This is a game which has taken up more of my time than I originally thought it would. Compared to the old Colin McRae games this is a far less serious style of racing, with loads of collisions and at the start of a race how you get through all the bumps and shunts will often dictate how the rest of the course is driven. But being less of a simulation and more of an arcade racer isn't necessarily a bad thing.

By starting with basic cars and having to earn you way to the better, faster vehicles you're encouraged to learn about how each one handles on the various surfaces and this stands you in good stead for the later races where the competition gets a bit more serious.

If you're not an experienced racer then the easier settings make things a lot less daunting to start you off and you can slowly increase the difficulty as you build in confidence. There is quite a steep learning curve for the harder difficulty settings but with perseverance it all seems possible after a while.

Based on this, I'll definately be buying Dirt 3 when the new version is released late in February with all the downloadable content included on the disc.