Dirt 2 is the latest in the Dirt franchise from Codemasters. It’s also known as Colin McRae’s Dirt 2 in Europe and this is the first Colin McRae game since his death in a helicopter crash in 2007. They had some big expectations to meet using the name of who was probably the most well-known rally driver worldwide. Did Codemasters succeed?
YAY:
- The characters in Dirt 2 with you are great. All the drivers that you can team up with and become your ‘friends’ add to the experience. When you win races they congratulate you and when you lose a race they console you. They will also often times talk to you during a race. Sometimes it’s trash talk or a warning to stay away, but they will also let you know when you’re owning them.
- The music in the game is quite good. I’m not going to say really good, because there’s some questionable stuff on the soundtrack, but when you get Queens of the Stone Age, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Eagles of Death Metal, Unkle, The Walkmen, and The Stone Roses you’re doing a pretty good job.
- Accessibility is a key feature of Dirt 2. It has five difficulty levels and they’ve added the flashback feature from Grid, allowing more people to successfully play the game.
- The game looks great. The first time I saw the intro before the start screen I thought it was a video of Ken Block’s car…that’s not a video right? The replays look very good as well and are really fun to watch. With the way the game looks and with the music being good I think I watched the entire replay of my first 30 races.
- I was going to just go on about how addictive and fun I think the racing can be in Dirt 2, but I think I can sum it up in one sentence. I finished this game to 100% completion in four days. There are 100 events too, not just races, events. Some of them consist of three to even five races.
NAY:
- The online experience can be a bit of a bummer. I’m not down on the games whole online experience, and this may go for most racing games, but if you want to win a lot of races you’re going to have to learn how to tune your car’s performance and drive defensively until you’ve secured a lead. I participated in an online race with a bunch of people and during a long straight-away at the start I was passed by people driving the same car I was driving. I don’t know if they tuned their cars or were using manual transmission, but it made me think I would have to get way more serious about it if I wanted to win a lot online. In a rally cross race I took part in, after the first 50 feet everyone seemed to be in a giant pile-up, and another car hit my car from the side. It seemed like they did it on purpose so as they straightened their car my car would be sideways and blocking some other drivers; I ended up at the back of the pack after that.
Dirt 2 is a fantastic and addictive racing game. And despite not playing NFS:Shift yet and with Forza Motorsport 3 releasing at the end of the month, I feel confident in saying Dirt 2 is the best racing game of 2009, so far. If you’re a racing game fan, a fan of rally, or action sports in general you owe it to yourself to give Dirt 2 a shot.
