Colin McRae: DIRT (PS3)

...was to find out that Colin McRae passed away last Saturday (15th September). He was the one who got me interested in rallying in the first place and the world in general will be a little worse off without him. But many thanks for the memories, and putting your name to this game.

Ok, so onto the game. This was something of a big title for me, as it was one of those games I'd read about ages ago and bought a PS3 in anticipation of. Up ...
...expectations?

The Colin McRae franchise has been around the better part of a decade now, and has always been the measuring stick for all rally games. There have been others that have come close, such as Sega Rally and WRC, but this is the original, the mack-daddy.

To get the logistics out the way first, the game costs £50 (though if you part exchange a couple of PS3 games this can drop the price to about £15). It supports ... more

Well, first of all I do have to state how huge a shock it was to find out that Colin McRae passed away last Saturday (15th September). He was the one who got me interested in rallying in the first place and the world in general will be a little worse off without him. But many thanks for the memories, and putting your name to this game.

Ok, so onto the game. This was something of a big title for me, as it was one of those games I'd read about ages ago and bought a PS3 in anticipation of. Up to the release of this title, most of the PS3 games have been a little...weak. But between now and April next year, the PS3 will start to see some big guns come out to play (PES 2008, Smackdown vs. Raw 2008, Fifa 08, GTA IV to name a few). So, does the first "big" PS3 title live up to expectations?

The Colin McRae franchise has been around the better part of a decade now, and has always been the measuring stick for all rally games. There have been others that have come close, such as Sega Rally and WRC, but this is the original, the mack-daddy.

To get the logistics out the way first, the game costs £50 (though if you part exchange a couple of PS3 games this can drop the price to about £15). It supports HDTV, and has an online mode for up to 100 players. I've not tried online mode yet, mainly because being thrashed by 11 year olds, and having them say mean things about my mother, gets a little degrading after a while. Unlike all other McRae titles, this one has many other forms of racing included. It was felt that given how vast games can be these days, just having a simple rallying game may be a little one dimensional. So you will find many different race types here, including lorries, big rigs, 4x4s, traditional rally cars, classic rally cars and buggies, and a load more. Because of this, Colin McRae DiRT finds itself in the firing line of one of the PS3 originals and future classics, Motorstorm. So let's get it proverbially on.

GRAPHICS

The best bit of the game. This is easily the best looking PS3 title so far, and you will be amazed at what the console can handle. The first thing that grabbed me was the sense of speed. A lot of titles would require you to get to 8000mph before you get any sense of speed, but this is so real - if you're doing 100mph down a country lane, you will be on edge and as jittery as a coffee addict on a jackhammer.

The damage is absolute real-time, and I mean absolute. If you hit a metal barrier, it will dent and deform in real time. If you land a jump badly, the exhaust will go bye-bye. If you plough into a tyre wall, the tyres will fly everywhere, sometimes bouncing off of the other cars. The cars are all exact replicas, and actually look metallic (or by the end of the race, filthy). The menus are big, bold and clear, and even the driver animations are incredible - your driver's suit will crumple and crease in relation to his arm movements. I have never, ever, seen a game that is so graphically detailed. It makes Motorstorm look like a PS2 title. My one criticism isn't even strictly graphics based. It concerns the replays, and the fact that there is no option to save them, which is a shame.

GAMEPLAY

Yet again, this is a PS3 racer that feels that L2 and R2 should act as the accelerator and brake, and it just doesn't work. However, there is a controller preset that allows you to go back to old fashioned controls, which is a big help. The cars handle perfectly - ease of car control has always been the party piece of the Colin McRae franchise. Admittedly, they aren't super simulation realistic - I think given the difficulty of some of the courses, having overly realistic controls would just make the game impossible. However, on some surfaces the cars seem a bit eager to slip and slide, which can be frustrating on some of the tighter courses, especially ones with tree-lined roads.

This brings me onto the damage system. Whilst the cars are damaged in real time, you obviously can't tell the extent of the damage just by looking. So by pressing pause, you can bring up a list of all the different components and how much damage each one has taken. Certain ones, once they have reached 0%, will cause "terminal damage", meaning race over. The damage system is very true to life - you could bump the car gentle a dozen times and still carry on, but if you head into a tree at 100 miles an hour, that'll be the end of your race.

As far as game modes are concerned, you can do one off rallies, full championships, and crossover races (1 on 1 races against another car on a figure of 8 track). But the bulk of the game lies in career mode. Here, you are presented with a pyramid of different races to choose, and this pyramid is huge - I would guess that there are at least 75 different races to complete before you get to the top, some races requiring you to complete 3 or 4 stages. You start at the bottom and each race will give you points depending on your position, and as you get more points, more races become available. You also make money from races, and these amounts vary depending on the difficulty - if you choose rookie level you only get paid a small amount, for example. It's all pretty straight forward, but because the game itself plays so well, it never becomes boring.

My one big criticism concerns racing the lorries. It is far too easy to tip them over, and this becomes very frustrating. Ok, it may work on real time physics, but perhaps Codemasters could have played God here a little bit and allowed the lorries to stay upright most of the time.

SOUNDS

The menu music is pretty...menu-music-y. You won't really notice it. The engine noises are fantastically, superbly brilliant. Elsewhere, things can be a bit iffy. If you drive near a wall, you get a noise that I'm guessing is supposed to be the noise of your engine echoing off the wall. But it sounds like the screaming of a thousand dead ghosts, and is quite alarming. Not entirely sure where they got the sound bite for this. The other moan and it is the biggest one I have, is the co-driver. He's a bloody American. To me, rallying is the most European thing in the world. It conjures up images of tuned cars racing through British forests, and everyone has a rustic accent and if they aren't driving, a cup of Bovril in their hands. Hearing this horrible, nasty, whiney American rattling off cheesy words of encouragement is enough to make me rip the speakers out of my TV. I want the Welsh bloke back! Or at least an option to change the co-driver. Or even an option to eject him from the car mid race and leave him impaled on a tree stump.

LONGETIVITY

As is the case with all sports games, this one will last as long as you want it to. There are 46 cars to unlock, nearly 200 different liveries, and so you will spend a good couple of months unlocking everything. After that, you will probably spend the rest of time perfecting your race times against the online world, or yourself. The learning curve is very good too - you will definitely find a level that challenges you without driving you up the wall (pun intended).

OVERALL

I hate to say it, but this game snuffs out Motorstorm's reign as the king of the off road games in record time. The gameplay is better, the tracks, while not as free roaming, are plentiful, and you will want to keep playing for longer. Yes, it has a few minor faults with the sound, and occasionally you will get frustrated at having to try a race over and over because you can't win it, but that's the point of games - they're supposed to be challenging. This isn't just the best rallying game; it is in my opinion, the best driving game, period. Gran Turismo used to be top of the tree with its flashy graphics and official licenses, but I firmly believe that this game will stay top of the racing tree for a long while yet. I don't know if this will be the last McRae game given the circumstances, but if it is, it has gone out on the highest of highs. 

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