Well, I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know squat about cars. Hell, I even grew up in a family whose business was selling them, and I still couldn’t tell you what a rear differential was. Nonetheless, Codemasters sent me a copy of their newest racing game Dirt 2, and all I’ve got to say is DAMN! Now, I haven’t even played a racing game since one of the early Need For Speeds on the PC, and back then, there wasn’t much skill involved to be a leet driver, you just held down the gas pedal and drove. So take this review for what it’s worth. I’m not a racing game guy, but I thought this game was amazing! Released this past September for all consoles and handles, and this coming December for the PC, is Codemasters’ Dirt 2
Well, there isn’t much to say for the story in Dirt 2, but do racing games really need one anyway? Basically the game starts out where you receive a phone call from Travis Pastrana who gives you a short introduction and then gives you a car that used to be driven by legendary driver Colin McRae. From here you begin to enter several races and soon travel around the world to North America, Asia, Europe and Africa in a beat-up trailer. As far as the story is concerned, that’s pretty much it. Eventually you will befriend and race alongside many other famous names in racing and hope that you come out on top!
It’s tough to say how long it should take you to complete the games 100 different events spanning 41 different tracks. The replayability is so high, that as far as I’m concerned, you never beat this awesome game.
Of course this is a racing game that you can tackle as both a single player, and multiplayer via Xbox Live. Unfortunately there is not a split screen option, which is a real disappointment. Luckily, the multiplayer via Xbox Live is awesome as human players are so unpredictable that everyone is just crashing into everything and that’s pretty damn funny. The online games at this time appear to be populated by pros, but you can create custom matches for you and your friends to warm up with.
There are also some awesome achievements for you to unlock including things like rolling your vehicle and still winning a race, winning a race without taking any damage and taking terminal damage while traveling over 140mph!
Dirt 2 is filled with tons of different types of races so you’re never going to get bored. Rally and Trailblazer are staggered-start races focusing on lots of long straight high-speed roads; Raid, Land Rush and Rally Cross are multi-car tight-turn races; And special modes like Domination, Gatecrasher and Last Man Standing will have you swearing at the screen while you learn to master them! There’s even different types of challenge races that you’ll receive from other drivers over time.
You begin your season in the rookie events, but as you gain experience you’ll unlock new events granting you access to the pro and all-star brackets, and even big tournaments that yield big cash prizes and special vehicles to unlock. As you win races, you’ll receive money to purchase the 35 different vehicles used in different types of events. Now, unlike other racing games like Forza 3 and Need for Speed Shift, you will not be spending money on fixing your car and upgrading the parts, but you can chance the paint job. This will likely be a big turn-off to many of you hard-core racers out there, but I found it nice since I don’t know anything about customization anyway. It just lets you get right in and race faster. To be fair though, at the start of each race, you can customize things like your Gear Ratio, Suspension and Differential to suite your needs for that particular race.
In the single player campaign, one gameplay feature that I found to be a lifesaver was the Flashback feature, which allows you to rewind time a given number of times throughout each race. Frankly, I found this a necessity because this game is freaking hard until you put a lot of hours into it, but believe me, that certainly didn’t make me dislike the game at all.
I’ve got to give Codemasters props, because Dirt 2 is stunning. There isn’t a single second while playing this game that you won’t be blown away by the beautiful visuals. The environments are highly detailed, the cars are uber-realistic, and the replay feature at the end of each race gives you a chance to watch a movie-style representation of your race.
Better yet, the game’s Pop-Punk-Rock soundtrack is really great and it totally gets you in the mood to do some more racing. I wasn’t familiar with any of the artists in the game, but I’m sure some of you out there will love it! In the beginning of the game you get to choose an audio representation of your name so that the in-game characters talk to you by your real name. I thought this was a really cool feature and it helped my immersion just that much more.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, race car games simply are not my thing. Well, maybe they didn’t USE to be my thing. After playing Dirt 2 both solo and with a bunch of friends over, I have to say, that this game is amazing, and it may have just got me hooked on the racing genre. Though the game itself is damn hard, with lots of practice you’ll start to get really good and boy does it feel freaking awesome every time you get first place. And I forget to mention how funny it is to run straight into a wall at 120 miles per hour. As far as I’m concerned, Dirt 2 is a great game for racers and non-racers alike, and for a price between 30 and 60 bucks depending on the platform, you are definitely going to get your monies worth!
If you liked DIRT 2, you might want to try GRID. It’s made by the same people, and the gameplay, including the handling of the cars, the online capability, and the ability to rewind, is similar, but it’s mostly on-road instead of off-road. You do street races, racing on real tracks, drifting circuits and a bunch of other things as well. It’s been out for a while now, so you can probably get it pretty cheap. I’ve seen it for £10, so you can probably get it for less than $20.
Give it a try, and if you like it, you can play online with me
. If you want to, my gamertag is FlaireUK.