DiRT 3

The series has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2007, that’s for sure. Originally donning the ‘Colin McRae’ title, DiRT 3 (hereafter referred to as Dirt 3) is the first instalment to completely stand alone from the late and great rally legend.

Dirt 3 leads the market in rally-based racing, with nearly no notable competitors, but the reason for this is possibly that while the game takes its appearance as a rally title, its gameplay caters to fans of just about everything to do with cars. Dirt 3 manages this with game mechanics that cater to both casual racing fans that just want to have a bit of fast-paced fun, and to the more hardcore crowd, allowing for some highly realistic and difficult rally racing. Difficulty and Assists can be tuned to your liking, from one extreme to another. Players can have auto braking, and even auto steering at one end of the spectrum while the added Hardcore Mode will challenge even the most seasoned racing enthusiasts’. Using this will limit you to the unbearably detailed Cockpit view and deactivate all assists, leaving you playing as close to the real thing as you will probably ever get. For skilled drivers playing on a great setup, this is a real rush and should definitely be given a shot if just to see how good of a driver you really are – or aren’t, as it may be.

Going it Alone
The Dirt Tour is the main single player mode for Dirt 3, just like the previous instalment, but what Dirt 3 delivers is a little under par from Dirt 2’s main component. The lacking in part comes from the completely redesigned style of the game in general. Dirt 2 was praised for its amazing design and stylish presentation, and this game good weight to how the single player mode was look at and played. But Dirt 3’s new, triangle-happy set up and design is much less of an eye pleasing display. It may sound like an insignificant thing, but the design reflects how races are given, played and looked at. This follows through with the car and livery selection too, which feels almost insignificant to gameplay this time around.

But once into the races, you can throw your worries out the window. From years of polishing and fine tuning, Dirt 3 delivers the finest racing the series has seen. Where absent from Dirt 2, this title features some much desired aspects in a rally game; snow, rain and night time racing. These environmental effects make for some very different and challenging racing physics that can help to change things up and keep the game feeling fresh, breathing new life and longevity into the title. Overall, the racing is fast, fun and full of excitement.

The More, the Merrier
New to the series is the brilliant addition of Split-Screen multiplayer, which I am a huge advocate for. You can play any races, with any settings. This mode gives huge replayability compared to just the online components, which are fiercely competitive, may I add.

The biggest slab of new content though, is the rather meaty Gymkhana mode. For those not in the know, Gymkhana is a motorsport that involves speed running generally chaotically complex courses. Dirt star and rally poster boy Ken Block is one of the premier Gymkhana racers in the world, and popularised the sport with his brilliant YouTube videos (see below). Ken features in Dirt 3 giving you the low down of Gymkhana. This play mode allows you to take on daring stunts, perfect you’re driving abilities and generally just have a blast. And given the new Drift events, this is the perfect place to get in some practice. Not to mention that whenever you pull of a great run or some epic fear defying moments, you can upload the replay straight to YouTube. This can be done with any of the games’ races in any mode. It’s a nice little additive that im sure won’t get used as much is it deserves to be, but as a whole, it’s a real shame you aren’t able to edit your clips or even save them to your Hard Drive. Some more polish in this aspect could have made a real game changer for this genre.

The Gymkhana mode can also be used to play a slew of new ‘Party’ modes. These are light-hearted takes on traditional multiplayer that allow you to play games like a vehicular version of Capture the Flag and most prominently, an almost Zombie-like game mode that has players playing a game of Tag, where one car must eventually Tag and ‘Infect’ teh other players who in turn can gang up on the remaining players. It’s a very different approach to traditional multiplayer in a racing game, but with up to 8 players, this can be highly enjoyable and a very good to way to ease of the highly competitive online racing of the game.

Anything but Dirty
Visually, Dirt 3 is stunning. Most racing games are, that’s a given, so it’s worth taking any praise with a pinch of salt. But honestly, Dirt 3 is a step ahead of the rest. The game features over 100 tracks to race on, and each have been painstakingly crafted to perfection. The amount of environmental detail is amazing, and the effects that come from the abundance of dirt, snow and water are all of the utmost quality. And in a game named Dirt, you just know there is gonna be a lot of it, so it had better look the good. Well, as good as dirt is able to look anyway.

Car models and their accompanying liveries are beautiful too. I almost hate the fact that you are forced to have a ton of advertisements cover your vehicle, as it takes away a certain amount of the beauty in the detail of the cars, but it’s forgivable.

The cars don’t just look good though, they also bring the grunt to back themselves up. With roaring engine sounds that pretty much outweigh every other sound in the game, racing has never sounded so good. The soundtrack this time is pretty dodgy though, so come prepared with a pre loaded soundtrack of your favourite racing songs and the chemistry between whatever you choose and the force of Dirt 3’s cars is unmatched.

When the Dirt has Settled
At the end of the day, Codemasters latest, Dirt 3, won’t fail to impress. It tries to cater to everyone, from the hardcore racers to the arcade casual fans, with highly customisable racing options and such game mechanics that ring echoes of the classic ‘Easy to pick up, hard to master’ gaming mechanics. And for the most part, I think it genuinely succeeds in having something for everyone, and that little bit extra.

Written by: John Elliott

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