DiRT Rally Review

Dirt Rally doesn’t pull its punches with an unforgiving rally sim the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while.

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Shock to the System:

I may not have done my due diligence when it came to researching Dirt Rally. Inspired by thoughts of Sega Rally and its arcadey ilk, I jumped at the chance to play a new title like those venerated classics, especially from the consistently excellent Dirt series. So when I booted it up and found it their most accurate racing sim yet, I was shocked.

Story:

Despite this initial shock to the system, I fell for Dirt Rally pretty quickly. Its smart career mode is evidently the result of a successful early access relationship with fans. It’s a curated mode that plays much more like Forza and its sleek peers than Dirt’s usual (and somewhat bland) campaign offerings, and I was thrilled to see smart design decisions worked into each wildly different tournament.

Gameplay:

What I wasn’t as thrilled with was lack of a tutorial, at least as far as I could tell. I was thrown into the very challenging simulation racing with nary a hint at what was to come. I’ll admit I struggled with Dirt Rally for a long time before I began getting into the (literal) swing of things.

But what a swing it is when you crack it. Careening through Dirt’s variety of courses is great fun when you get it right, especially when you whip your tail out and perform a perfect drift around a challenging bend. This is the kind of technique I would have loved to learn in a simple little introduction stage – preferably with some orange cones – but instead Dirt Rally really fluffs the progression. Instead of the safety of cones we start with a course that, a few corners in, has a precarious precipice that can threaten to wreck your car before you’ve even figured out all the buttons. Worse still, Dirt has forgone the smart rewind feature that can act as an on-the-job learning tool in other racing games (and even previous Dirt titles). It was probably my fourth attempt that I finally perfected that corner (three smoking wreckages later) and I sailed around the bend as my spoiler hung over infinite nothingness – and it was a great feeling – but it’s going to be an achievement you really have to work for.

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Dirt Rally carries this unforgiving nature throughout its entire being. The damage you inflict upon your car is permanent throughout a tournament, so if you really screw up a track you’re going to suffer for those mistakes until the end of the event. Dirt Rally may be my first racing roguelike. This swings both ways, however, and gives the player a great sense of accomplishment if they ever nail a set of tracks and come out on top. Whether you’re slamming your car through muddy clifffaces or winding up European cities the game seems to know just when to mix things up and push you that little bit further. I could have done with a few less sheer drops off the edges of the hardest corners, but for the most part I was able to climb the rankings throughout my time in the tournaments. Still, a softer touch would have been appreciated for this particular amateur racer.

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Indeed, gearheads and sim-fans rejoice, this is a game tailored specifically for you. Whilst I miss the concessions recent racing games have made I’m sure there are plenty of players out there who have felt the genre has become watered down in the last decade, so you’ll be thrilled to know this game pushes you from the get go. If you want to claim a place on the podium, smart racing, careful turns and constant momentum are a must throughout an entire event. Fine tuning your car is vital, listening to your assistant (who delivers a very thorough blow by blow of every track as you race through it) is arguably even more important, and mastering the handbrake hairpin is absolutely key to taking pole position. Not falling off a cliff and totally wrecking your ride is pretty helpful too.

Presentation:

I only managed to play Dirt Rally on my own (relatively humble) rig, but I could tell from this that Dirt Rally is very well optimised. I was able to maintain a solid 60FPS and High graphics settings and the numbers only dipped to 57 or so when I belted out the game’s very good looking Ultra. Sticking with the latter, Dirt Rally really sung. Sure, it doesn’t bleed pearlescent style and vibrant colour like its console racing peers, but it instead goes for an earthy reproduction of some really slick tracks and looks great because of it. Cars crumple and ding realistically (and easily), windscreens crack, tires blow out and engines fail, letting you know you’ve done a terrible job. Dirt Rally is a more grounded racing game, as sim-like in its presentation as it is its gameplay, and I dug the overall look.

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It also sounds the part, too. The bland music between courses didn’t do anything for me, but the snarling growls and errant pops of early-game engines really place you in the moment. The sound is a hugely visceral part of the game. As a side note, my assistant driver was a sea of calm throughout our tragic adventures. Even when I was sailing off a cliff after a particularly egregious error in corner calculation, he serenely informed me of an upcoming turn – you know, should I have been on the track. After a bone shattering collision with a (surprisingly sturdy) railing, nearly killing a couple of cameramen, he let me know, with the grace of a debutante, that the crumpled car we were sitting in felt ‘a bit off’.

 

Conclusion:

DiRT Rally isn’t for everyone. If you’ve read this review you’ll already know whether it’s for you. If you’re into the kind of racing game that feels more akin to Dark Souls then Burnout, you’re going to love Dirt Rally and all the customizable challenge it offers. It’s a spectacular redesign on a series we thought we’d figured out, and it’s a really exciting rebirth of a school of racing we don’t see much anymore. A smoother introduction to it all would have made for a much more enjoyable approach for newcomers, but other than a rocky start Dirt Rally really purrs after a few hours with it, and continues to do so for the rest of its satisfyingly tricky campaign.

Good

  • Excellent and challenging racing sim
  • Career progression is smart

Bad

  • No tutorial and early difficulty spikes
  • A bit too unforgiving at times
8.4

Great

Story - 8
Graphics - 8.5
Sound - 8.5
Gameplay - 8.5
Value - 8.5
Reviewer - GamerKnights

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