Colin McRae: Dirt 2 Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 16th September 2009

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Time to get dirty.

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 Details:

	Racing
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii/PSP/Nintendo DS
	Codemasters
	Codemasters

12+

Out Now

1-2

Codemasters has a pedigree when it comes to racing games, and with one off-road racer already under its belt this year big things are expected of their latest offering Colin McRae: Dirt 2. But will it be able to step up to the podium or be crushed under the weight of expectation.

To answer that question in short, Colin McRae Dirt 2 has surpassed my expectations! Delivering one of the best off road racing games I’ve experienced in a long time which will appeal to a broad range of racing fans. The game however, isn’t perfect as it doesn’t serve up much variation in tracks and you will often find yourself racing on the same courses repeatedly. Whilst this is something of a negative point it does however come with the advantage that you become familiar with the courses fairly quickly. This allows you to push your vehicles to the edge, which is almost a requirement to be successful in Dirt 2.

Events in Dirt 2 are fairly varied and include Rallies, point-to-point races, Rally cross, elimination events and so on. The game does feature a ranking system which allows you to unlock new events and locations as you progress. As you obtain different ranks the opportunity to take part in X-Games is opened up to you, these see you compete in a knockout tournament made up of various events. As these races are knockout based and one mistake could see you relegated to last place, fans of Codemasters GRID will be pleased to learn that the same flashback feature is also present in Dirt 2! Enabling you to see what you did wrong and go back and put it right instead of having to go through the whole event again. Of course instead of simply racing against AI competition Colin McRae Dirt 2 allows you to go online and race as part of a team or against other players in any of the games race types. As you would expect, the game features all the usual online features such as leaderboards and so on.

The selection of vehicles on offer in Dirt 2 is pretty much what you would expect to find in an off-road racing title. These include trophy trucks, buggies, and rally cars such as the Mitsubishi Evolution X and Subaru Impreza STI. There are a few cars also included in Dirt 2 that you wouldn’t necessary expect to find in an off road racing game and these include the BMW Z3 and Nissan 350Z. Each of the vehicles in the game handles differently and to get the most out of the game you do have to test a few out in order to find one that suits your driving style. Like most racing games though Dirt 2 does allow you to tweak the setup of your car, which unlike a lot of racing games does seem to make a real difference to how your vehicles performs. Bizarrely though you can’t test your settings out before you enter a race which can often result in you getting it completely wrong for the conditions of the event you’re taking part in. This results in a lot of unnecessary restarts as you experiment to get the right setup. This seemed a strange way of implementing the vehicle setup feature to me and I can’t help feel the game would have benefited from allowing you to have a little run to experiment with the various setup options.

When you get down to the actual driving action in the game, it’s near perfect. The game portrays the feeling of speed well, especially when you consider this is something most off-road racing games fail to deliver. Rally driver Ken Block had a lot of input on the game and it shows. Car handling will keep you on the edge of your seat as pushing to hard will result in your car sliding out of control and more than likely into a spectacular crash. Although having said that it is possible to regain control with the right amount of power and skill thanks to the games brilliant physics. This also allows you to pull of impressive looking power slides and huge drifts, in all honesty your car will often spend large portions of a race going sideways as you power your way through the various twisting courses. The driving experience on offer in Dirt 2 is very action orientated, but without entering the often hated realm of becoming an arcade racer, the game is very much a real racing game and delivers a very intense experience.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 also features a pretty good damage system, which covers everything from simple scratches to body panels flying off. Damage also plays a part in how your car handles, and you will often have to make adjustments to your driving style after taking large knocks. Environmental effects can also have an impact on your race, driving through deep water will slow you down drastically, while driving on loose gravel will cause your car to slide out. All these things of course have to be taken into consideration and Dirt 2 requires concentration as it pits all your driving skills against some big name drivers and various different elements.

Cars are also subject to various other environmental effects although these are only aesthetic details such as mud covering the various racing liveries, or dust covering the windshield on loose gravel tracks. The car models in the game are seen in their full splendour on the games few night tracks as the paint work shines magnificently under the bright white floodlights. Despite this beauty though the vehicles featured in Dirt 2 still sport the rugged looks of the various real world off-road vehicles they represent. These rugged looks are also complimented by deep bass tone sounds coming from the various vehicles exhausts, and the engines scream with a sense of realism as you accelerate hard to victory. This sound design is complimented well with a strong alternative rock soundtrack, however some of the in-game chit chat between drivers does tend to sound a little forced and unnatural.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 is without a doubt the stand out off-road racing game to date. The driving mechanics are amazing allowing even unseasoned gamers to pull off impressive looking power slides. The game really does deliver an intense racing experience and will keep racing fans gripped with its edge of the seat approach!