DiRT

The Good
First of all I'd would like to dedicate this review in the memory of Colin McRae and his son Johnny who were sadly lost in a helicopter accident last September. Colin McRae was not only one of the best racing pilots ever, but he was a real role model and a person of a distinct character. His loss is one of the saddest events in the history of rally racing.

On to the game, following the ever popular and successful series in the Colin McRae franchise, Dirt is no different to the previous games in the series. If fact Dirt is better in many ways, but most of all in the graphics department. Utilizing the latest pixel shaders,lighting and real-time rendering advances, Colin McRae Dirt succeeds in being one of the best and most realistic looking racing games in the genre today. Indeed the graphics of Dirt are the best ever in the series. Not only the cars are beautifully modeled and textured as they always have been, the surrounding scenery and props in conjunction with the HDR lighting and real-time rendering works miracles in producing some of the most spectacular and realistic visuals that we have ever seen on a racing game.

The game offers three modes available as single player and a multiplayer mode as well. These modes are the Career mode, the Championship mode and the Rally World. The Career mode is offering the player a huge set of races in a pyramid layout. The goal of the player is to begin winning races from the lower level of the pyramid in order to advance to the higher levels and finally win the top race, which will denote the carreer's success. The races in the career mode are various types, various disciplines and can be raced with various kinds of vehicles. Therefore you can expect to participate in rally races with WRC cars, buggies, trucks and more off-road vehicles. In fact the main difference of Colin McRae Dirt from the rest titles in the series is exactly that, you can race and more types and disciplined events than only WRC racing. Still there's plenty of WRC racing, but there's also plenty of other kinds as well. It is also important to say that the career mode once you win a race, the player also wins money with which more cars and liveries can be purchased.

If you prefer the classic Colin McRae style of only WRC racing, you can enter the Championship mode in which you will be able to to participate in the national rallies of Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries, the way it was played so far in the series. Finally the Rally World mode offers the following kind of races: Single Race, Single Event and Time Trial. Each one of these three is basically a practice mode in which you can race through various kinds of events and vehicles.

Talking about vehicles, in this game you have the chance to drive a plethora of models of various types and kinds. A massive selection is available, although some vehicles will enter only specific kind of races, for example the Lotus Exige is available only for rally cross races. On the same vein hill-climb events have models that are available for that kind of event only. There are various types of vehicles that can be raced. The selection begins from standard rally casts that participate in the modern WRC, classic rear wheel drive rally cars such as the Ford Escorts mkII (:):):) which if driven properly it will give you a huge smile on your face !), classic four-wheel drive rally cars like Toyota Celica, buggies, off-road pickups and sport SUVs, rally-cross dedicated vehicles such as the Lotus Exige (!), hill climb vehicles and finally off and on road trucks. You can purchase vehicles that become available as you progress through the career mode by winning the events. Winning increases your income and therefore you can buy the aforementioned vehicles. Mind you there are always options to fine tune and set up the car of your choice according to your driving style.

But what works best in this game are the realistic visuals which will give the player a stunning experience, which combined the steering wheel controller based gameplay, the whole package provides hours all of solid fun.

The Bad
The most annoying aspect of Colin McRae Dirt is the long loading of the so many menu and confirmation screens. The loading times between the game and menus are ridiculous. And yet there are some annoying confirmation screens and inform you that autosave was done successfully. Also there are a few stupid really messages that tell you not to switch off your PC while autosave is being performed!!! I mean who on earth would power off their machine whilst into the game and saving?!

It seems to me that in order to experience the full flavor of Colin McRae Dirt you've got to have a steering wheel controller. Using the keys to control the car while you race proves to be inadequate to say the least, one of the reasons being that the wheels turn digitally and cannot be controlled in any way on how much they will turn. This causes the car to turn rather awkward than smoothly, which is especially evident on straight sections of the stages: if you turn slightly your front wheels while you're speeding in order to get in a good entering position for the next corner you might end up spinning and off the road. In the same way you cannot really control how much power get transferred to your wheels, which makes the driving off rear wheel drive cars especially difficult. There are some options to set up the linearity of the controls, but they don't resolve the issues above.

The Bottom Line
Colin McRae Dirt is one of the best looking racing games today. Along with Test Drive Unlimited, they deliver "wow" looks while maintaining good gameplay mechanics that provide great fun, in my opinion. Now as is said earlier on you really need to have a steering wheel controller in order to appreciate the beauty of Colin McRae Dirt.

Of course, the sad news are that this title was destined to be Colin McRae's epitaph in the long and successful series of games featuring the great rally pilot and human being. For that thing alone, if you're into racing games and an avid rally racing fan, I think that it is crucial to buy in this title, not only because it is a superb racing game, but also in order to remember the great racing deeds of a man that stormed the special stages and the country roads for over two decades. Colin McRae, a true legend!