DiRT 3 – First Impressions

After filming Ken Block hooning around a real life version of the Battersea Power Station gymkhana stage from DiRT 3, I got to spend some time with the game. I’ve always been a big fan of rally games, particularly those sporting the name of the late, great Colin McRae. I played DiRT to death, clocking up thousands of kilometres around its wonderful rally tracks. But with DiRT 2 I felt the game lost its way by straying too far from its rallying roots. As a result, I never did finish it.

Fortunately, Codemasters seem to have taken on board the criticisms aimed at DiRT 2 and during the run up to this Battersea event had been reassuring us that DiRT 3 features shed loads of rallying action. So it was time to find out if they are telling the truth by testing out a couple of stages from the game – one from the rally of Kenya and the in-game version of the Battersea gymkhana course.

First-off the Kenyan rally stage. Once I’d selected Miko Hirvonen’s Ford Fiesta RS WRC, I hared off down what was to become a treacherous, sun-baked, undulating stage and flanked by some terrifying cliff edges. It was made even more challenging given the tail-happy nature of the Fiesta under hard braking. After a fairly tragic first couple of corners I soon got to grips with the handling, flicking the backend around between trees and bushes like a driving ninja. This game makes you feel so good when you really nail a corner or ace a particularly difficult stage. This is exactly the kind of excitement I want from a driving game.

Graphically, the game is an improvement over the already stunning looking DiRT 2, with its beautifully rendered scenery. Sound-wise, it’s the usual collection of turbo-crackles and pops which are music to my ears. You also get some lovely crunching sounds from your car when you smack a bit of scenery. It’s a gut-wrenching sound too, as you know the seconds are ticking away with every little bump.

Moving onto the Battersea gymkhana stage; seriously, how hard can it be? Ken Block made the course look frighteningly simple with his car dancing under his deft touch, pirouetting around cones and snaking between all the shipping containers. It was poetry in motion. Unfortunately, my first attempts at gymkhana weren’t quite so elegant.

Initially, I may have had a few minor issues navigating my way around the course ;-) My car was shedding bodywork all over the place. However, this did a fantastic job of showing off the cool damage system. You can really bash the crap out of your car to leave it looking like one of the mangled cop cars from Smokey and the Bandit. However, after a while I finally mastered the controls. My eureka moment was performing a beautiful doughnut burnout around a handily placed JCB digger, with my car’s tyres squealing in pain as they tried to grip the gravel while the car slithered sideways.

In gymkhana, points are awarded for spinning around the various obstacles with pin-point precision whilst (hopefully) demonstrating delightful throttle control. Fortunately for us mere mortals, Ken Block has recorded a series of in-game tutorials to help you master the challenges of the gymkhana stages.

Codemasters also showed off DiRT 3’s “party modes” – Transporter, Invasion and Outbreak – with each mode pitting up to 8 players against each other. Transporter is a capture-the-flag type game but in cars. Invasion has you driving into cardboard cut-outs of aliens whilst avoiding the skyscrapers. In Outbreak, one random player becomes “infected” 5 seconds after starting the game and then has to infect all the others by driving into them. Once a player’s infected they can then infect other players, again by driving into them. The game ends when everyone’s infected.

Summary:

DiRT 3 feels like a proper rally game. Codemasters are to be commended for taking a long, hard look at DiRT 2 and making DiRT 3 the game it should have been. One to check it out when it gets released this week.

DiRT 3 is released on the 24th May 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

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