Recent reviews by natj910

Way better than when released. Easily the best rally game on the market today.

The bad: still has minor optimisation issues and the usual UE4 stuff. Anisotropic filtering shimmer on the road at night, shader stutter the first 1-2 runs through a stage, very minor stutters in predictable spots on longer stages. Consistent microstutter in Corsica in the town, but it's driveable and a short section. Probably would be OK if I turned my graphics down but I'll take that tradeoff. Tyres available in clubs are often rubbish - I've seen 3x wets & 1x softs/mediums because the first stage is wet, but the next 6 stages are dry. Honestly all that is nitpicking and is not game breaking at all.

Onto the good - physics. MASSIVE improvement over DR2.0 - they've fixed the car rotation problem that left the cars feeling floaty. Here, they feel like they have real weight and grip. The car behaviour when airborne is a real highlight - flying over crests and feeling the car go light at the top of 5th or 6th gear in Finland now feels *right*, it flows so well. My only complaint is they've implemented the typical video game thing of making the car roll back to its wheels if you roll it onto its side. I suspect many people who complain about the cars feeling terrible have not set their wheel up correctly - for TM wheels you need to drop wheel and tyre friction significantly. DD wheels there are rally profiles out there for the wheel base. The stock settings do not work.

I've also gotta put it out there... I've seen a lot of comments that the cars are 'glued to the ground' or that 'Scandinavian flicks aren't possible'. I'm guessing these people have never driven a real race/rally car before. I have, and do so regularly. This is what proper rally cars on modern tyres feel like. They're glued down unless you're actually having a go. I'm going to put it very simply; if the cars here feel like they have too much grip to you, you are not driving fast enough. Git gud.

The stages are absolutely fantastic too - we finally have some actually authentic stages in a game that isn't Richard Burns Rally. Many are proper single-lane width, realistic length (20-30km) and are actually challenging, unlike previous games with superhighway width stages (I'm looking at you, Finland in DR.2.0). The new Croatian and Japanese stages are incredible, there's nothing more fun than blasting up Vrbno in an F2 306. Love the ability to run different seasons too, rather than being stuck with say snow in the same spots on Monte stages.

Honestly this is the game I've been waiting for to replace Richard Burns Rally. Just needs that shader stuttering sorted and some optimisation - and some more cars. Add the Skoda Octavia WRC, Hyundai Accent WRC, Nissan Almera F2, some more Group B cars (e.g. Citroen BX 4TC, 240RS, RX7, Celica, Skodas and Ladas), some RWD Datsuns (510 Bluebird, A10 Violet/Stanza) and maybe some 90's WRC Toyotas and it'll actually be perfect then!

Seriously one of the best games I've played. Doesn't hold your hand (much), and has a natural exploration feel. Manages to be cute, sweet & heartfelt at times, creepy and panicked at others, and then adventurous in others. The varied pace is spot on and the characters are so well done. The ending will make you cry (and if it doesn't, I question your humanity lol)

Also, like, you get to be a cat who scratches on doors & runs, knocks stuff off ledges, meows at people and generally runs amok destroying everything it can. What more can you want haha

Firstly, up until now not one single racing game has made me cringe even close to what I do in real life when heading towards a tree, barrier, bank or other solid object with way too much speed. Given that I've bent or broken at least half of my cars while racing and I was a big fan of the venerable Richard Burns Rally (& the RSRBR mod), I like to think that's a good indicator of the tone of the next two words.

Until now.

Dirt Rally is the best rally game in existence, bar none. RBR was just as good for it's day, but if we'll be realistic it's now over a decade old & it's time to move on. Dirt also captures the sense of speed better than RBR ever did and it's perhaps even more punishing on mistakes - especially in the online Daily, Weekly & Monthly Events. There is no rewind, no restarting. You crash, you're done - they way it should be.

Now, to the game itself - I'll start with the short list of negatives.
- To be honest, I actually feel the cars may have slightly too much grip, however this is coming from over a decade of RBR. It's not 100% sim, but it's more than close enough.
- The stages are made up from one stage per country. This provides heaps of content if you only drive the short stages but it's easy to start memorising the courses after a while.
- The only hillclimb is Pike's Peak.
- No Australian stages! I live in Coffs Harbour & would absolutely love to be able to barrel along some of our brilliant local WRC stages in game.
- The damage model is perhaps a bit too forgiving.

Now, for the positives.
- Aforementioned cringing when heading face first into a tree.
- The graphics are top notch, on max settings it looks absolutely stunning - but still is a little bit much for my R9 390!
- It's really, really well optimised for PC - the scaling is huge. That's somethign rare in these days of crap console ports.
- The handling. I did say above that it felt a bit too grippy, but it's easily the best on the market at the moment. Really, it's more than enough to create a realistic portrayal of rally and it feels totally natural once you get used to it. I suspect a lot of my problem is I'm playing with a XB360 controller as I don't have a wheel yet.
- All the stages, Pike's Peak & the Rallycross circuits are taken from real life tracks - Col de Turini (Monte Carlo), Ouninpohja (Finland), Sweet Lamb (Wales/GB), Baumholder (Germany), Pikes's Peak, Hell (Norway), Lydden Hill (UK) and others. Most are very close, although there are slome slight variances on the rally stages; presumably to save HDD space and make the stages more exciting.
- The cars are excellently modelled & sound great too. In fact, all the sound work in the game is top notch.
- The co driver & his pace notes. I'm so glad they got an actual navigator to read out the notes for each stage, as they sound so much more natural and the timing is mostly spot on. There are a few late calls that can cause some panic moments here & there, but you learn to drive around them. That's part of rallying and overall they've done a fantastic job.
- The daily, weekly & monthly events. These help to change it up a little & add a fair bit of pressure to race fast & clean, as there are no restarts - you spin, no rewinds or restarts. You write off the car, you're done, that's it. The wager events add to this immensely, with the opportunity to get good money if you drive well but lose even bigger if you don't. Absolutely love it!

If you're a rally fan or even just a driving game fan or car enthusiast, pick this one up. It's worth every cent at full price, and then some.

This brings back memories... We used to play this on the old G3 iMacs in high school - hectic 8 player matches all through lunch!

This is an absolute classic, not only for it's many industry firsts but gameplay that still holds up today (even if the graphics haven't aged well). It still gives me motion sickness & still manages to scare the crap out of me on occasion - and that's not a bad thing.

This works fine out of the box on my rig (Win 7) as it comes with Dosbox, but I highly recommend installing the DXX-Rebirth mod so you can play with modern controllers & screen resolutions.