PREVIEW – Codemasters had a surprising move, when they put DiRT Rally onto Steam Early Access without any previous indication of that happening. Of course, Codies already announced their intentions about porting the final version of the game to consoles – the game threw away the style and instead, it became a hardcore rally game.

My first impression with the game was surprising: I drove an old-but-gold Mini Cooper, screwing up the brake distance, ending up running off the road… destroying the poor car so much in the process, that I actually had to DNF the rally on the spot! Wow! I haven’t seen anything like that in recent rally games: I tried to break my car in WRC4 to pieces, but I never managed to actually retire because of damage. This already made me think more about „DiRT 4”…

Good optimization

Despite the game still being very well under construction, I can still say something about it: the game runs very decently – the PS4 port only depends on the finish date on the PC. This is going to be a good starting point: they will have an already completed game, which can be customized easily to make it a hit on the consoles.

But why does it run decently? Let’s just say that the game is punishing. You can’t just run off the track and promptly hit the reset button after doing so: if you pull this off, you will get at least a 10-12 second time penalty.

Why so serious? – Why not?

The game is not a simple arcade rally product, it’s the complete opposite. It wants to be a serious simulator – although the Richard Burns Rally heights from 2005 might never be reached, DiRT Rally will still be way more serious than the previous titles in the franchise.

There is no Gymkhana event right here and you don’t have to drift your bumpers off: it’s just you, your co-driver and the track. The stages aren’t short and they need practice to be memorized, because one simple mistake can be enough to cut you off from the victory and catching up might not be possible again… and yes, the car does get broken quickly under you, if you’re not careful.

Co-driver, shaken and stirred

The most disturbing thing for me was the co-driver’s voice – he has a very strong British accent while pushing a lot of information towards our way, so it has a positive and a negative thing simultaenously. The displayed notes however…

I dunno, to me, they look like something taken out directly from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, although they also give you a lot of details from the upcoming turns and hazards.

Despite you can learn them quickly (almost going into instinct levels), they are even better with the co-driver’s extra touch.

Let’s ride the world!

Currently, there are three countries and 36 levels total. This doesn’t say much on its own, because you have to see them in action because of the weather and daytime changes. You might have to go for a night ride and if you have your headlights broken, then… all I can say is good luck, better repair it before you roll out.

Speaking of repairs: if you spend more than the alloted time, DiRT Rally will not tolerate it and you will receive a nice time penalty… there’s not much time to fix your car, so if you slam into trees head on several times, your car will be way slower, much harder to control and it will also have visible damage too.

You can drive on Greece’s, Wales’ and Monaco’s roads, and the difficulty levels are open, clubman, professional, elite and master – you can pick any of these. What about the cars? There are some from the 60s (Lancia Fulvia HF after the aforementioned Mini Cooper), then the 70s have Fiat 131 Abarth, the dog bone Ford Escort MK2 and the Lancia Stratos, 80s have BMW E30 M3 and the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500, Group B has Audi Quattro and Lancia Delta S4 (and there many more in this era!), Group A has Ford Escort RS Cosworth, the 1995 World Champion Subaru Impreza and the Lancia Delta HF Integrale and the 2010s have the Mini and the Ford Fiesta RS for you. Several cars and categories, all require different approaches – we can’t wait to see the Hillclimb mode in action: hopefully, Pikes Peak will be featured. It would be a great thing after Gran Turismo 2!

First stage taken successfully

The game has great physics – the game is promising enough to be a tough challenge. We hope that there will be eight or nine countries, and if this will be topped off with a better co-driver voice and maybe more cars (we expect some surprises), then this year’s WRC5 – made by a new dev team – will not stand a chance.

The game supports simulation way more than you would think: if you pick an interior view, a manual engine start, zero ABS and no driving assists, you will get more bonus in the end – professionals will have a feast, definitely! This is an interesting solution. Hopefully the game will be out in 2015 – Codemasters have a promising game, the same cannot be said about F1 2015…

-V-

Publisher: Codemasters

Developer: Codemasters

Genres: auto simulation, car racing

Publication: TBA