XBOX 360 Review: DiRT

[madmatt621]

The equivalent of hitting the lottery for a die-hard race game fan may just be the 2007 lineup of Xbox 360 moto titles. Forza Motorsport 2 has the tarmac twisters covered, NASCAR 08 is shaping up to satisfy the left-turn experts, and the latest additions to the Need for Speed, Burnout and FlatOut franchises will surely have arcade racers in a tizzy.

Even though the famed Rallisport series is nowhere to be found in 2007 (or any year thereafter, at this point), off-road mongers should fear not. Racing-game guru Codemasters decided to go big in ’07 with DiRT; a semi-continuation of the long-running Colin McRae Rally series.

With Colin out trying his hand in other facets of off-road driving, and with Codemasters wanting to expand the scope of its racing series, it only seemed fitting to shake things up a bit, starting with the title’s name. It doesn’t get much simpler or more appropriate than DiRT; this is, after all, a game dedicated to almost every aspect of four-wheeled off-road racing.

In Codemasters’ Colin McRae-franchised games of old, point-to-point-style, WRC events featuring a variety of production-style cars was the extent of the jollies. Not so with DiRT. In more of a Rallisport fashion, DiRT features a host of vehicle classes partaking in everything from timed hill climbs to full-on wheel-to-wheel circle-track racing. Crossover and other stadium tracks join the typical rally stages to accommodate all of this new racing. There are even stages specifically designed for rally raid events, which are Dakar-style, wheel-to-wheel blasts featuring a variety of vehicle types.

Of course there’s still the standard WRC-like rally experience encased with DiRT’s dusty shell, but this title’s newfound scope is sure to appeal to a much wider audience, including those introduced to the off-road racing by the X Games and Mr. Dirt himself, Travis Pastrana. Speaking of Mr. Pastrana, his voice is all over DiRT, and it helps to not only add personality to a gritty, off-road game, but also add a smidge of superstardom—being that he’s a god in moto-x circles, and probably your kid’s role model. Having Travis in X-Games and Rally America is a big boost for off-road racing in general, and the same goes for his work in DiRT (just as his crony McRae did in DiRT’s predecessors).

The brand-spankin’-new race types in DiRT means that there’s a much more complete lineup of vehicles this time around. Cars come in front-wheel, rear-wheel and all-wheel drive configurations, with a classic mode sporting some Group 5 treats from the vehicular homicide days. The RWD class also sports some fossils (Fiat 131 anyone?), mainly because this class is really only popular on the clubman level in modern rallying. The FWD and AWD classes are filled with the modern marvels of competitive rallying, of course, with the AWD class looking like a normal WRC entry list. Subaru, Peugeot, Citroen, Mitsubishi and the rest of the WRC lot are along for the ride.

There are two classes of buggies for the furious wheel-to-wheel events featured in DiRT, plus stadium trucks and rallycross-specific beasts of various flavors. Hill climbers are real-deal knockoffs, complete with massive front foils for downforce and mega-horsepower motors. Slick, late-model rally raid trucks are plentiful, too, and end up being a part of some of the more entertaining wheel-to-wheel racing DiRT has to offer. And, last but not least, you get the full-sized, hill-climbing big rigs and raiding manufacturer’s trucks that give a new meaning to the phrase “go big or go home.”

DiRT is broken down into a few logical modes, but most everything revolves around the lengthy Career area. The career is illustrated as a massive pyramid of racing events (illustrated nicely via the trick user interface and menu screen system), which unlock in a progressive fashion. In standard race-game career-mode fashion, there are a few events unlocked from the get-go in a several disciplines. The idea is to finish on the podium in order to unlock additional races, not to mention in order to pocket some large bank.

Cash in DiRT’s career mode is best used to buy locked cars, but it can also be used to modify the livery sets on a single model. As with Forza Motorsport 2, the higher the difficulty setting, the more opportunity there is to cash in, but it’s still best to learn the ropes at the lower Rookie and Clubman levels.

Originally from http://www.rithum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=278