Real rally or a rubbish racer? (Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (Xbox 360))

Member Name: Stunt 101

Product:	Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (Xbox 360)
Date:	13/10/09 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stunning graphics, nails racing, nice race types.

Disadvantages: Not enough features/modes to bolster the racing.

Colin McRae Dirt 2

Colin McRae Dirt was a pretty high quality racer back in it's time. It featured fantastic (if prone to slowdown) visuals and was a tight, if lighter, racer in its own right. A year later Codemasters delivered again with the excellent track racer Race Driver: Grid. It improved the visuals and introduced the flashback feature, which seems to be borrowed from most racing games nowadays. So it's hard not to be excited for Collin McRae Dirt 2, the latest racer from Codemasters which is gunning for a podium position by expanding the racing modes, improving online play and more. Does it take the crown or does it not do justice to this great racer's legacy?

You play as an up and coming racer who has the unfortunate luck of being thrown on the track with racers like Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra. Thankfully, rather than mercifully thrashing you, they seem intent on guarding you along the way along with other racers as they give you tips on how to succeed in the crazy world of rally racing. The main meat of the game comes from the huge career mode spanning one hundred events which usually have more than one race. Thankfully the menus are neatly laid out like Grid, with bold text clearly highlighting what menu does what. During load times you'll see statistics, though now you can access them instantly through a menu in extras.

Like I said, you'll be spending most your time with Dirt 2 in its meaty career option. The game has over 100 events which contain usually more than one event. It's bursting with races, and thankfully there are plenty of different event types to go around. As you win career events you'll earn cash to buy cars and also earn respect which can unlock new items like vehicles, liveries and even dashboard toys (not Xbox 360 dashboard sadly) to customize your cockpit view. Respect also unlocks more events, so doing well events quickly ramps up what you can do. There are also quite a few challenges available to earn you some more respect, like driving miles, spinning donuts and more. The structure of Dirt 2's career is great because you start to unlock higher tier events without having to finish all the lower tier ones and you can mostly stick to race events you like because of the game's freedom.

While sticking to small events is good, there are some bigger events which you may want to prioritise first though. As you get plenty of respect, you'll unlock X Games in Europe, America and Asia which earn huge cash prizes and respect. They are quite hard though so make sure you have good cars and some decent skill before you jump into these events-they won't be going anytime soon. There's also World Tour events unlocked a bit later in the game, where you must win a qualifying event to enter a World Tour event. These are basically a selection of the toughest race course from the eight locations in the game. They too give high respect and money, so again it's worthwhile doing these events. However you're first going to have to earn enough respect to unlock these events by playing the lower tier races first.

There are about eight different race types in Dirt 2. You have your standard rally racing, coupled with RallyCross which replaces the varied terrain of Rally races with the tight circuit tracks. There's also trailblazer which is kind of like Rally but the tracks are longer and more about high speed than technical racing. There's also competitive racing in the form of Raid which takes place on tracks which go from point to point, and Land Rush which is a crowded truck/buggy racing which has more than a few bumps and knocks to the finish line. Then there are the more unique modes, like Gatecrasher which has you smashing foam signs to give you seconds of time, domination which splits the track into sectors and requires you to get the best time in as many sections as possible, and Last man Standing which elminates drivers who are in last place until the last person in first is left. It's a nice list which balances rally style events with racing.

The driving model is just as fantastic as Grid and Dirt. The damage modelling is incredible, with the bumps and knocks realistically dealing damage to your vehicle.You'll see paint scrape off only on the area you hit and head on collisions send plenty of metal flying. Speaking of which, the flashback feature from Grid returns in Dirt 2. Like before, you can only rewind and use flashbacks a certain number of times, which gets smaller depending on which difficulty you happen to be playing on. The hardest difficulty completely cuts them off full stop making for a true challenge as one slip up and its game over for you. It's still a nice feature which helps you out of a sticky crash and, if used properly, can even help you overtake another driver at the last corner, yet it's not something you can use to cheat. Cars handle great too, changing depending on your vehicle, and there are also some options to tweak your vehicle before races.

So where does Dirt 2 falter exactly? Well, despite the sucess of Grid, there's a tedancy Codemasters always seem to follow by. They focus purely on the racing, instead of supplying plenty of modes and features. Grid managed to suceed because its racing was so damn good alone, but it lacked features. And with new racers like Midnight Club LA supplying great racing and a nice supply of modes, it's hard not to be slightly saddened that all you get with Dirt 2 is career, quick race and online. There's no deep vehicle customizing, no race creators and not much more. Don't get me wrong, the racing itself is fantastic, but it doesn't give you enough modes to enjoy the racing in. This is also noticable in the vehicle selection which has about 48 cars altogether spread across the race types. There's very little customization for them either aside from the aformentioned dashboard toys and liveries.

However there is a pretty sweet online mode which does warrant value. The first Dirt had disappointing online because it was simply rally track racing, by yourself, against 100 players you can't see or communicate with. While Dirt 2 is now 16 players online, it's much improved as the game almost plays exactly like it does on Career. You can access every race type available in career and race every car and track in that mode. There's also the same respect system, just with less rewards because everything is unlocked from the get go. Of course if you aren't into laying the smackdown on the track, or getting smacked down altogether, you can play casually with mates in custom races where you can pick the track and whatever you want really. Games never lag and trying to mess up other drivers by reversing into them or driving the wrong way will get you banned from the race completely.

Dirt was a fantastic looking racer but suffered from considerable slowdown. Grid had a stunning look plus a smooth frame rate, making it the best looking racer made. That was until Dirt 2. This is incredible with so many delicious lighting effects; intense damage modelling, light relfections and smooth motion blur effects going on at once all at a smooth frame rate. It's just so lush, with awesome desert, jungle and city race tracks making quite a diverse set of race locations. Online hasn't seemed to have suffered from visual downgrade either, and trust me, playing this game in high definition will blow your mind, not that it doesn't look bad in Standard definition either though but Dirt 2 is a stone cold stunner in beautiful high definition. An onlooker saw the game and said to me 'what are you watching on TV?'- Seriously.

The sound is pretty cool too. It features an indie rock soundtrack which actually kind of fits well with the game. Winning a race, only to have a song singing 'save it for the bedroom' in the background was kind of a cool feeling. Other songs like They Say by Scars on Broadway and Little Sister from Queens of the Stone Age create an exciting atmosphere when you are out of races, though it's a shame there's no music while racing. The taunts and quips from other drivers are cool at first, mainly because you can pick your name most likely (unless it's supercalofragilisticespialobocious) but after playing this game for about 15 hours during career, they start to grate, though it's cool when you are struggling at the back of the pack and other famous drivers start to taunt each other while racing. The effects are great with roaring engines and the subtle sound of the wind whistling by you at high speeds as you drive straight into a brick wall.

Is Dirt 2 good, bad or ugly?

Dirt 2 is a great racer, but it suffers from what Codemasters do with most of their racing games. It nails the driving experience-the wind whistling by your car as you go at 160 miles per hour and the fantastic visuals, damage modelling and handling means it's a fantastic racer in terms of gameplay. But it is too thin on features to live up to the highest tier of racers because it's three modes aren't comparable to Midnight Club LA's career, creation tools, customization options and online on top of fantastic racing. It's a bit like a smoothie sundae, it feels good while you're eating it, but once you've finished it you can't help but feel like you want more. Its fantastic racing makes it recommendable to racing fans, but if you're looking for long term racing, Midnight Club LA or Burnout Paradise may be more up your racing track. It is a respectable tribute to a legend however, with a moving clip and race event dedicated to the racing legend Colin McRae at the end of the game.

Controls: 8
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 10
Sound: 8
Value: 7
Overall: 8.4

Dirt 2 was released on September 11th, 2009 for Xbox 360, Playstation Portable, Playstation 3, Nintendo DS and Wii. It is rated 12+ for language and can be bought for around £30-40. PC version coming later this year.

Summary: A light but stunning racing game which is a moving tribute to Collin McRae.