Colin McRae: Dirt 2 Review
What you have here is the best rally game this generation of consoles has seen, it might even be an all time racing great worthy of the late, great Scot. It even (just) survives an ill-advised X-games style make over outside the races.
As a rookie driver you’re given a free Subaru Impreza (very nice) and unleashed on a world map stuffed with over 100 events in Japan, China, Malaysia, Croatia, Morocco, London, Utah, LA and Baja.
Racing and performing random challenges that tally up as you go (accumulating drift or air time for instance) earns you EXP that in time, levels you up and opens up access to other events on your sticker filled map.
The control set-up is completely customisable which should be (but generally isn’t) a part of any racing game. The six difficulty levels to choose from affect how many Flashbacks (see below) you get and how challenging the AI is. Damage is customisable too with off, on or ‘visual only’ to please your inner crash junkie and to see you over the finish line in one piece.
There’s a basic customisable vehicle set up menu too for adjusting gear ratios, suspension and so on. But there’re no unlockable parts to enhance performance which is a shame and would have been better than fluffy dice accessories and garish liveries. You can buy / unlock other vehicles for each discipline but chances are you’ll stick with the same early favourites throughout.
The menu styling and the whole out-of-car experience feels like the lovechild of Need for Speed: Pro and the Tony Hawk’s skateboarding games with its extreme sports carnival setting. It’s as bad as it sounds.
Since when has rallying been classed as an extreme sport? Since some extreme sport legends such as Dave Mirra (BMX) and Travis Pastrana (motocross) decided rallying was their thing. There’s no WRC license as that has been snapped up for Gran Turismo 5, which means we’re stuck with these ridiculously happy, butt-kissing dudes. These racing ‘celebs’ all want to be your friend and will test your sanity as they never shut up, saying such relentlessly happy tripe such as “Hey Brendan, I’m always surprised by Morocco, it’s such a cool country.”
There’s meant to be a dynamic in the game that will see them turn on you in future races if you bash them about. Didn’t really see this on show much to be honest. Most times I had a swipe at them they’d apologise even as I gently nudged them off a cliff! Sometimes they might say what I did was “not cool.” Ha, just stay friends until you have the Trophies they provide then enjoy shunting them off cliffs or into lakes at every opportunity. Enjoy the air time Travis!
But hey, the rest of the game is absolute gold!
While Grid constantly sent you back to the same old tracks again and again, Dirt 2 feels like you’re being offered a much better variety in its locations and race disciplines as you can see from the list below, which doesn’t have one weak link in there.
Rally: The usual A-B race with competitors given a staggered start. Regular mid-race checkpoints indicate your overall position. You can pass slower cars that set off before you, but they won’t move to one side as per rallying rules. They won’t block or pursue you, but you get the impression they’re pretending they haven’t noticed you in their mirrors.
Gatecrasher: A-B race like Rally but with a clock counting down, disqualifying you if it reaches zero. But by smashing through giant yellow gates on the track you earn yourself extra seconds.
Rally Cross: A lapped race on a circuit with direct physical competition from other drivers. Sometimes features tarmac.
Trailerblazer: Umm, this feels just like Rally, but without a co-driver.
Last Man Standing: An elimination mode where at specific timed intervals the last player is removed from the race until only one remains.
Domination: The circuit is split up into sections with direct physical competition against the rest of the field to get a fastest time in each section. If you’ve ever played multiplayer Tony Hawk’s it’s exactly like Graffiti mode.
Landrush: Like Rally Cross but with the bigger vehicles (trucks, buggies, stock, T1) and all off-road circuits full of jumps and bumps.
Raid: Featuring the Landrush vehicles in an A-B race with other vehicles and multiple paths through the stage.
X Games and World Tour: Tournaments compiling above event types.
Driver Challenges: Drivers set you a time to beat or offer a one-on-one race.
Curious omissions are the lack of weather variations and proper night races. While there is the odd water pool on the tracks there’s no rain or snow. Hell, I was about 30 events in before I saw anything resembling wet mud. The night races are floodlit stadium efforts rather than hurtling though a pitch black forest with a deathwish.
Review continues…
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