DiRT Rally Early Access Preview
Somewhere along the way, after the untimely demise of British rallying legend, Colin McRae, the DiRT series pretty much lost its way, culminating in the fun, but completely off-topic DiRT Showdown, which neither sold well nor painted the series in a serious light. Somehow, the series which started out as a simulation (or as much as one as the PS1 could muster) had become Destruction Derby. Thankfully, Codemasters have gone completely back to basics for the (surprise) PC release of DiRT Rally. I understand that some people feel that DiRT 2 was the high point of the whole Colin McRae series, with a fine mix of point-to-point rallying, arcade and simulation handling and competitive racing, along with the now-familiar rewind feature. However, the core fans of the series have always been the fans of actual rallying, and thus the game has gone back to basics, with a new graphics engine, a new physics and handling model, and a determined focus on point-to-point racing.
Dirt Rally may be ‘early access’, but the game isn’t particularly thin on the ground when it comes to content. There’s 36 stages at the minute, and 17 cars from a host of different rallying eras, from the Mini Coopers of the 1960s to Group B monsters from the 1980s. The handling model, whilst not as brutal as cult-classic Richard Burns Rally (which some insist is harder than driving an actual rally car), is edgy and nervous, requiring finesse to guide your car through the twists and turns. Really nailing a section is incredibly satisfying, as you pull off Scandinavian flicks and handbrake turns whilst your co-driver yells instructions at you. You can tell the difference compared to previous iterations, with the cars being twitchier, but especially in rear-wheeled drive cars, the pay-off is enormous, as drifting and other more advanced techniques can now be pulled off properly. There’s also more feel and feedback to the controls, with more of a handling difference between the differing road surfaces helping to guide how much power you can put down.
A new lick of paint also doesn’t help. On our decent office PC (i7 and GTX880 laptop) we could run the game at a steady 50 frames per second refresh, whilst having all the settings maxed and a 1080p resolution. And it’s a fine looking game too, with much more detail to the textures and road surfaces noticeable. If you do have a nVidia laptop though, note that you can’t run the game full-screen at this time, which is an annoying bug that continues to feature in many Codemasters games at launch.
The career mode is a little light at the minute, starting you out with enough cash to get a car from the 60’s then letting you move up through the ranks by earning money from placing well in 4 stage events with a chance to repair damage half-way through. Still, whilst it lacks the epic scale and storyline of DiRT 2, there’s still plenty to do. There’s the promise of significant updates though, with a release due at the end of May which will bring, amongst other things, the notorious Pike’s Peak course, which should be a blast with the 500HP Group B cars. And if the prospect of working your way up the ranks sounds dull, there’s always multiplayer (which is just head-to-head time trials at the moment against ghost cars) or free races where you can choose from any of the currently available cars and tracks.
As a game to play for hours on end, Dirt Rally does feel a little bit unfinished. The career definitely needs some work. But as a foundation to build upon, Codemasters have come up trumps and delivered a game that improves upon past iterations in all respects. The graphics, handling and simulation chops have been massively upgraded, and I’m genuinely excited to see what updates are in store. Whilst the finished product will be coming to consoles, the price on PC will only rise before the game is released, so I’d still wholeheartedly recommend jumping in now.
We’ll certainly be continuing to keep our eyes out on this game, and reporting back and providing a full review in due course.
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