Product Details
 | Dirt 2 |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
| Price: | $14.68 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by NYC Electronics
25 new or used available from $8.75
Average customer review:
Product Description
Following on the success of the original Dirt as well as a decade of videogame development in partnership with the late Colin McRae, DiRT 2 explores various disciplines of off-road racing. Dirt 2 features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to the most diverse and challenging real-world environments. This World Tour has players competing in aggressive multi-car and intense solo races at extraordinary new locations, from canyon racing and jungle trails to city stadium-based events.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3033 in Video Games
- Brand: Codemasters
- Model: 1000101214
- Released on: 2009-12-08
- ESRB Rating: Teen
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: CD-ROM
- Dimensions: .35 pounds
Features
- DiRT2 enables players to pick their favorite rides and drive them across multiple disciplines.
- Multiple race disciplines, encompassing the best that modern off-roading has to offer and fueled by the 3rd generation of Codemasters? world-renowned EGO Engine technology.
- DiRT 2 will take players on a World Tour to compete in aggressive multi-car and intense solo race events in the most diverse and challenging real-world environments. Career paths will span the globe.
- Events include exhilarating rally cross in the massive Los Angeles sports stadium?s 'Stadium King Shootout', edge-of-control canyon racing of Utah's 'Creek Trailblazer' event and the 'Rawang Rally Run' along Malaysian rainforest tracks.
- DiRT 2 invites players to become part of an extreme sports community, with full online multiplayer race events and community integration across multiple disciplines.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Customer Reviews
Surprisingly Decent Racer
First of all, I am guilty of
being biased towards simulation racers -- Richard Burns Rally, NR2003,
Live for Speed for example. Naturally I am bored with racing games that
water down the difficulty by making the cars easier to handle, have the
ability to rewind time, or don't have in-depth setup tweaks and
fuel/tire management. I dislike these games and label them with
'arcade', which in my mind has a negative connotation to it. Dirt 2 is
one of these games, but unlike the others that have left me bored in the
past, it is actually rather enjoyable. So much so that even though it's
still far from being a true simulation, I don't think it's fair to give
it the same title of 'arcade'. Rather, it's simply a 'racer'.
If
you want this to be a simulation of dirt racing, you will be a little
bit disappointed without a doubt. And if you wanted nothing but loads of
point-to-point rally racing, you will also have to keep waiting for
such a game to be released. But if you're going to avoid the game
because of those reasons alone, it's your loss really, as you're missing
out on some pretty fun action. I know it has legendary Colin McRae's
name on the title (at least in the European editions), but suffice it to
say the 'realness' aspects of the game make it seem like it should be
Dave Mirra's name instead. That's not a potshot, it's just what the game
is intended to be: intense action sports in a X-Games sense, in this
case in the form of off-road driving.
There are a little over
half a dozen classes of cars to race off road with, and no shortage of
liveries. From Robby Gordon's Hummer H3 complete with the Monster Energy
logos to Colin McRae's No Fear ride -- you will have plenty to choose
from as you finish the game's main campaign called the 'Dirt Tour'. In
this mode you race several events in various exotic locale such as
Morocco, Baja, Malaysia, Croatia and more. You'll do various events in
the various car types including a few events that were made up by
Codemasters such as 'gate crasher' where you get points for hitting
flimsy walls by hitting your line. The track layouts are exceptionally
well done for tight racing, and not to mention they are visually
stunning on a powerful enough computer even on DirectX 9. Best of all
the game has a buttery smooth framerate. Obviously this game has the
added bonus of supporting DirectX 11, which would add to the eye candy
even more if you have a supported video card. All of these tracks are
playable online with friends as well.
The driving physics are
spot on for a low learning curve and make for a highly accessible
experience. The force feedback is actually fairly solid, so the feel you
get in the car is very 'attached' -- opposed to another racing game
like NFS Shift, where the force feedback practically doesn't exist and
your car just slides on top of the track and is somewhat lagging in
response to the wheel input.
The game has very well-scaled
difficulty settings for the most part. If you're like me, a seasoned
simulation veteran, then the point-to-point rally races will be a walk
in the park. Right away I was winning those events by quite a few
seconds on the hardest settings. They are still fun nonetheless. The
real challenge comes with races directly against the AI, where the
harder settings are highly difficult. The tougher settings are also very
rewarding for two reasons: they heighten the sense of intensity very
well, and you earn more cash to buy new cars or upgrade your current
ones with. In these races you face off against 7 or so AI on tight
tracks (think X-Games with 8 cars on the same small circuit). Races like
this result in a fairly high amount of exchanging paint and clanking
bumpers -- in real life tracks of this size are designed for single car
runs. The AI makes mistakes, and is fairly unpredictable. Don't be
surprised when you pass by trucks rolling over in a tumbling motion, or
even flying over your head crashing in the race. This type of thing
happens quite often in Dirt 2, and it will make you go 'oh #$%&!'
and then laugh a little at the absolute insanity some of the tracks
produce. Needless to say the more forgiving physics works really well in
these types of races which are fairly predominant in the main campaign.
Lastly
the sounds and presentation. I don't think you can ask for much more in
the driving sounds. There is a strange absence of tire squeal when you
skid on pavement. Outside of that everything is there with co-driver
audio in rally and the sound of pebbles hitting the underside of your
car as you slide through hairpins with a Scandinavian flick. As you
watch replays and sift through the menus the soundtrack is not exactly
my taste, but that is a very minor complaint, if not one at all. There's
always the option to turn the music off. While I understand the idea
behind the interactive style of the menus as trying to be new, exciting
and different, it can also get old watching your character walk through
his trailer in a first person view as a way of 'navigating' the menu. My
patience for that type of stuff is pretty low and I can see that
annoying other people as well. Those are minor issues and more a matter
of preference, so I won't give them a knock in terms of rating.
Overall,
this is one of the best racers out there for 2009. It certainly gives
NFS Shift a run for its money, and in my opinion the poor steering feel
in Shift was a deal breaker, so I'd give Dirt 2 the nod in that
department as far as best game in this category of 2009. If I did have
one complaint it would be the length of the main campaign, which is
somewhat short at around ten hours long. Still, with the low price of
this game -- being over ten dollars cheaper than most other new PC games
upon release - the amount of content for your money is unbelievable and
well worth every penny.
UPDATE: Turns out I was wrong, and I
noticed there are indeed tire squeal sounds in the game. But for some
reason they are at a very low volume when using the cockpit view, making
it difficult if not impossible to hear which is why I never noticed the
noise. Another point worth mentioning, even though the game's cover
makes it clear, is that it uses Games For Windows Live (GFWL) to save
your progress. Do note however that you can setup an offline account
with no need for the internet for GFWL.
One
of the best racers out there
+ Idiosyncratic driving
mechanics based on the car
+ Beautiful scenery and geometry
+
Overall great racing game
+ Very stable (never crashed once)
-
No snow tracks. The last rally game I bought was exclusively because it
had snow tracks. Snow is beautiful and an integral part of rally. How
could they miss this?
- Need to sign up for a Windows Live Account to
play online
- Annoying unnecessary & unskippable animations (I
don't want to have to go from each gig scenery to my trailer every time I
finish a race) in the menu AND at the beginning of each race (I don't
care about who the AI thinks is the favorite to win the race).
- Game
controller vibration feedback not supported, can't call the pause menu
with controller buttons and I can't navigate in the main menu with it.
(I use the most popular game controller.)
Amazing Graphics!
This review is for the PC
version. I am running Windows 7 Pro (32 bit), with an Intel Core Duo
E8500 at 3.16GHz, 4G RAM, Radeon 4850 video card, and 24" Dell monitor
at 1920 x 1200.
The graphics on this game are amazing! The cars look
fantastic and the dust kicked up by cars in front of you are so
realistic looking. I find myself losing concentration at times and just
enjoying the graphics.
I think the PC version on a decent PC looks
better than the PS3 version.
As far as game play I haven't tried the
online mode so cannot comment on that but playing against the computer
opponents is pretty fun. The realism seems to be just right (you can set
the level - I have it set to Serious). I am not a hard core simulation
person but I immensely dislike arcade style driving games. This game is
way above an arcade style game. The force feedback effects are great.
You can really tell when you are losing grip on the front end because of
loose gravel.
Anyway, a very well done game. Keep up the good work
Codemasters!
No comments:
Post a Comment