I’ll be straight-up with y’all because that’s how I roll: I have no idea how to review a racing game.
I can’t think of any racing games I’ve owned, though I’ve probably played dozens of them over the years, usually at a friend’s, usually not for very long, because I’m not overly fond of them in general. Racing is cool but ultimately there’s only one thing to do, which is race, which is, as I said, cool, but also sort of limited. To me, racing games are sort of like fighting games: there’s a lot of them, and I might enjoy a session or two of button mashing fun with friends, but never think about the games again when I’m done.
Anyway, a demo for Dirt 2 cropped up on Steam recently, and I downloaded it, played the two races it came with, and uninstalled it. Then I reinstalled it almost immediately and played the races a few more times. Then, I waited. Waited for Steam to make that small yet fatal error of pricing it at a discount. They did, and I pounced. The FOOLS!
Because Dirt 2 is pretty damn great. Here is what I like about it:
- It’s easy to play. Just get in a car, pick a race, and start driving. It’s very arcade-game-ish that way, which is what I’m looking for. I don’t want a lot of fuss about tweaking the brakes or steering or drift or differentials or whatever else — I just want to drive. (Though, Dirt 2 lets you customize a bunch of technical stuff in your cars if that is your thing.)
- It’s friggin’ beautiful. Just gorgeous. I think it may be the most beautiful game-world I’ve ever been in, which is a bit of a shame because I’m stuck in my car and the car is stuck in the race. Many times during a race I wish I could leave the track and just tear off into the wilderness, or pull over, hop out, and walk around for a bit.
- For a console port, I think the controls and menus are pretty good. The cars are much easier to control than they are in, say, Grand Theft Auto 4. The menu system is pretty overblown, with swooshes across maps and things slamming around and the screen shaking, but I still like it. It’s X-TREME, and in Dirt 2, I don’t mind being X-TREME. They make leveling up X-TREME TO THE MAX. And that’s a good thing.
- There’s a bunch of different racing modes, and while some of them are dumb (like one where you have to smash through foam gates for some reason), most are great, especially Trailblazer & Rally, which let you loose on miles of terrain with limited interference from other cars. And, if you like jostling around with other cars, there’s plenty of those modes, too.
- Completing a race will usually open up not just the next race but several new ones, meaning you won’t get stuck on one race that you have to complete to progress. One time, I won a race and it opened up roughly eight more all at once. I like having options.
- A HUGE turn-off for me are those racing games with real cars that don’t sustain any damage if you ram into something at 100mph. In Dirt 2, in an X-TREME race you’ll have mud splatters and paint chipped off and shattered windows and bumpers falling off and bent frames and doors missing and wheels ruined. It’s great. When I win a race my car is generally mangled, though I did finish first without so much as a scratch one time, and got an achievement for it.
- I normally don’t like driving in cockpit view, but it’s pretty cool to do from time to time in Dirt 2.
- If you’re doing great and about to win a long race but then fuck up and total your car, you can rewind to a few moments before you fucked up (you can do this a few times per race, depending on what level difficulty you’re playing). I’m guessing this is pretty standard in racing games these days, but I’ve never used it before because I don’t play racing games. Nice feature. I like not having to pay for my mistakes.
Things I don’t like:
- A lot of the music is kinda shitty, but it only plays on the menu screens and during replays. I can put up with a little cock-rock from time to time. Plus, there are some decent bands in there, like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bloc Party.
- Could use some weather. Rain would be cool. There are puddles on some tracks but no rain.
I recommend everyone try the demo out — like I said, I’m not usually one for racing games but I’m addicted to this one. It’s some really great fun, casual if you want it to be, and darn purty. Keep your eyes open for another Steam sale: I got it for $20 and it was well-worth it.
More pics in the gallery I just added. Also, you can click some of the images above for full-size. Which brings me to another thing I like about Dirt 2: the screenshots I take actually look like promo images for the game. Sweet!
29 Comments
January 21, 2010
You should check out Race Driver: Grid too then. Basically the same thing except in an actual racing setting as opposed to rally racing.
January 21, 2010
There’s a demo for this? Why did nobody tell me?!?!
January 21, 2010
I liked the first Dirt game. I never bought it but played it at a friends a few times. The graphics are incredible.
January 21, 2010
I’ll have to check that out. I’d suggest trying Burnout Paradise. It’s arcady, open world, and after spending 50+ hours playing, it’s still my favorite racing game. I don’t know how well the pc port controls, but if it’s anything like the console version, it’s pretty amazing.
January 21, 2010
I thought it was a pretty solid game. I’m not much of a fan of racing games, but it was pretty good.
One thing that bugs me is the menu screens that take forever to go through. I wish it was just a quick little interface to skim through, rather then all the flashy animations and stuff.
There might be a setting to turn that off or something, but I’ve only played it for a few hours.
January 22, 2010
Wow, two posts?!? This is insanely lucky.
January 22, 2010
Yeah, I’m a bit like you, I don’t really playing racing games for the same reasons you’ve identified, but I’ve had a lot of fun with the demo. Doubt I’ll buy it though.
January 22, 2010
Got a free Steam key for Dirt 2 with my new graphics card. Normally I’m not that into racing games, but after reading this, I think I’ll give it a try once.
January 22, 2010
It really is a beautiful game. If it came bundled with your new GPU, install it now. One thing to note, until you officially login to an account, it seems you are forced to watch a 2 minute intro each time. So you know, log in.
January 22, 2010
I, too, like Dirt.
…2
January 22, 2010
I second the Burnout Paradise recommendation. It has almost all the qualities you listed, except the rewind thing. But fortunately, the crashes are so painstakingly and lovingly rendered, you usually don’t mind smashing into walls at 160 mph anyway.
January 22, 2010
Hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure no other racing games have the rewind thing in it.
January 22, 2010
Forza 3 has a rewind feature. It has unlimited uses.
“Many times during a race I wish I could leave the track and just tear off into the wilderness, or pull over, hop out, and walk around for a bit.”
There’s a game out called FUEL which allows you to leave the race and do whatever you want, although I think you need to use cheats to unlock all of the world if you don’t plan on winning races. You can’t leave your car though. (While it certainly wasn’t beautiful I really enjoyed the IS82 mod for BF1942 which allowed you to do insane races and get out of the car.)
January 22, 2010
Never really had a taste for racing games either. I had Burnout Revenge for my PS2, and it was decent. Nice graphics for a PS2 game, good gameplay, big crashes. The loading was horrendous, though. Every time I wanted to restart a race, I had to sit through 30 seconds or so of loading. Since the tougher challenges require you to completely avoid any kind of crashes, I was restarting alot. It got old.
Midnight Club 2 was better. One hard, unforgiving game. But the open-track system and the kick ass shortcuts made it alot of fun, not to mention all the cool stuff you could do, like two-wheel driving or slip-stream turbo.
Mass Effect 2 in four days!
January 22, 2010
I’ll have to check this out. I also suggest Burnout, which is basically “drive at 600 mph and crash into tons of shit while also racing, causing massive damage and explosions”. ’s the only racing game I’ve enjoyed besides Mario Kart.
January 22, 2010
@OctaneHugo: I think I might check out Burnout. Looks pretty cool, maybe I can get it eventually.
January 22, 2010
LaZodiac: Grid has it too, pretty much the exact same mechanic.
January 22, 2010
The only racing game I’ve ever enjoyed up til now has been Trackmania (nations.) Still you’ve managed to sway me with all the praise. Guess I’ll get this weekend.
Also, gotta agree with the votes for Burnout Paradise. I’ve seen it demoed and it does look nice.
January 22, 2010
I Like Dirt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxybXTTbX_8
Such an epic song.
January 22, 2010
Gonna add some photos to my cart. YEHAAAAAAAA!!!!!
January 23, 2010
I hypothetically downloaded left 4 dead 2 illegally and uncensored. Suck on THAT, pussy aus rating officials
January 23, 2010
It’s good to see veteran commenters here still commenting old school, as in, about themselves and not at all related to the blog post.
January 23, 2010
With the rewind, you’d THINK it’d be a standard feature in racing games these days, but NO. It’s so fantastic, but as far as i know, only GRID, Dirt 2 and a couple other use it. It’s far from standard, pretty much just an “extra”
January 23, 2010
Obligatory “Burnout is good” comment.
I also liked Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, even if the soundtrack was heavily censored.
January 26, 2010
Burnout 3 for the original Xbox and about every other system thanks to EA was quite excellent for all the reasons Burnout Paradise was also fun, and it had the multiplayer crash mode where people competed to see who could get more destructive money from a single vehicle crash. Aftertouch was awesome too.
That Akinator got the first 5 of my characters right was kind of freaky, and then I stopped picking such well-known characters and it struggled a bit, even when it had the characters in the database.
January 26, 2010
I have a slightly unrelated question, old man: What ever happened to The Demoman column? Haven’t seen a new one since Cities XL.
…
You got fired and didn’t tell us, didn’t you?
January 27, 2010
Have had DIRT 2 sat next to me for weeks now, had it on pre-order and havent even played it yet! Read this and an now going through the fun of installing/setting up my steering wheel
January 27, 2010
Heyup,
Not sure how often you’ll get asked this, but did anything ever come of the Lost Chapter of Concerned? You mention it here:
http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-08
Matt
January 28, 2010
@Alux
I don’t think they fired Chris, I think Chris just ran out of writing material to supply. As you can see, he hardly writes anything now.
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