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Demo Impressions: Colin McRae: DiRT 2

August 21, 2009, Author: Andy Corrigan

2007 was a big year for me in terms of my passion for racing games. Previously not a fan of the genre (an in-depth article on that particular passage of my life is coming soon), the likes of Forza 2, Flatout 2, and PGR4 helped swing my opinion. Almost just as important to this turnaround as those games mentioned previously was Colin McRae’s DiRT, the last game to feature the Scots moniker before his tragic and untimely death.

For a while after he passed, Codemasters were silent on what would happen next with the franchise, quite rightly saying at the time that it wasn’t the right thing to discuss. Well their next move was announced last year (it slipped under my radar somehow until earlier this year to be honest), and Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is due to be released this September 11th. As a huge fan of the previous game, does the demo make me want to get DiRTY all over again, or should I give it a miss?

As with the first DiRT game, the menu system is art in itself. Firing up the demo I was instantly impressed by a slick, attractive and nicely animated system that was easy to navigate. It takes the form of a first person perspective as you, the driver, in your trailer with a flick of a the left analogue stuck taking you through the various options. This whole system is animated beautifully as you navigate around and outside the trailer. Travis Pastrana is back once again voicing proceedings and talking you through the many things you will find. You have two choices from the ‘Tour’ section; Driving the Porter Trophy Truck on Baja’s Ensenada circuit in a Landrush event, and taking on the Mitsubishi Eclipse GT in a new event for DiRT called Trailblazer. For my first go I opted for the first event presented to me, and that was the Baja race, against seven other cars.

After selecting your chosen event and choosing the difficulty and damage, you are taken outside to pick your vehicle. Clearly here for demo purposes there is only one option, but you are given the chance to customise your car. In the full game you’ll be able to change your liveries, but here you can only change the type of car horn, and a dashboard and windshield toy. Again restricted to a taster, there is only one of each; a hula girl for your dashboard, and in a really cool little inclusion, you can also have your avatar dangling from your rear view mirror by his leg. These customisations can be set for all cars meaning that they appear in all parts of the game, including online, without having to change them again.

Starting the first race, it’s clear that the team have improved the engine a lot graphically since the last outing, which wasn’t a bad looking game in the slightest, although did have some issues. In the previous game, looking behind you led to severe frame-rate chugging, particularly on the larger courses; however there isn’t a sniff of such optimisation issues here. The game also maintains that stunning saturated look that both the original game and Race Driver: Grid had.

The handling, the bumps and jumps are just as enjoyable from the first time around, however there have been some tweaks it seems. The cars feel like the pivoting point is no longer bang in the centre of the car, giving the cars slightly more weighted feeling, though that may be down to the cars provided in the demo. The same principles in handling apply as they do in all rally games though; turn and brake early and ride the slide around the corners. Taking on the other cars in this sandy location is an exhilarating experience, bumping off each other and barging people into the scenery.

Over the course of the race I noticed a few other things borrowed from Grid’s palette. Firstly the game telling you who the person to watch is just before the race starts, and also the inclusion of a rewind feature. The latter isn’t advertised that wholly, but useful for those easily frustrated.  The window of time you have to use one of the rewinds seems drastically reduced compare to Grid, and probably a good move, as you don’t really want encourage or reward people for shoddy driving, but it still manages to offer that level of accessibility should you want to use it. In lieu of the having a team or a team mate to talk to you ala Grid, you get comments during incidents from the other drivers, which include both Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra.

DiRT2screen

Stunning

The second race in Morocco is more your standard rally affair, only it gives you a taster of the different types of terrain you might encounter, this time gravel. As expected, things are far more of a slide-fest this time around with less traction. Rather than battle directly with other cars, the game becomes a battle of control over the car, and that’s the best thing about rally games in my book. This race also highlighted other factors that I wasn’t accounting for, such as running through a muddy puddle at high-speed splashing mud on my windscreen leaving me partially sighted until my wipers kicked into action. Not only is this a really cool feature, but also a great leveller over the course of a race. I did notice that there was no co-driver, yelling instructions to you about the corners coming up, I hope that they are still included in the final game on standard rally modes.

The other major difference between the new game and the original is the inclusion of a full online mode. In the original you were restricted to only racing on your own, but at the same time as 100 others and comparing times afterwards. No ghosts, no other visible cars, in what was the only real disappointment of an otherwise almost perfect off-road game, however you can understand why they left it would with the previous issues. With those issues now behind us, we can finally enjoy DiRT as we should be able to, and from this bite-size chunk it’s clear that this online mode should be a lot of fun with friends. I can’t find any details on the total amount of players that will be able to compete in the final game; however this demo supports eight players online, and this especially took the Baja circuit to an entirely new level.

Also still present is the option to take part in solo rallies against other players. In the race I took part in here, the other cars appear as ghosts allowing you to easily judge how well you’ll need to do to improve your placing. The matchmaking system is slickly handled and easy to use, allowing you to create a party before you even enter any of the games modes. Participating in all events improves your online level, giving you a sense of progression in the online world aside from the thrill of taking on real people. I have to say there were absolutely no noticeable signs of lag, and all aspects ran as smoothly as the offline game.

In its limited playtime, DiRT 2 has impressed me enough to want take on the full game. From being at a point where I had almost forgotten the game was in development I am now at a point where I’m majorly excited for its release. Keep your eyes peeled shortly after release as we’ll give a far more detailed opinion of the final product in our review. In the mean time I have to admit that my name is Andy, and I’m a very DiRTY boy.

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