Dirt Rally (4)

As a spectator sport, watching a rally is kind of stupid. You’re standing on the side of a random road, waiting for a chance to see one of your heroes blitz past you with several hundred horses under their hood that has enough force to turn mud into deadly shrapnel as they take a corner. Sort of like a lethal autograph from your automobile hero then. Stupid, but insanely fun as well in a manner that catapults the sheer illogic nature of being a spectator into a herd of cows on the other side of the track.

And what more could you ask for, from a rally game? Thing is, rally games died out several years ago. Gone were the precise point to point races, replaced instead by the roaring thunder of cars doing fancy tricks and power-sliding like there’s no tomorrow as various energy drink companies plastered their garish logos over everything.

D Rally (5)

It didn’t help either, that the only official games of the last couple of years, have been five games of mediocrity and half-arsed attempts to translate the sport onto a digital medium. Yes, I’m looking at you WRC game series. Get back in your hole. And now there’s DiRT Rally. It’s a back to basics approach with a take-no prisoners attitude that will caution you to avoid cutting but ask you to be brave when going through a corner.

And sweet Colin McRae, it’s what I’ve been after for so many years ever since I took a muddy corner during the golden age of rally games.

Dirt Rally (5)

On the surface, DiRT Rally has plenty in its console port. when you’re looking for checklist of features. Plenty of cars, varied tracks, terrain that impacts your handling, traditional point to point races, Hillclimb and Rallycross events. All there, well and fine. Anyone can rattle off those features to you and call it a day. But here’s the thing: DiRT RALLY has what I like to call “the zone”.

Dirt-Rally-(1)

It’s something that the best racing games can achieve. It’s this state of concentration, where mind, body, soul and controller become one. It’s a focused moment where your unblinking face is firmly attached to your TV as you flick your thumbs in perfect harmony to nail a corner with the precise amount of speed and control. When you’re an unresponsive organism who is deadset on getting past the split time in a section and earning enough points to be the champ.

D Rally (3)

That is “the zone”. And it’s something that DiRT Rally has in spades.

What rally games of the past have absolutely failed to do over two console generations, is to capture that feeling of joy and precision. That hard-fought skill needed to power through a corner and work your way towards shaving off those precious few seconds from your lap time. In that regard, DiRT Rally is a joy. When you’re running an engine at dangerously high temperatures over various bumps and turns as your navigator reads out numbers like some sort of binary savante, you shouldn’t feel bored.

Dirt-Rally-(4)

It’s hard to accurately articulate how DiRT Rally manages to actually translate the idea of speed and power on dangerous courses into a properly exciting spectacle, but it just does. It just does. But here’s the rub: You’re going to have to work for it.

D Rally (6)

DiRT Rally is a punishing game. There’s a learning curve here steeper than Pike’s Peak, as the emphasis is on proper control and speed over lavish power-slides and rubber-burning spins. It’s something that’s going to leave some enthusiasts steamed, but it’s also rewarding in a bizarre and masochsitic way.

Thanks in no small part to a robust physics engine and decent video tutorials, it’s still satisfying to actually see progress that has been earned through actual skill. Learning how to listen to your navigator or actually approaching a race with the mindset of not breaking the laws of gravity, is a boon. And you’re going to need every bit of that skill to survive.

D Rally (4)

Whether it’s coming to grips with different engine setups, taming a snowy tundra or holding on for dear life when you jump a bump, everything around you plays a role that impacts on your race results. As far as ports go, DiRT Rally is keeping pace with the last year’s PC version quite nicely. On Xbox One at least, the action never dipped below the silky smooth 60 frames per second benchmark, while the persistent damage models made me whinge every time I snapped back to a first-person perspective to see a huge crack in my windshield that had been present since I tried to murder a tree in my first race of the lengthy event.

It all flowed into an idea of not automatically hitting the restart button. Of actually starting something the first time and properly finishing it as a team of mechanics kept my ride in relatively stable shape.

Dirt-Rally-(2)

DiRT Rally’s biggest problem right now however, is that it’s too little of a good thing. All that fantastic racing can feel dull when you’ve only got a handful of tracks per event to tackle, while the grinding setup to unlock better setups for every vehicle in your garage tends to get tedious with every new purchase. There is an effort at least to throw in some lower-tier rally vehicles for a taste of the other events, but there’s still a steep climb to surmount when it comes to truly unlocking the best of the game. A bare-bones multiplayer shows potential however, with the idea of monthly, weekly, and daily challenges.

 

Last Updated: April 25, 2016

DiRT Rally
DiRT Rally is an unforgiving, temperamental beast at times. But it’s also the very best game in a genre that has been brought back to its purist roots with style and love.
8.0
DiRT Rally was reviewed on Xbox One
86 / 100

22 Comments

  1. [mssc]

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      April 25, 2016 at 15:00

      Manufacturing Skill Standards Council?

      Reply

  2. Spathi

    April 25, 2016 at 14:50

    Excellent review! The game seems really awesome.

    Reply

  3. Original Heretic

    April 25, 2016 at 15:04

    Now that I’m PS bound and can no longer indulge in Forza, would this be a worthy substitute?

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      April 25, 2016 at 15:07

      Depends on how you race, do you like arcade racers? or sim racers?

      Reply

      • Original Heretic

        April 25, 2016 at 15:10

        I like Forza type racers. I dislike NFS type racers. I’m a racing-light kind of gamer. Never been really hardcore into racing games, but every now and again, I like a good zip around the track.

        Reply

        • The D

          April 25, 2016 at 15:14

          This one is more simmy with a touch of arcade. But then again, I was racing with a LOT of assists on.

          Reply

          • Original Heretic

            April 25, 2016 at 15:15

            So it’s Forza-ish? Cause I also loaded the assists onto Forza Horizon.

        • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

          April 25, 2016 at 15:16

          Ok, do you like not knowing what the track looks like?

          The nice thing about the game is that it has a tonne of assists that could help/bog your chances of winning a race, one thing to be said though, even with a steering wheel, if you are not a Norwegian rally driver, do not, I repeat, do not set the difficulty to professional, not only will your heart race at the speed which you’ll be travelling, but you will be introduced to a lot of trees along the way…

          Reply

          • Original Heretic

            April 25, 2016 at 15:17

            Wahahahahaah! What part of “racing-light kind of gamer” made you think for even a second that I’d put the difficulty onto “professional”?!? Thanks, but I don’t like gaming assisted suicide, unless it comes in Dark Souls format!

          • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

            April 25, 2016 at 15:22

            Hehehe, That is the nice thing about the game, driving with the assists allows you to still complete the games’ races, even if you put all of them on, even though you get a slight reward penalty, like switching between manual/automatic/sequential manual and full clutch manual award you more of a bonus, but it’s really not all that much, what I do have to say though is that it caters for quite a wide audience, as long as you have somewhat of an analogue input device, you’ll be able to play with ease…

          • Acornbread

            April 27, 2016 at 15:38

            The difficulty setting merely adjusts the competitiveness of other AI drivers. Although it would be awesome if they added a nightmare mode where the scenery would actually try to kill you.

          • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

            April 28, 2016 at 09:16

            BUT IT DOES!!! Those darned trees jumped out in front of me, it wasn’t my bad driving at all! *whistling to a slow retreat…*

    • Fox1 - Retro

      April 26, 2016 at 09:54

      You could still get your Forza fix on PC.

      Reply

    • Acornbread

      April 27, 2016 at 15:35

      Oh yes. It definitely leans towards the simulation end of the spectrum, but without losing sight of the fact that it is fundamentally a game. In other words, exactly what Forza achieved, more or less. Driving assists are adjustable and the controller works surprisingly well for a sim. With a wheel, it’s a different beast altogether. On top of all that, the console versions are fantastic.

      Reply

  4. Avithar

    April 25, 2016 at 15:30

    looks really amazing, i would love to play it

    Reply

  5. Kerrits

    April 25, 2016 at 15:46

    But how does it compare to Richard Burns Rally?

    Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      April 25, 2016 at 15:50

      RBR was by far one of the most accurate racing sims to date, this gets quite close to be fair, the vehicular physics models do their part with regards to stiff suspension, brake biasing etc. where RBR went as far as tweaking the tyre pressure for each tyre separately, Dirt doesn’t go that far, close enough though…

      Reply

    • ElimiNathan

      April 26, 2016 at 09:44

      Very close, I would go as far to say that this is better in some areas I.E Wheel to ground contact feel. RBR had a very smooth road feel where this you get all the bumps and feel of different terrain

      Reply

    • Acornbread

      April 27, 2016 at 15:50

      Closest any game has come I reckon, as far as loose surface physics go. The tarmac surfaces are perhaps slightly too forgiving, but gravel and snow are uncanny. Also worth noting that RBR has seen years of dedicated mod support, which has transformed the vanilla game into something more realistic. Time will tell. Also, RBR has not aged well; even with mods the presentation is archaic. This is just as important to immersion in any sim, particularly the sound, so Dirt Rally has the advantage here.

      Reply

  6. Acornbread

    April 27, 2016 at 15:26

    Good review. This game is precisely about The Zone. It’s also a rhythm game, once you learn how to drive on dirt using weight transfer while steering with the throttle and brake. The game’s difficulty is inversely proportional to your patience. As long as you’re patient, the game will reward you with Zone time. If you try to hurry, you will get a tree through your windscreen. That’s how audacious Dirt Rally is; it doesn’t need formidable bosses, it just lets the environment teach you manners.

    Reply

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