DiRT

Fast and Loose

The unlockable events, purchasable cars with tunable elements and five difficulty levels might make DiRT seem as approachable as any other racer, but the truth is that off-road isn't for everybody. Control freaks obsessed with shaving milliseconds off their best asphalt times may find the realistic but unpredictable chaos of more natural terrain maddening. Drivers will find the enveloping sense of teetering on the edge of being completely out of control either intoxicating or frustrating, though this is more a factor of personality than technical prowess.

Weighty big rigs feel a bit too floaty to be realistic, and the performance differences between the cars in each vehicle class seem thin, though pickups, rally sleds, and dune buggies all handle with persuasive punch. The high octane illusion is damaged by driving smoothly over what look like dried mud ridges, and being occasionally unceremoniously reset on the track because you cut a sharp turn by a couple of feet or went a few yards too far off the side of the track, but these issues are just uncommon enough to be tolerable.

Alone in a Crowded Room

What isn't tolerable, on the other hand, is DiRT's bizarre lack of decent multiplayer. Though every single race in the solo game ends with a time posting to the Xbox Live leaderboards, actual online racing is limited to rally and hill climb events that put only one car on the track at a time. Who cares that you can pit fully 100 players against one another when your only interaction is lobby voting on a small handful of car/track combinations, voice chat, and a final time posting? With games like Forza Motorsport 2 pushing the boundaries of Internet racing, the inability to put even two human opponents on the same track is breathtakingly lame.

It's testament then to DiRT's groundbreaking graphics, chaotic flare, and infectious love of all things dirty and damaging that it delivers a good gaming value in spite of such a startling deficit. It won't ever be the only game in a speed freak's collection, but it almost certainly deserves a spot there all the same.

PROS: Fantastic dirt-churning graphics, good handling simulation, adequate variety of race types, cars, and surfaces.
CONS: Hopelessly inadequate multiplayer options, some irritating boundary reset issues, big rigs don't feel right.

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment