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We take Codemasters' off-road racing game out for a spin...
It's the handling, you see. When you turn off all the driver assists, it's as though you can feel every bump in the road, every wheel spin and juddering undulation as your tyres spew plumes of dust into the fading Nairobi twilight. You need a subtle touch; the controls are responsive - twitchy even - and you're constantly teetering on the brink of a precipitous descent into the parched ravine below, but it never feels unfair; you're in control, at one with the DiRT beneath your wheels.
Of course, you can turn on the assists if you like - and to begin with, you'll almost certainly need to. Thoughtfully, Codemasters has included presets for beginner, intermediate, and advanced drivers, and it's possible to tinker with individual parameters to create your own custom setup, fine-tuned to your specific skill level. However, you're never quite as close to the track as you are when driving unassisted; that's not to say it isn't still enjoyable, just different: like cycling with training wheels on at the beginner settings, or with a tentative paternal hand on the bars at intermediate.
Colin McRae is gone; dropped from the title for the first time in the 13-year history of the franchise, but so is the brash 'street' focus of the previous game, the garish 'extreeeem' branding and events scaled back in favour of a welcome re-focus on Rallying. There are 32 Rally tracks in DiRT 3 in addition to 6 Head-To-Head tracks, and a solid 60% of the career mode is comprised of Rally events. The series' superlative damage modelling returns in the new game, with bumpers flying off and wing-mirrors cracking as you smash against course boundaries. There's none of the curiously sterile aesthetic that other racing games have been criticised for – DiRT's tracks live up to their name: the Nairobi hillside that we raced through was all billowing dust clouds and tyre marks as we skidded around its winding, craggy track.
New to the series are Gymkhana courses - open arenas, littered with obstacles and designed for street stunts and trick-runs. The Battersea Power Station compound features as your base in DiRT 3, and is broken up into three distinct sections, each with its own particular configuration of ramps to jump over and lampposts to donut round; structured 'street-skating' and trick-run events occur in these arenas in the course of the career mode, but it's also possible to drive around in an unstructured 'free-ride' mode, collecting hidden packages and completing ambient objectives - such as skidding all the way around a parked JCV, or slaloming through a series of equidistant lampposts. The developers are keen to find a balance between the tone of the last two games and appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and these 
new courses - inspired by the popular Youtube performances of Rally driver Ken Block (who lends his voice to the game as a career advisor) - serve to broaden its mainstream cachet. Completing the more challenging technical tricks in these stages is intimidating at first, but a 'trickster' assist can be enabled which helps to pull you into a steady orbit while circling the many props that litter each stage; the effect seems fairly natural and unobtrusive – as though you've magically become a slightly better driver.
Based on our brief play-through, the free-ride mode appears to have limited appeal, devoid of the tight lines and focus of the race tracks, and without the necessary scale or course complexity that would encourage genuine exploration. Nevertheless, the structured career events which make use of the compound might well prove more engaging, and free-ride mode is only one of the many ways to experience these new Gymkhana stages.
In addition to the expected complement of multiplayer rally racing and Gymkhana events in DiRT 3, Codemasters has included a number of inventive 8-player Party Modes; set in the open Gymkhana arenas, the Party Modes act somewhat like the racing-game equivalent of multiplayer deathmatch. Invasion has you knocking over cardboard cut-out robots while avoiding 2D skyscrapers; the mode is rife with opportunities for subterfuge, nudging rivals away from robots and into skyscrapers at the last possible moment to steal the points for yourself. Transporter is a capture the flag mode; collisions between cars transfer the flag, and the first to transport it to base gains a point. It's not uncommon to see packs of cars desperately chasing the flag-holder, and frantic pile-ups occur frequently. The flags and bases switch around between points, so tactical map play (sneaking away from the pack) can sometimes prove to be a shrewd strategy. Finally there's Outbreak: an infection mode in which one randomly selected player tries to spread a virus by crashing into other cars; once infected, a green haze descends over your screen, and the remaining targets are marked with red triangles for easy identification.
At a time when multiplayer is increasingly relegated to the online space, it's heartening to see Codemasters introduce split-screen multiplayer across the competitive modes in DiRT 3. As other developers rush to milk the multiplayer cash cow, it seems many overlook the fact that the most financially successful proponent of the craze - Call of Duty - always includes a robust split-screen multiplayer option.
With a range of cars spanning from '60s classics to cutting edge Rally cars, refined core mechanics, and a suite of new multiplayer modes, DiRT 3 might well prove to be th
e most accomplished entry in the series yet. New weather tech (lifted from the F1 series) introduces rain effects to races, and snow and ice stages - featuring deformable tracks - have also been implemented for the first time in the franchise. The renewed focus on rallying is a welcome change of emphasis from the previous game, although it's as yet unclear whether the new Gymkhana events will ultimately prove as compelling as the core off-road racing experience.
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Game Information
Available On:
PC, 360, PS3
| Release Date: | Players: |
|---|---|
| Out Now | |
| Publisher: | Genre: |
| Codemasters | Racing |
| Developer: | PEGi Rating: |
| Codemasters | 12 |
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Added:Mon 30th May 2011 00:38, Post No: 6
"if you dissagree with a review thats upto you as its just a review not your personal opinion" your free to make your own choice weather you like the game or not.
Added:Mon 30th May 2011 00:36, Post No: 5
the only person needing to get over them self is post 4 who obviously doesnt understand how a review works, the person reviewing the game gives their own personal opinion about the game within the review and as they review lots of games ect they have a much clearer understanding about the ins and outs of said game, if you dissagree with a review thats upto you as its just a review not your own personal opinion.
Added:Thu 26th May 2011 22:12, Post No: 4
This review is so pretentious it hurts. Get over yourselves.
Added:Thu 26th May 2011 10:41, Post No: 3
@Post 2: Good point. Looking on the bright side though, everything is supposed to be back up on PSN by the end of this month, so hopefully the PS Store will be sorted very shortly.
Added:Wed 25th May 2011 20:32, Post No: 2
must be nice you know playing online an all but for people like me who got dirt 3 for the ps3 wtf were codemasters thinking, an online access code so you can play online, well thanks a bunch sony and codemasters (sony for shutting down the ps store and codemasters for copying EA's bulls**t online access codes).
Added:Wed 25th May 2011 20:05, Post No: 1
good stuff! once i have finished most of my back catalog of games id be on ken's block! ;)