Codemasters Dirt 3 review

It’s been a long time since Codemasters made a pure-bred rally game, bad news for diehard fans of the motorsport, but no bad thing for fans of driving games in general. This latest outing in the Dirt series finally drops the long-running Colin McRae moniker. Such a change is long overdue – even putting to one side the driver’s death in 2007 – with the game steadily moving away from the sport he excelled at.

If there’s one name that’s synonymous with Dirt 3, it should be Ken Block. He too is a rally driver by profession, but he’s far better known for his YouTube stunt-driving antics and generally considered to be ‘the man’ for bringing urban sports appeal to motorsports. You may have seen him on Top Gear, if not check out the video below. The Block-inspired ‘Gymkhana’ events are Dirt 3’s big new feature. Here you have a series of obstacles you are free to slide around, jump over and smash through, all for points.

Ken Block is the big name here, you may have seen him already on Top Gear

Block himself takes you through the basics, or rather he doesn’t as his advice is more about the nature of the obstacles than actual practical notes about how fast you should be going or whether to use the brake pedal or the handbrake. Still you can pick it up pretty quickly, and as long as you think ahead a little you’ll be pirouetting your car around obstacles in no time at all.

As well as the freestyle points events, there are also speed runs, with tricks that must be performed in a certain order, and some fun modes where you have to smash all the targets in a certain time. See some of our efforts below.

Here’s part of our run through a Gymkhana sprint event

Driving games have undoubtedly suffered in popularity over the last few years, arguably because the driving in open-world games such as Grand Theft Auto has improved so much, and causing chaos in a car is great fun. Gymkhana helps bring some of that fun into a serious driving title, its undoutbtedly a welcome new variation for the driving genre, adding variation to the usual point-to-point and circuit racing, and going well beyond the now-standard drift challenges.

In addition to Gymkhana, all the events from the previous edition make a comeback. It’s a smorgasbord of racing delights, many set coincidentally in Scandinavia. Rallying is still a big part of the menu, with classic point-to-point races against the clock; while Trailblazer is a very similar event on less sinuous courses and with far more powerful cars – its our personal favourite (see video below). Rallycross lets you race against multiple opponents over multiple laps on short tracks, while Landrush is a similar deal with big trucks and dune buggies – it’s our least favourite with a very knockabout feel.

We cackled with glee while taking this 800bhp monster down this hill

As YouTube has played a big part in Block’s popularity, it makes perfect sense to integrate it with Dirt 3. Simply put in your YouTube login details when you first load up the game, and then you can upload your most impressive feats for others to watch. Frustratingly you are limited to 30 second clips, so no full runs are possible for bragging rights, and you can’t upload in HD. Still it’s a nice extra and the sort of social media tie-up that we can expect all top-end titles to exploit in future.

The front-end is as slick as usual, in fact it would be impossible to imagine how far we’ve come from the text-on-a-screen menus of old. Striking graphic design and lots of flashy 3D effects are only marred by the cloying enthusiasm of your American career advisors.

This pair of yapping idiots keep up a constant chatter, mainly kissing your behind when you’re great and mollycoddling your occasional failures. If they are representative of the kind of sycophants that talented drivers have to advise them, it’s no wonder such stars have problem egos. Thankfully, it’s all peace and quiet once you get behind the wheel – bar the restrained warnings of your co-pilot in rally events.

Beautifully presented, with cars drifting through the menus

This brings us nicely to Codemasters’ EGO graphics engine. It’s hard to see where improvements could have been made from the old version, one of the first we saw to use DirectX 11; it’s a great example of providing spangly graphics on both consoles and fairly low-end PCs. Dirt 3 continues the trend, so much so that we’ve taken it up as one of our graphics benchmarks. The tracks are detailed and atmospheric, the car models look good to enough to climb into and damage is fully modelled. Snow and rain effects have been added in this version to give greater immersion, though we couldn’t tell how, or if at all, they affect the handling model.

Flexible in providing graphics for all-comers, and gameplay types for all tastes, there’s also something to please most in the handling options. The casual setting allows even complete novices and children to get round without too many problems. Intermediate adds enough control to get yourself in trouble, but only if you try something silly. Expert mode punishes every error, with no ABS or stability control – though even this won’t quite suit diehard rally simulator fans, with it still being relatively easy to keep the car on the track. Our one gripe is that the various terrain factors don’t effect handling enough, with switches from gravel to tarmac being less pronounced then we’d like.

Terrain isn’t as critical as we’d have liked

Whichever handling mode you choose, you get five ‘flashbacks’ per level. These allow you to rewind time by a few seconds, and in doing so wipe that horrendous crash you just had from the record. The feature allows you to really push the car to its limits without worrying about screwing up your whole lap. Using flashbacks does cost you reputation points at the end of the race, so you’ll unlock new races, tracks and cars quicker if you’re frugal.

Despite all its brash Americanism and Xtreme sports branding, the game’s structure is a bit so-so. You play the role of you, if you were a driver trying to make your name in the racing business, with each race earning you points depending on your performance. The wide variety of events helps mix things up a bit, but with all the basic race styles and some very powerful and classic cars on offer from the start, there’s not a huge amount to look forward to. Thankfully, it occasionally drops in an oddball event, one per five stage tournament, to keep things fresh.

Classic cars abound, like this eighties Quattro

In terms of tracks there are plenty, here’s a rundown from the serious to the silly. There are four main rallying areas (Finland, Norway, Kenya and Michigan) each with 8 rally tracks and three Trailblazer tracks a piece. Next up are the head-to-head tracks, 3 locations with 2 tracks a piece. Then the hectic Landrush areas, two of those with four layouts each, used for the Truck and Buggy races. Finally there are two Gymkhana areas, with four layouts each, and the same again for the Truck and Buggy Landrush races. In addition there’s a smattering of extra courses for various drift challenges and one-off Gymkhana events. The car line-up is also suitably varied, and includes everything from classic 80’s rally cars up to ludicrous souped-up Hummers.

Driving games no longer demand the kind of attention they used to, but they are still a popular genre. Dirt 3 plays to the short attention spans of the YouTube generation, by introducing an appropriate new mode to an already broad selection and then mixing everything up to keep you entertained. Plus, if you ace the bits you like, you needn’t even bother with the odd mode you don’t fancy.

Such broad coverage is bound to attract claims of dumbing down, but it’s incredible just how high the quality bar is set across everything here. It’s not for those who want hundreds of hours of exacting and demanding driving, but in terms of entertainment there’s nothing on four wheels to compare.