Hey, one can’t possibly write music all the time, especially when I still spend the better part of my days helping to save the world from inferior cycling products. So when I’m just not feeling the inspiration to sit down at the synth controller sometimes I’ll just pop a shiny silver disc into my xbox 360 and let my mind wander into another world. BTW, my gamertag on xbox live is solarno72. Feel free to hit me up.
My latest wanderings have taken me into the mud covered world of rally racing courtesy DiRT3 from Codemasters. I’m a fan of many racing games, but rally sims are by far my favorite of the genre. I love getting vicariously dirty, rolling a car multiple times at 100+mph, and walking away from it.
For those who don’t know, the DiRT series is a continuation of the legendary Colin McRea series. I became hooked after searching for months for a used copy of the first DiRT and falling in love with the graphics and gameplay. There wasn’t much in the way of a storyline, just a typical earn your way up the ladder of longer and more challenging events, but that didn’t stop me from loving every moment of it.
DiRT 2 not only raised the bar for immersion, but then took it down, chopped it into bits, and lit it on fire. Codemasters fine tuned the events, sent you flying all over the world, pit you against real and imaginary drivers, and wrapped it all up in a beautiful world where you lived in an RV that was your home base for every event/festival. I felt that ‘home base’ environment really helped me imagine that I was actually the one traveling to the exotic locales visited by the game because I could look at a world map, find events I wanted to race, and fly there (in a rather Indiana Jones line over the world way).
Sadly DiRT3 did away with the traveling racer environment, and returned to essentially the same navigation system from the first game. Thankfully, where the menus and navigation take an unfortunate step back, the game itself takes steps forward. Graphics are even more stunning, and many times I’ve found myself careening off the road side because I was distracted by the beautifully rendered locations. Codemasters has even thrown in environment details like fans scurrying across the road in front of you.
In many ways, DiRT3 is more of an arcade racer now than a simulation, but I’m ok with that. I like that you are rewarded quickly for your early success, allowing you to gain access to more difficult events sooner than later. The addition of Gymkhana events was originally a non-starter for me, and thankfully they didn’t make many of the events mandatory to complete the game, but they’ve turned out to be rather addicting. If Codemasters could find a way to pump the scent of burning rubber through my xbox live connection I’d become completely hooked.
Another aspect of the DiRT series that has appealed to me since day one is the brevity of the events. I can start an event or series and know that I’m not going to be stuck in front of my TV for the next hour. I can thoroughly quench my need to get dirty in 15 minutes if I choose because the longest single races are only 3-4 minutes long. My other favorite racing franchise, Forza (and the PS Gran Turismo series) quickly get to races where you will be sitting there for 10, 15, even 20 minutes. For one race. Not counting menu time. If I need a truer simulation fix, then those are the way to go, but for quick and dirty gameplay you can’t beat DiRT3 (except when I lose track of time drifting around the Battersea complex).
I’ve not really gotten into the whole online multiplayer racing thing, which is a key component of DiRT 2 and 3, because frankly I don’t like being cussed at by 13 year olds, but I’ve dabbled. It’s pretty impressive. Environment-wise it’s identical to singleplayer only you lose the predictability of the AI drivers.
Now we get to the part that really surprised me. Youtube integration. Yes, Codemasters has built a Youtube encoder/uploader into DiRT3. Say you pulled off a great drift, or rolled your car 15 times, or drove away from an epic crash. You can now upload that footage to your Youtube account in only a few minutes. You’re limited to approximately 25 seconds of footage at a time so don’t plan on uploading an entire race, but you can hit the highlights easy enough. Here’s a few that I’ve uploaded:
Overall, DiRT3 is an admirable game for the rally fan. It missed in a couple of areas compared to DiRT 2, but took it to the next level for most areas. And I haven’t even mentioned the spectacular soundtrack. You can find track listings all over the web, so I won’t go into it, but for those of you with iTunes, you can find my DiRT3 playlist by searching for DiRT3. iTunes currently has all but 6 of the tracks available.
Everyone from the casual racer to the hardcore sim driver won’t go wrong with this title.
Cheers!
Jim
View from My Eyes
