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Gaming review: DiRT 2 takes the cake!

Accessibility seems to be the flavour of the season for racing games. MotorStorm: Arctic Edge on the PSP has done it brilliantly and Forza Motorsport 3 seems to be all about it, but Colin McRae: DiRT 2 takes the cake by going so far to attract the casual gamer, that it's now unrecognisable from the pre-DiRT Colin McRae games many of us have enjoyed for years. Codemasters have given precedence to the sizeable X Games loving American audience over the rally fans, and as a result, the Colin McRae series is no longer about rally, but rather an off-road racing assortment.

As someone who loved the old Colin McRae games and even the first DiRT game, I was initially disappointed by the way rally has been abandoned in DiRT 2, but I was quickly won over by how much fun the game is despite it. You can either mope around and rue the fact that the Colin McRae Rally franchise as we knew it is dead (it is; there's no two ways about it), or you can try and enjoy DiRT 2 for what it is -- a fun pick-up-and-play off-road racing game with diverse environments, a handful of vehicle classes and numerous race types.

The new approach is also very evident from the game's presentation. The showboating, lazy-sounding Ken Block headlines a list of pros, who will race against you in DiRT 2. Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra, both better known for their accomplishments on two wheels, also join the cast, taking turns to play your guide through DiRT 2. The game also boasts the X Games extreme sports franchise license, and you will participate in three X Games competitions in the 'DiRT Tour' career mode. The more youthful, urban approach to the series is also clearly evident in the sponsoring brands that you will come across. Brands like Pirelli and Sparco make way for the likes of DC and Flip.

Codies are masters of presentation. The menu system and loading screens in the first DiRT game were ground-breaking and they continue to impress in DiRT 2. The 3D menu is set in your tour bus/trailer, with different parts of the trailer representing menu options. You can step outside the trailer for a look at your rides and access game options. Loading screens too are chock-full of information; everything from career statistics, info on the upcoming race, and status on in-game missions and Trophies/Achievements is thrown at you to keep you occupied while the race loads up.

The DiRT Tour is your career mode, with 100 events to last you several hours. It's presented brilliantly, with each of the 100 events visible to you together without having to dig through layers of sub menus to find the race you want to enter. Events are broken up into three levels -- rookie, pro, and all-star, with only the rookie events open to you at the start. Each event earns you cash and XP (experience points); cash lets you buy new vehicles, while XP levels you up. The leveling system is pretty addictive and many events, locations and X Games shows are locked to higher levels, so leveling up is a key element. You also earn lots of other freebies as you level up, like bonus cash, bonus cars, liveries, and in-car embellishments. But beyond that, it's nice to just be able to put a number to all the time and effort you've put into the career mode.

'Unlike past games, rally stages are different events themselves'

Event types are plenty in DiRT 2, but they can be broadly broken down into two categories -- races against the AI and races against the clock. In the former, you take on 7 AI competitors in various disciplines. These include Rally Cross and Landrush -- lapped races around short tracks, Raid long distance point-to-point races, and Last Man Standing -- lapped races where at regular intervals, the last car in the pack is eliminated till only one remains. Against the clock, you have Rally, Trailblazer -- a basic time trial, and Gate Crasher -- time trials where you must drive through on-track objects to extend time and stop the clock from counting down to zero. Every now and then, a pro driver will issue a Throwdown -- a one-on-one race with big cash, big XP, and respect at stake.

Now, this being a Colin McRae game, I'm going to give the Rally event type its due, partly because of its unfair step-brotherly treatment, but mostly because it's still the most fun event type in the game. Unlike past games, rally stages are different events themselves and not one overall race. Rather than taking cumulative timings of all drivers over the various stages, the game now hands out Forumla 1-like points at the end of each run, and the driver with the most points at the end of all stages is the winner. It serves a similar purpose, but it's not as precise. You also no longer carry damage from one stage to another. In each new stage, the car is returned to you in immaculate condition. So it's now essentially a series of time trials, with points being handed out after each of the constituent runs.

Of course, a rally event, no matter how superficially represented, is no good without a co-driver to talk you through the course. In DiRT 2, you can choose your co-driver, and for those new to rally, you can also choose how they direct you. You can either go the traditional way and have them use numbers to denote the severity of an upcoming corner (1 for a hard turn, 6 for a mild bend), or choose the simple option and have them call the turns "easy", "medium", or "hard". Of course, with turns coming thick and fast, it's easy to see why the former is a lot more efficient. The format may have been dumbed down, but in full motion with your co-driver in your ear, the CMR magic still shines through in these short-lived rally events, and this is without doubt where the game is most enjoyable.

'Codies' mantra with DiRT 2 is 'accessibility''

There are around 40 vehicles in DiRT 2, and they include rally cars (Lancer Evo X, Impreza, etc), Raid T1 trucks (Hummer H3, etc), buggies, and trophy/pick-up trucks. Each event type is assigned to a particular car class. All the race-against-the-clock events -- Rally, Trailblazer, and Gate Crasher -- and Rally Cross races use rally cars. The Raid events use the Raid T1 trucks, while Landrush requires buggies or trophy trucks. While the rally cars are fast, nimble and a lot of fun to drive, the bigger vehicles are slow, sluggish and not nearly as enjoyable. And since each event type is fixed to a particular event type, the Raid and Landrush events will quickly become your least favourite.

As I said before, Codies' mantra with DiRT 2 is 'accessibility', and that is also made clearly apparent in the controls. For the first time, you can now refer to a Colin McRae game as pick-up-and-play. It's not as effortless as Burnout or Pure, but it certainly doesn't come with a steep learning curve like the MotorStorm games either, and anyone, regardless of their history with racing games, should have no issues coming to grips with the vehicle controls. Performance damage has also been drastically reduced this time around, and you'll now need to bang the car up pretty good to even inflict minor damage (although a high speed crash will still total your car in one blow). So accessible it is, but thankfully, it hasn't come at the expense of fun, and tearing through canyons and rainforests is just as thrilling as it's ever been.

The 100 events in the DiRT Tour span across four continents. From the urban locations in LA, Tokyo and London, to the arid environs of Utah and Morocco, to the lush settings of Malaysia, China, and Croatia, DiRT 2 has every track type you could possibly hope for in an off-road racing game. To add to that, most courses are riddled with alternate paths, varying track surfaces, jumps, dips, and water trenches to keep you on your toes. The nine locations may seem less on paper, but there is enough track here to not feel repetitive. Throw in course variations and reverse layouts and there's enough to hold anyone's attention.

Extensive online multiplayer options

DiRT 2 also features extensive online multiplayer options. You can either join the Pro Tour and partake in ranked races in various event types, or head into Jam Session and create your own custom races. There's even an option to team up with up to three friends and enter races together. The leveling system is also present in multilayer, but it's independent from your DiRT Tour level. So you could have conquered the career mode, but once you head online, you start at Level 1. It would have been nice to have a common leveling system across the single and multiplayer modes, and it would definitely have encouraged players to play both simultaneously. As has sadly become the norm with racing games of late, DiRT 2 doesn't support split-screen multi-player racing, so the only way to test your skills against human opposition is to head online (or, if you're playing on the Xbox 360, via system link).

It comes as no surprise that DiRT 2 is one of the prettiest racing games around. It's almost a given with Codemasters racing games, thanks to their magical Ego engine. There are some disappointments though. Damage effects were a highlight in the first DiRT game, but they don't seem all that impressive this time around. Not as many parts seem to fall off the car now, and your car can end up looking rather strange once banged up; deformed, but not in a believable way. Technically, the game handles near flawlessly, although as with the previous game, the bloom effects are overdone. But take one trip through the lush green Malaysian rainforest, and watch as the sunlight creeps through the dense vegetation, and all these issues will be forgotten.

It seems like all racing game developers are forced to pick from a fixed collection of music for their game's soundtrack, because they seem to have way too many tracks in common. The same is the case with DiRT 2. The soundtrack isn't bad at all, but it just doesn't feel fresh when five other recent games have had so many of the same tracks. Elsewhere in the audio department, engine sounds are great, but one aspect that will divide people is the in-race banter between the AI racers. Personally, I didn't mind it, but I can see how it could annoy others who just want to get on with their race rather than listen to what the opponents have to say.

Conclusion

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 has had me up at 4 am telling myself to carry on for just one more race, or just one more level up, and that's more than I can say for most games. The tight controls, brilliant track design, and engrossing career structure will keep you hooked, with numerous online multi-player options as an added bonus. Sure, it hurts that rally is being sidelined, and yes, the bigger vehicles aren't quite as fun to drive as the rally cars, but as an off-road racing game, it does most things right.

(+) Accessible without diluting the experience
(+) Addictive career mode
(+) Brilliant track design
(+) Visually stunning

(-) No real rally events
(-) Larger vehicles not much fun to drive

8/10