a savior!
There are car setup settings that I needed to tweak in order to win some races. I like this it adds another dimension to the racing experience. You can also save the car setups. I have 3 setups saved at the current moment. (check these out in video 2)
Lasting Appeal
The variety in the DiRT career is great. There are Trophy Trucks, 4X4s, Buggys and Rally Cars. There is also a nice pallet of races including, point to point, Rally Cross, Elimination (last man standing), Domination (earn fastest times in the certain racing sectors), Time Trials, one on one races and team races. I love the Elimination races!
You will race in a multitude of racing regions and as you gain more XP the more regions, races, X Games events, and invitational events open up. The invitational event requires qualifiers. As with any racing games as you get further the races get longer and the events require you to compete in more races to complete. I kind of wish the AI and caliber of racers would improve. That is the way GRID is as the drivers at the end were ruthless! There are about 100 events and placing 1st in all of them could take quite a while.
You can also check your race times against your friends as like last year. Except this year it is more of pain to check it. Last year it displayed at the end of each race. This year you have to go into "My Stuff" in the trailer and choose the specific race to compare. That was a stupid decision IMO.
Online: I haven’t ventured into any online races yet but I am expecting it to be much of the same with any other online racers. This is not a precision game so trading paint is not as frowned upon like Forza so I could see it being very fun.
Strengths: Graphics, Variety of races and the RACING!
Weaknesses: Sound could be better, no real visual customization of the cars, a pain comparing my times to VASteelahs.
Overall I would give this game a 9.0/10
It is worth a purchase.
Check out the 2 random video on posted on YouTube of some game play and a little replay.
[youtube]mbhRHjLRIvU[/youtube]
[youtube]JcSftIdMLok[/youtube]
