Home Gaming DiRT Rally is a return to form for Codemasters

DiRT Rally is a return to form for Codemasters

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It’s been a while since there’s been a rally, rally good Rally game. Developer Milestone has put out some mostly middling software, while the pre-eminent rally game developer, Codemasters, seems to have gone off on a bit of a development tangent. Their last Rally game, DiRT Showdown, focused a little more on flash than being a proper Rally game.

Last year an early access of their latest Rally racer, DiRT Rally, hit Steam – and was met with pretty positive critical and fan reception. It’s now out on consoles, and according to those who’ve played it, it’s a fine return to form for Codemasters, and arguably the best Rally game in a decade.

Here’s what critics have to say:

Godisageek – 9/10

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DiRT Rally delivers a stunning performance on console, offering a difficult but rewarding experience which cements it as one of the best rally simulators available.

Push Square – 9/10

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DiRT Rally is the purest and most visceral rally game in a long, long time: it’s a constant knife edge experience of risk and reward, trial and error, concentration and sweet, sweet progress. This simulation comes highly recommended to both rally and racing fans everywhere.

Videogamer – 8/10

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DiRT Rally, then, isn’t a true successor to the DiRT series you might know and love, but it’s a better rally experience if you’re willing to put in the work. Tweaking the assists makes the game manageable, but getting properly good will take a lot of time and solid concentration. If you generally spend your time in cars shouting out the difficulty of oncoming corners, give DiRT Rally a go.

Xbox Achievements – 9/10

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Immensely challenging and demanding, DiRT Rally is a welcome return to the series’ rallying roots, all but dispensing with every one of the ‘extreme’ components that crept into the franchise since DiRT 2. The overall result is a more restrained affair, but one that’s a pure and unadulterated rally racer that not only looks utterly fantastic, but also succeeds in providing an uncompromising rallying experience. Just don’t expect an easy ride. It’s bloody hard, but oh-so rewarding.

If you’ve been wanting something to scratch that Rally Urge – and you aren’t afraid of really getting stuck in – then this could be just what you’re looking for.

Last Updated: April 6, 2016

20 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief in New York

    April 6, 2016 at 14:10

    YASSS CHECK DAAI MINI SE WIELE PAPPIE

    Reply

    • Thys Ventura aka Spathi

      April 6, 2016 at 14:21

      Tekkies, nie wiele nie!

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief in New York

        April 6, 2016 at 14:40

        Sorry, I’m not hip to zef slang

        Reply

        • Left4Dead

          April 6, 2016 at 14:46

          Check daai lekker kazoentjies!

          Reply

  2. Captain JJ the Isolated

    April 6, 2016 at 14:37

    I’m so glad Codemasters is finally back on form. They seriously lost their focus when they brought out GRID2.
    Looking forward to getting this.

    Reply

    • Darren Peach

      April 6, 2016 at 15:00

      No interior was a cardinal sin.

      Reply

  3. Greylingad[CNFRMD]

    April 6, 2016 at 14:40

    From the PC version, if you attempt to play the game without any assists, whether that be with or without a steering wheel, you will get a very good rally experience out of this, where a good rally experience is defined by crash after crash, after crash, after crash, after crash and eventually rage quitting by kicking your desk until you break three of your eleven toes, avoid seeing a doctor, wrap said toes with a face cloth and fire up the game again….only to crash again and again and again…Rage quitting again, enrolling for a proper race course and then finishing the game…

    Reply

    • Darren Peach

      April 6, 2016 at 14:57

      Sounds like Dark Souls, How do you play Racing Games ? 😉

      Reply

      • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

        April 6, 2016 at 15:06

        I try to stick to simulation realism and at full throttle speeds, I don’t like finishing 10 seconds behind my opponents, so I usually end the race without a wheel or with a gearbox that only has two gears left with a 0.0017 second lead….

        Reply

  4. Darren Peach

    April 6, 2016 at 14:54

    Rally games are cool but actually paying for one is not so cool. Kinda like F1 games. When Forza and GT afford you so much variety in terms of cars and tracks, You can’t help the feeling that you are being robbed.

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      April 6, 2016 at 15:15

      Well, to give you an idea of what this game consists of, you have Rally Cross, which is a multiple opponent discipline, you have normal stage rallies and then you have some hillclimb events, now each event can take place on a different track, where with something like GT you had a few rally courses that weren’t all that great, this game makes full use of sim quality racing, the tar stages are especially hard as you’ll swing around a corner and end up flooring the throttle a little too much, causing the car to over steer and helping you to a hand of your car in the ditches accompanied by lots of swearing, where racing sims like GT have their finer detail track racing where finesse is king, this makes you push to become a better driver around every single corner, especially when those corners are unfamiliar and show the remnants of many accidents before yours’.

      Reply

      • Darren Peach

        April 6, 2016 at 15:24

        Yeah, Always been a fan of Rally games but they kind of lost their appeal when the whole X games thing starting influencing them. Maybe it’s time to try one out again.

        Reply

        • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

          April 6, 2016 at 15:29

          What is cool about this one, is that they stripped it down completely, you have the classic races, the classic hillclimbs, even the cars date back to the 60s amateurs, but that’s not all, if you want to, you can do the rally cross stuff, which is not needed, I lost hours in the normal stages, but they’ve included almost every car generally used for rallies from the 60s all the way to the Super classes even through to todays’ 600bhp hillclimbers, just a word of warning though, if you are planning on driving one of those beasts, start of slowly and work your way up, otherwise you will get frustrated…

          Reply

          • Darren Peach

            April 6, 2016 at 15:31

            I must admit, One of my favorite events in Forza are the time trials in the older cars.

          • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

            April 6, 2016 at 15:32

            Hehehe, time trials are always fun! especially if you end up chasing your ghost car wondering how exactly you got to drive as fast as you did…

          • Darren Peach

            April 6, 2016 at 15:59

            I normally race against the best times set in our region on Forza 6. Been some time since I logged into my Xbox one, But I was doing fairly well against our local crop (Saffa’s).

          • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

            April 6, 2016 at 17:20

            Awesome man!! I have a friend with an xbox, I’ll give it a go at some point,pretty sure I’ll make the “crashed the vehicle into extinction” crop,but I have to give it a go!

  5. Jason Hair

    April 6, 2016 at 17:10

    Just 6 Rally Cross tracks online and you can’t race stages against your friends on multiplayer. I played 6 rally cross tracks for 1 day and then got bored. I am selling dirt rally because it has no replay value on multiplayer. Worst multiplayer game ever.

    Reply

  6. Acornbread

    April 6, 2016 at 22:35

    I’m glad it’s finally out on console so more people can experience it. For any racing fans on the fence about this, it’s a fantastic experience. It was great on Early Access and it’s gotten progressively better. The satisfaction of learning how to drive well is euphoric. Moreover, with a wheel and no assists, it can be terrifying. When did you last play a scary racing sim? Exactly.

    Reply

  7. Gr8_Balls_o_Fire

    April 7, 2016 at 13:14

    Win!

    Reply

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