DiRT 4 Review

DiRT 4 is a spectacular game that offers something for anyone even the remotest bit interested in off-road racing, has brilliant presentation to boot.

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The Real McRae?

The DiRT series of games, and the Colin McRae games which preceded them, have been some of my favourite racing games of the last two decades. But after a 6 year absence from numbered games, has the DiRT series run out of fuel?

Story:

I’ve moaned time and time again that the official WRC games fail to convey the sense that you’re actually building up a career. I started to wonder whether it was just me being old and grumpy that purely my own personal expectations weren’t being met. But no, I was right. DiRT 4 is a perfect example of how to make people engage with a career mode in a racing game, even if you remain a faceless driver, and there’s no cutscenes to celebrate your rise through the ranks.

DiRT 4 may not be showy, but the level of detail and choice that it offers you as you build your own team is simply staggering. It’s really, really engaging and massively encouraged me to play more.

Gameplay:

Even if the career mode wasn’t sufficient, DiRT 4 also offers more to do, from a comprehensive tutorial mode, with 24 different lessons to help you get up to speed, to some quick-fire arcade events with medals to earn. The career mode itself is huge though, with 4 main disciplines: Rally, Historic Rally, Landrush and Rallycross. Each has a number of championships, and you’ll be looking at well in excess of 20 hours to complete them all. If you do somehow get bored, the game effectively features an infinite amount of tracks to challenge yourself on, through a track builder available to use with 5 of the game’s environments.

Playing the game is just as comprehensive as the amount of content on offer. There’s two main handling modes on offer, gamer and simulation, but an enormous amount of tweaking can be done to either to customise your difficulty and experience to meet your own needs. Much like Forza though, higher difficulty levels equate to higher rewards, here in the form of reputation, which is like a currency used to unlock additional team facilities and benefits to help you on your way to the top.

The game mode I found to be a little bit basic, although it is certainly accessible. Simulation effectively makes the game almost as hardcore as last year’s Dirt Rally, especially when all the aids are turned off. I mainly play this type of game from a cockpit view, with a race wheel, and DiRT 4 certainly doesn’t disappoint from this perspective. The handling model is nuanced and realistic, whilst driving from the driver’s field of view is fast and thrilling stuff.

Good

  • Track creator
  • Great presentation
  • Career mode

Bad

  • No rewind function
  • Not all multiplayer modes work well
9

Amazing

Story - 8.5
Graphics - 9.5
Sound - 9.5
Gameplay - 9
Multiplayer - 8.5
Value - 9
Editor - Reviewer GamerKnights

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