DiRT 3 PC Review

Single PlayerUnderneath the visual layers, the game uses the EGO graphics engine version 2.0 from CodeMasters and this first featured in the first of the Dirt line-up, Colin McRae Dirt. Apart from featuring in the entire series, this engine has also been utilised in a number of other games including the recent F1 2010. Throughout its years its has been further developed and refined to give more detailed effects through hardware tessellation and also for rendering more large scale environments in the likes of Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising.

Similar to the predecessors of Dirt3, the game is scheduled to run over a ‘Tour’ period, where in a number of seasons you will be challenged in a variety of different disciplines including; Trailblazer, Rally and more importantly and new to Dirt 3 – Gymkhana. To progress through the seasons, you will need to earn points in order to unlock the next stage and at the end of each season there is one big final event before you move on to the next level. Along side the main season events, there are a selection of world tour events where you can hone in your skills on each discipline and gain extra points.

After you got to grips with the game format (If you’re new to the series that is), you soon see that rather than being fixated with a ‘modern’ lineup of cars, the collection is actually quite impressive. Naturally there are the modern rally cars and Trailblazers such as the Subara Impreza WRX, but there is also a large collection of ‘classic’ cars to acquire and utilise such as the Sierra Cosworth RS500, Audi Quattro Rallye and Renault 5 Turbo.

As soon as you see the start-up videos to the game and even the introduction videos to each race you soon start to awe at the amazing amount of detail that is involved, so much so that going back to Dirt 2 straight after a game on here makes it feel all lacking in depth and detail. Trees, grass and the surrounding environment all essentially more realistic (after all thats what we expect to see with newer games – more detail and sense of reality). Its not just the landscapes that have been given a makeover; with the updated EGO engine, reflections on the car and the way that the car reacts to its surroundings and vice versa are improved. Whilst rushing through the Kenyan outback, the way dust builds up on the body and the way rain reflects and refracts the light in London all add to the sense of realism.

Its not just what you see that has been re-worked. It would have been unwise not to look at the audio aspects as well. Personally I feel that in Dirt 2, the cars of a similar type all had the same soundtrack or close-to but slightly tweeked. Here each car sounds individual and refined, so each and every pop, spit and backfire sound just like you would expect to hear it whether you’re driving from a rear view aspect, inside or from the front bumper.

This now brings us onto the control and handling and i’m afraid to say that I feel a little let down here. Even though I’m very much used to using an Xbox controller for playing racing games, I do have mine setup to work on my pc as well for the analog sticks and finer touch. In comparison to Dirt 2, there seems to be a slight lack in the overall responsiveness and control that you have over the car – consequently it took me a little while to adjust my control method to suit the game which felt a little weird. Normally I can switch from once racing based gamed to another without having to really change the way I play the game, whereas as mentioned, I have to compensate for the lose response by over compensating my moves. After a while of consistent trail and error, I do seem to have mastered the optimum point of control, but perhaps CodeMasters could have seen and rectified this before release to give players a better feel for the game from the start rather than losing interest as they can’t control the car as they wish and easily crashing and flipping over on the smallest rock!