Dirt 3 Review
Online, May 22, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Writing DiRT 3's review has been one of the biggest challenges of my rather short game reviewer career. Not because the game is bad or uninteresting, but first because I have already written much about it in our preview, but also because I didn't find a lot of negative things to say about it. I've searched and searched, but really couldn't find much. It's been a challenge to find enough to write to keep you occupied a few minutes reading this review, but thankfully you'll also have quite a few videos to pass the time too.
No severe sequels
Let's start with the obvious: DiRT 3 is Dirt 2's sequel. Dirt 2 had tried real hard to please American gamers, usually not so interested in Rally racing, by releasing a great game presented in a X-Games-ish wrapper -- a rather nauseating one for us Europeans. Codemasters thankfully forgot all about that ambition and delivered a game where most of the time is spent in beautiful races against the clock, and where menus are now actual menus (but classy ones, as is now the norm with Codemasters) instead of a trailer parked in the middle of a noisy crowd. And the cherry on top of the cake is that the incredibly annoying comments of the other racers during races are now gone too.
So what about the game itself? There is of course a quick race mode where the player can select any type of gameplay and track and just go race against the online leaderboards, but the meat of the game is the career mode, as expected. One season is available right from the start, with three more to unlock by finishing the previous one. Each season is composed at first of two championships, with one more to unlock, and a last one to finish the season with something a bit different. Each event in a championship is freely available (unless still locked), and the player earns points by finishing on the podium. These points are used to unlock more events in the championship, and also to unlock the third and fourth ones in that season. Another set of points increases the player notoriety and unlocks new cars and liveries. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it works very well.
There's no blocking us
There are many types of events, as expected. I'm sure purists would have loved that this game only featured Rally races, but everything else is very accessible. Let's start with the Rally events, with races against the clock with a copilot announcing the next corners and multiple stages (their number increases with the seasons). The Trailblazer mode is mostly the same thing, but with much more powerful cars and no copilot. Quite the adrenalin rush! Good news for Rally racers, these two modes are the ones where most of the in-game time will be spent. Let's continue with the Rallycross and Landrush events, fun but not so original races for 8 cars or trucks. More in the Rally spirit, Head to Head events are races between two cars on a single track composed of two crossing lanes. Last but not least, the special events, like drifting, and most importantly Gymkhana.
Multiple pleasures
I couldn't try the online races since I was playing on a debug console, but I still got to play the split-screen mode with our good friend BombStrike (who is actually the one playing in all our videos). This mode is limited to two players, but looks very close to the single player. The most obvious differences are the lack of a cockpit view, no reflections on the cars and some slight pop-in of the vegetation. It's quite impressive to see such a good looking single player game still showing most of its beauty with a split screen view. A lot of racing options are available during the creation of the event; most importantly it's possible to either all start at the same time (6 AI are possible) and have collisions disabled, or do a staggered start and have collisions enabled. Other classic events are of course also available, like Rallycross, Landrush and Head to Head. A very well done mode, for sure.
Conclusion
DiRT 3 is an excellent game, and Codemasters should be commended for not just doing yet another sequel with no real additions when they are basically the only ones still releasing Rally titles. Unless you are completely uninterested in this nice racing style, DiRT 3 is a title that should find a place of choice in your collection.