Colin McRae DiRT 2 (Xbox 360)

Dirt 2 is easily the best rally game available, it has a large variety of cars, including rally cars, rally raid trucks and buggies.

The game has amazing graphics with great dust effects behind the cars. The cars also feature basic damage models, no deformation but parts of the car can break off.

The games tracks vary in location, spread across the world, from America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

There are various types of race types in Dirt 2, Rally, Rallycross, Trailblazer, Rally Raid and Landrush.

Rally is on your standard Rally tracks, the objective is to compete for the best time on the stage.

Rallycross events are taken place inside a stadium, or an enclosed circuit, were 8 drivers must all drive simultaneously for first place.

TrailBlazer takes place on hill climb type tracks, often involving driving through forests or deserts were the track is not so easy to make out.

Raid races are usually taken place rally style dirt tracks, and involve 8 Rally Raid Trucks driving simultaneously for first place. The tracks are in the same point-point style as a Rally track.

LandRush uses the same vehicles as the Raid events, however are taken place on circuits similar to that of the Rallycross events.

The game does not feature any local splitscreen multiplayer, but features up to 8 player system link and online events.

Probably the biggest downer for me was the like of a split-screen mode, none of my friends owned this game, so I had noone to play with, which was a shame, DiRT 3 however does have a 2 player split-screen mode which helps the game immensely in my view.

Overall the game is great, has realistic physics, the cars feel great to drive, the replays are fun to watch, they've managed to make it relatively easy to look good in a replay. The variety of events also help the replayability, if it had just been rally, I could have imagined myself getting bored with the game quickly. The mix of new and classic rally cars it also a nice touch, it's great to drive a Ford Escort Cosworth in a new video game.

Now that DiRT 3 is out, you'll probably want to use that instead, it has better physics, graphics, features and harder AI.