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Good racing sim; fair review

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 14
Date: August 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This has been called the "prettiest" or "best" racer on 360 so far. I think Atari's Test Drive Unlimited is more involved, more open, larger, has more to do. EA's Burnout series is more fun. Those really aren't racing "sims" (in TDU the sim is actually the island, not the racing) but they're racers, so a comparison can be made. I suppose a better comparison is versus PGR and Forza. While I'm not sure that DiRT is any better than Forza2, it might be a bit better than PGR3, but PGR3 is a much older title so a better comparison might be when PGR4 arrives soon.

Criticisms:

- It is pretty, but I found some graphics issues I haven't found in other racers or other games. I can only call them "refresh" problems as I'm not sure what the actual problem is (I can only describe it as a visible squiggly translucent line coming down from near the top of the screen toward the bottom that looks like the frame rate or screen is refresh)...Again, if this is my 360, my 1080p HDTV, or the cables, it doesn't appear on other games, and I have tons of them.

- Any racer can be utterly frustrating. You drive for several minutes and right when you get toward the end, something goes wrong, someone hits you, etc, and you lose the race. It might take you awhile to learn to use the "reset vehicle" in this game to combat this (which feels like cheating).

- The gigantic career mode pyramid gives a false impression that these are all separate tracks. Many are reused.

- Extremely annoying co-pilot during rally races who shouts "left 3, right 4, left 5, 100, blather blather" (he sound like a quarterback before the ball is hiked) to try and tell you what's coming up. But these races go so fast that you're your brain will be switching back and forth within split seconds watching the race and looking at the map above to see where the next curves/turns will be, that also focusing on what this guy is saying is impossible or annoying. Is what he saying even accurate? Thankfully, you can turn this guy off in the options.

- It should be noted that "DiRT" implies off-road racing only. There are plenty of non-dirt tracks here.

- The ads show a lot of crashing, rolling and banging into other cars (because that looks like fun), but if you do that, you'll lose most of the time. Often, if you so much as gently touch another car, you spin off to the side while watching everyone else pass you. This isn't Burnout.

End Result: the combined press rankings are at 8.4 which is where Need for Speed Most Wanted ranks. I think that's a fair assessment. The critics rank Forza2 and PGR3 higher than DiRT with Need for Speed Carbon ranking much lower.

Look for Need for Speed ProStreet, PGR4 (with better dynamic weather effects), and especially the new Burnout: Paradise, with a more open world (like Test Drive Unlimited except you get to crash into `em).

THE GAME IS OK

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 13
Date: July 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

LOOK THIS GAME IS OK I THOUGHT THAT THIS GAME WAS GOING TO BE A GREAT GAME WHEN I READ THE REVIEWS THEY MADE THIS GAME GAME SOUND GREAT BUT ITS OK I PLAY MOTOR STORM ON MY PLAY STATION 3 AND ITS A BIG DIFFERENCE BUT DIRT IS NOT THAT BAD OHH AND THAT GUY THAT TALKS IN THE GAME TALKS TOO MUCH WAY TO MUCH

This is NOT a multi-player game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: August 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My family is competitive and loves to play Xbox 360. It's important to me to get games with multi-player options so no-one is relegated to spectator.

What a disappointment! If you own two or more joysticks or racing wheels (as I do) this game does NOT allow for side-by-side multi-player gaming.

It's a great game, otherwise.. but unless you want to buy multiple Xboxes or scatter your family to the web, it's strictly one player per box.

Dirt is ok

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

there's a good varity of vheicls but not many tracks for each disaplin. the phyisics are ok they tryed to take arcade stily and make it feel lik a sim game but it just didn't work very well. some of the rally cars almost force you to drift even on the slightest corners or you woulnd end up off the course. the online play is terable. you can't make you own rooms, and you can only do rally races. you can't do curcit races online so you never see who you playing you just try to beat there time to the finish. you can't even play split screen or system link it. over all i say this is an incomplete game. it was way too short i beat it in about three days maybe playing for about 2 to3 hours at a time.

Wonderfull scenarios, low driving realism

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because I loved Collin McRae Rally for PC. The scenarios are wonderfull, sometimes it seems like a movie, not CG. Unfortunatelly the driving miss realism. The car's damage simulation are fine but driving feels like the car is floating, it is very difficult to keep it on the road and light turns on the wheel makes the car slide like it was over ice. Compared to Forza Motorsport, Forza is much better in the driving simulation, even without a racing wheel controller you can feel more control over the car. I'd give it 10 for the graphics and car damage simulation but only 5 for the driving simulation.

Codemaster decides to make it USA friendly.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: July 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge fan of Colin McRae Rally games from Codemasters. It's the realism. the car handling, the feel of actually driving a rally car. Rally games really haven't penetrated the US market. Only a handful of American enthusiasts cling to this very European sport. I'm one of those Americans. With the release of DiRT, it's pretty obvious that Codemasters toned down the realism of car handling and made it into a very arcadey type of racing. Codemasters went as far as changing the driver and co-driver's voice to an American. No more hard Scottish accents in this game. Now, all you hear is some guy saying American expressions like "I'm stoked! "Awesome all the way!" This is so cool!". I got this feeling this guy was more into surfing and skateboarding than rally driving.

Handling: No realistic powerslides in this game. This is arcade driving all the way. Very easy to do drifting and pendulum turns along tight corners. Cars feel like they're floating on air, almost the car is skating on ice. Braking has been changed to arcade style braking. When you hit the brakes, the car stops like somebody threw a brick wall in front of you. Slight touches on the brakes will put the car to a complete halt. Very unrealistic. Very arcadey. You've been warned.

Graphics: Excellent graphics. No slow downs. Have several driving views. I'm glad they have the dashboard view and bonnet view. I use these views to make everything realistic. Nobody drives behind the car in real life right?

Gameplay: Tons of rally modes. This is a mish mash of different rallies. One minute you're driving a Lancer Evolution and then the next you're driving a MAN trailer truck (without the trailer). Brings some unique driving experiene. They even have the buggy rally. All in all, game can be beaten in a few days. AI not too smart. You can easily dominate them around the turns.

Conclusion: If you're out for a quick rally fix without the real bells and whistles then this game is for you. If you're after realism, wait for the next release. This will disappoint rally loyalists.

Get Dirty

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: June 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First I'll get the negative out of the way first. I was dissapointed in the online multiplayer mode. You only get to choose from 2 types of races, both are time trial events you play as a single car racing to beat the time of other online opponents conducting the same race. No multicar races. No voice chat either. That's basically it. It could have been alot better.

Now he positive... this is one of the best offroad games i've played period. The damage effects alone make this worth while to play but the whole career mode is just a blast to run though. There are 4 different types of circuit races. All look fantastic with realistic enviroments and car damage. I love the navigator that sits next to you, adds a whole new dimention to the gameplay. The variety in vehicles is great, no body cuomizing but it's not missed as the cars all look and perform great. All in all a fantastic game, a little more robust online would give this a 5 star.

Surpassed my expectations

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have driven over 900 miles in this game(More than enough to give a helpful review about it). I don't write reviews(This would be my first) but I felt compelled to write one simply for the amount of fun that you'll have playing this. From previous reviews you already get the idea that the majority have enjoyed playing it very much. I've have briefly played this game with the regular 360 controller which is fine and easy to get used to the controls. But, I highly recommend playing this with Logitech DriveFX Wheel and the Playseats Evolution Gaming Seat in the hood view or drivers view. This combination (if you can afford it) increases the fun factor tremendously. It can be a little frustrating when initially playing the game with the wheel but when you get used to the control(the wheel sensitivity can be adjusted in the game also), you don't want to go back to playing this with just the controller. When you get a chance to unlock the (Full) Pikes Peak Hill Climb(One of the last tiers) and purchase and drive the Celica GT 800hp+ 1100tq+ Monster, it is simply amazing! The speed with this car is ridiculously fast. Be prepared to reset after crashing often before getting the hang of it. (Note for all those with a lead foot). Braking/E-braking will be required! The graphics of course are beautiful. The sound effects really adds to the overall experience. (Unless you are just using TV speakers and not a 5.1 system) Game difficulty is selectable before each race so for beginners, selecting (Rookie) difficulty can allow you to get 1st place quite often which will allow you to unlock courses much faster. I tend to focus on Rally, Rallycross, Hill Climb races. A lot of the rally courses available have very technical sharp corners which can give you a good workout with the wheel. I had to put a fan next to my seat just to cool me off when I was racing. I did not intend to write this much about the game. The fun that you will have playing this will definitely make you want to add this to your collection. Go out and buy it already!

Dirt is awsome!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First off I have to say that I gave up on on PC games a long time ago, got tired of having to update the software and update my hardware just to make some of the newer stuff work, so I bought an XB360! And I have to tell you that Dirt is by far one of my most favorite games, the graphics are fantastic and the single player is very good.. I don't play online,no time, so stick to mostly single player games and Dirt was well worth the 60 bucks, it was a toss up Forza Motorsport or Dirt and after I played both Demo's Dirt won out!

DiRTy Racing. Arcade or simulation?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: July 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you ask me, DiRT is a mixture of both arcade and simulation. For traditional rally races, I would say they maintain a realistic level while the new race types added to this game come as arcade races. I guess these types of races and vehicle handling where created to attract the attention of new customers in the Colin Mcrae series. It's obvious that Codemasters wanted to change the game a bit since their old CMR series games didn't sell well on America. The first change they made was taking "Colin Mcrae" out of the title of the game in America (The European version of this game is called Colin Mcrae DiRT). I guess people who saw Colin Mcrae on the title knew all they would find in the game were solo point-to-point races which many people find boring. Personally, I think these types of races are the best ones (yes, I'm a rally fan).

The handling and driving in comparison to the old CMR games is different in DiRT, but not bad at all. In DiRT, the handling changes depending on the race type. In some it's realistic and in others it's more arcade. People seem to complaint that cars have a "floaty" feel to them and that they stick too much to the roads (Hey, that's what these Half a million dollar rally cars were designed to do), but in comparison to the old CMR series I think the "floaty" feel was significantly reduced.

As mentioned earlier, there are many race disciplines in Dirt: Rally(close to realistic driving), which you could say is the discipline where cars handle like the old CMR; Crossover(mixture of arcade and realistic driving, cars are glued to the ground here), which is derived from super special stages, Rallycross(close to arcade driving), where you race with other cars on closed circuits; Rally Raid(close to arcade driving), where you race other cars point-to-point, CoRR(close to arcade driving) and hill climb(close to realistic driving). These new disciplines are very fun and a nice addition, but I personally prefer the classic rally races, so to please everyone, there's career mode and there's championship mode. Championships are the ones every rally fan is going to. It's all about racing different Rallies, each one containing many stages (Just like WRC races). Career mode contains every type of event. It's career mode you have to play to unlock new cars and tracks.

On a plus side to simulation in DiRT, the damage on the cars can be very realistic (depending on the difficulty level) and there are lots of options for tuning and car setup which you can change to fit your driving style. Car setup is way more detailed than in old CMR games. What really bothered me was that there is no tire selection and races are also missing rain and snow (yeah it sucks, but hey, the game is called DiRT, not SnoW). Also, the times between drivers at the end of the race are more realistic (unlike old CMR series, where they all finish with a 0.1 second behind). Before, you were most likely to come in 1st place or last. Now, you'll find yourself in the middle of the leaderboard or competing in the top 5 plenty of times.

If you've played old CMR games, you'll definitely notice that the co-driver in DiRT tells you have of the track information than old CMR games. The Sound in Colin Mcrae is awesome, and so are the visuals. Crashes and car damage are extremely detailed. The special and lightning effects are awesome. Truly one of the best looking games on the XBOX360. There's a downside to it, sometimes you will experience heavy frame rate issues. The game practically stops for almost a second like if you were playing a new PC game on a very old computer. Frame rate issues are not that frequent and they usually happen when racing against other cars simultaneously. The frame rate issues also appear when using the chase cam views. I always prefer to play with an in- car view such as helmet cam and I have never experienced frame rate dropping this way. Another things that look amazing in DiRT are the replays. Too bad you can't save them (what's the hard drive for?)

One thing that was a disappointment for almost everyone is the multiplayer. There's not even a 2 player local multiplayer, just on system link or on Xbox live and although you are racing other players, you don't actually see them in you're screen. Here's how it works: Up to 100 players race simultaneously on a point-to point rally race and your current position is displayed for you to know how far you are from the leader. The player who finishes first wins. It's just a normal rally race but there's a little extra pressure since you'll know how close other player are to your tail and if they're catching up to you or you are continuously swapping positions with other players. Since I am a rally fan, I did enjoy this multiplayer, but I do admit there's allot missing (there's not even voice chat!!!).

Overall, I do like DiRT, allot actually. I recommend it to anybody who loves racing games. DiRT has a lot to offer and it is a beautiful game to watch. But beware old CMR fans; the game has changed to attract new customers. I still enjoy DiRT, but CMR2005 is one of the primary reasons I haven't sold my original XBOX yet.

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