Dirt Rally
You don’t have to be a loud-mouthed, producer-punching, overly-tall Amazon employee to enjoy driving cars, but it does help.
Get your motor running, head out on the freeway, lookin’ for adventure and whatever comes our way. Probably traffic jams.
The DiRT series fell into freefall after shedding the Colin McRae name, padding its content with ‘cool’ dialogue, x-game events, fireworks and pomp. It was time to reset. With no buildup, no fuss, Codemasters announced and released DiRTRally into early access.
For release, the content has been added to significantly. There are 40+ cars available including icons, such as a 1960s Mini Cooper, 1970s Stratos, 1980’s Group B Quattro, modern Imprezas, Fiestas, Peugeot Hillclimbers and more. As so often is the case though, including such a breadth of content comes with its own problems.
The cars look different, sound different, but they feel incredibly similar and lack any real, unique character. This lack of fidelity extends into other areas, keeping DiRTRally at arms length from any sort of sim status. With all assists off, an invisible hand will still gently help keep the rear-end of your car in check. The in-car wheel is locked to 180°; the gearbox modelling is laughable and stamping on the brakes is perfectly acceptable. Mud, ice and gravel feel incredibly similar and the amount of traction control is ridiculous. None of this means that it’s bad per se it just means we are firmly in ‘game’ rather than ‘sim’ territory.
Much like Codemasters F1 games, if you have an interest in the sport without necessarily having the desire to drop hundreds of pounds into equipment—this is the most comprehensive pure-rally offering there has been for years. The car and stage selection is broad, and while physics suffer, driving concepts like racing lines, throttle control and oversteer still apply without being overly punishing. Driving the cars is exciting, it’s just a bit simple.
Rally not a sim
Three event types are available—rally, hillclimb and RallyX. Racing directly against AI in RallyX is a fun distraction— the AI is aggressive but fair, while avoiding feeling too artificial. Hillclimb and normal rallying are really the focus though, with events taking you over Swedish snow and ice, Greek dirt, Welsh mud, long stretches of German farmland, through Monaco’s frozen tunnels and over America’s Pikes Peak.
Each rally is built up with stages and each stage is roughly a two to ten minute long point-to-point time trial. Car degradation from each stage is persistent, with you having to allocate time for repairs between stages. It means a trade off between going ballsto-the wall fast and easing off to get your car through in one piece.
The career mode stretches this concept out. As you complete events you accumulate cash to spend on cars and upgrades. That same money pot goes towards repairs however, so each crash will put that new Lancia further and further away.
DiRTRally, then, has a bold title. It’s a statement. It’s explicitly a rally game. A rally game where everyone takes it seriously, and in this it succeeds. Unfortunately, though, in physics and handling detail, it is a little flat. The lack of any sort of precarious feel when flying over ice and mud is an absolute shame, and the amount of forced assistance is a disappointment. Anyone waiting for a new Richard Burns will need to carry on waiting. If you’re after a successor to the old Colin McRae games or RalliSportChallenge though, DiRTRally is a strong offering.