Colin McRae: DIRT Review - Xbox 360

8.5

Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 8
Audio: 9
Multiplayer: 7
Innovation: 7

Got rally fever? Colin McRae: DiRT has exploded onto the Xbox 360 and PC, giving gamers a brand new racing experience like no other. Forget everything you think you know about Colin McRae games, because DiRT has set new precedents for rally games this generation. Gamers may find the game to be quite short compared to its competition, but boy is it sweet. Read on to find out why DiRT could possibly be the best racing game available on the Xbox 360.

Gameplay

DiRT works very similar to previous Colin McRae Rally games, but has an all new impressive 3D menu system. To begin with, you can choose between Career, Championship, Rally World, or Multiplayer. Unfortunately the multiplayer is only on Xbox Live or System Link due to the huge amount of detail each track has. If there was split-screen multiplayer, the graphics would suffer dramatically and it would not be worthwhile, but perhaps by the time Codemasters have released Race Driver One we’ll see some split-screen multiplayer action. In Rally World you’ll find all your arcade style race modes. Here’s where you’ll be able to choose the fastest car for each track to compete on the leaderboards, and also where you’ll be able to set up and have fun in a particular track that you may have sped through in the Career or Championship.

Championship mode gives you four different options. You can choose to do a National rally from a particular country of your choice, or compete in the European, International, and Global Rally Championships. Luckily for those looking to earn the achievements and not truly play the game for what it is, you can choose to compete in a short rally, but for those hooked on the game, long rallys are the way to go. The Global Rally, which includes six countries, involves 36 point-to-point tracks and six circuit tracks on Long, as opposed to 24 point-to-point tracks and six circuit tracks on Short. Divide those numbers by six and you’ll get how much is required for the National Rally Championships.

Career mode is where you’ll find most of your singleplayer challenges. There are eleven tiers of races all set up in a pyramid with tier one having eleven different events and tier eleven having the final rally championship. These events range dramatically from the standard point-to-point rally to a two-lap rally raid with trucks that look like garbage trucks, and even hill climbs with semi trailers. All the standard types of rally vehicles are there though, and with over 60 different cars to choose from, it’s a lot of fun testing out different vehicles in different environments.

Travis Pastrana, Subaru Rally Team USA Driver, guides you through the tutorial to begin the game which for some (continued next page)