DIRT RALLY 2.0
Get some mud on those tyres.
Most
people don’t know how it feels to flick the back end of a rally car out on the approach to a blind turn. As a result, Dirt Rally 2.0 requires a greater level of abstract thought to assess its ‘simulation’ cred than, say, Project Cars 2. You might not have sent a McLaren P1 up Eau Rouge, but you still know how a road car feels on a road. Snarling Group B rally cars speeding across loose surface? Not so much.
That’s why Dirt Rally 2.0 exists. Since its earliest outings under the Colin McRae banner, Codemasters’ rally series has traded on ‘feeling’ just right. The way its cars squirm and shift through corners, the way you can keep them just about under control while they power through turns at strange, unnatural angles — it’s always felt realistic. Dirt Rally 2.0 tells you how it feels to be a professional rally driver with such fearsome assertiveness you simply believe.
A rally stage is an assault on every sense (alright, not taste or smell), rattling the cockpit camera violently while an audio onslaught of complicated but crucially important pacenotes hits you, whether you’re ready for them or not. Force feedback surges through your wheel, fizzing your brain as though you’ve licked a battery. Whether using a wheel (preferable) or pad, vehicles behave just as you want them to — barely tameable, occasionally balletic in their powerslides, and always convincing.
The sequel uses weather effects and time of day to create real drama. Standing water in between muddy tyre tracks glints under your headlights, dust kicks up around your scrabbling wheels, and each of the six rally locations — New Zealand, Argentina, Spain, Poland, Australia, and the USA — asserts its visual identity instantly, such is the level of environmental detail. It’s an incredibly handsome game.
Back from the venerated spec sheets of Codemasters’ GRID series is team management, which asks you to hire staff, purchase vehicles, and set liveries as you decide which event to enter next — a rally or a rallycross stage. This is, as if you didn’t know, the official game of the 2019 FIA World Rallycross Championship, which means eight licensed tracks spanning the globe and meticulous event recreation across several series.
MORE ACCESSIBLE
Speaking personally, that forgiving AI led to a sensation of ‘failing upwards’ as I took win after win without truly mastering either car or track. It’s probably intended as a means to make Dirt Rally 2.0 more accessible, but I’m not sure it quite works.
Dirt Rally 2.0 feels like progress. Certainly progress in the visuals, but also in the level of immersion thanks to tiny touches like driving beyond the finish line to the steward after each stage. And progress in a sense of overarching structure to single player racing, thanks to the management conceit. The only area it feels lacking, beyond the AI, is licensing. The Rallycross deal is great, but never has a game more richly deserved the WRC licence. Modders will work on car liveries in that regard, but with recognisable cars and names, this might have been the vehicle to bring new fans to rallying.