Dirt 2 - Inital Impression

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

After much suspense and guessing on my part, it turns out that a relative gave me Dirt 2 as a holiday gift (the other option was Empire: Total War). It should be noted that, for her, the deciding factor was the box art; she said, "the game with the car on the front looked more fun than the game with the man wearing a funny hat and tights and holding a gun."

 

"My bollocks are burning! This is NOT fun!"

 

As luck would have it, it seems that Codemasters knows a thing or two about making a decent racing game, as those of us who have played Grid can attest. More specifically, once you've gone through the headache of installing the game and getting it configured correctly, the part where you get to drive vehicles is quite enjoyable. Anything else in between, however, is a pain in the arse.

 

The menu system is one of the most unintuitive monstrosities I've encountered, and you can't even access it until you've gone through the tedious introduction videos and advice from your friends and have run your first race. I had to run that race using only the keyboard for control, at a low video resolution and with an incorrect aspect ratio before I could get to the point where I could change various settings and configure the game to recognize my racing wheel. And for a single player game, you can't even create a unique profile name; you will simply be known as "Player One". Lovely.

 

As with Grid and the original Dirt, there is no mouse support; all menu navigation and setting changes are accomplished via keyboard input. For those using a gamepad to control the game, this is perhaps a minor annoyance, but as I have my keyboard pushed aside at an odd angle to allow the use of my racing wheel, the issue is rather troublesome.

 

There are other issues with the non-racing parts of the game, but all of these issues are balanced out by the enjoyable and varied types of races. The game in not strictly about rally racing, so those looking for a more "pure" rally experience might be put off a bit. The physics model seems to be quite good, damage modeling looks terrific, and the overall look of the game is rather splendid. The feel of the game seems to lean more towards an arcade-style experience as opposed to a simulation, which is understandable when you consider that Codemasters is probably going to make most of their money from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

 

Later in the week, I'll post some footage on YouTube. All in all, if you don't mind traversing a labyrinth of menus, cutscenes and inane dialog to get to the good bits, I'd recommend the game to racing fans.

Edited December 28, 2009 by Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~