Colin McRae DiRT

[Delicieuxz]

Have many of you here played this? It's downright amazing. I think it's the best racing game I've ever played, and probably the most beautiful looking game as well (I assume it looks much better maxed out on pc than what any console could produce). I'm granting it the "favorite game on my Vista hdd" award.

I don't like the sand buggy races or clumsy truck ones because of their imprecise handling and more plain tracks, but there are very limited amounts of those, and the twisting, high speed rallies/hill climbs/etc are an incredible experience.

Thankfully, with dual gtx 260's, I'm able to max out all the graphics settings at 1900x1200 on a 25.5" monitor, which lets me be wowed by how incredibly great this game looks - which is far beyond what I'd expected after looking at online screenshots. I'm overclocking my video cards (with a little oc room still to spare) to get this performance, and I've noticed a tiny bit of slowdown on a few tracks (out of over 100?), but I don't know if that's actually my setup, or something with the track, as played with different oc settings gave seemingly the same result.

I see that a DiRT 2 is on the way for 2009, with an enhanced EGO (DiRT's) engine. I hope I find a way to get great performance with full visuals for that game as well.

My longstanding mourning for Need For Speed (which I haven't loved since NFS 3) is fully over. :)

Codemasters seems to keep themselves quite busy, with DiRT being out in 2007, GRID in 2008, and DiRT 2 in 09... must have a couple large dev teams. I don't yet know if I'll pass on GRID or not, urban racing is never close to being as enjoyable as scenic racing, not in my opinion. Then again, I may give it a chance just because of DiRT's impressiveness.

The only things I wish DiRT additionally had, are an option to mark tracks in a "favorites" group (since there are so many and it's hard to tell which are your faves) and a map editor.

[Kev_Boy]

I only got this game a week ago myself, for the 360, and I must say I'm having fun too!
It does lock up my 360 sometimes which no other game has ever done before.

I miss weather conditions like rain and snow or fog - for the rest - I couldn't ask for much more :)

[Delicieuxz]

Oh, right, I meant to add to my list of "things I wish DiRT additionally had," weather!
Man, just thinking about how this game would look racing through some snowy mountain tops makes me almost cream myself /drools. Ok, I'm done sounding like a nerd... for now.

[Phait]

Demo was fun but handling physics were bad. I'll just stick with Richard Burns Rally.

[Delicieuxz]

Depends which race you were in. There was some truck race early in the game that handled like crap, one of the first races in the game, but the large majority of the game has awesome handling.


edit: Yeah, just checked it... the very first race in the game is the one with perhaps the worst handling, just due to the vehicle you're driving. The track isn't very interesting either. I don't know if that's the one that's in the demo, but it would explain your statement if it is.

[Nessus]

Demo was fun but handling physics were bad. I'll just stick with Richard Burns Rally.

That was my impression too. To be fair I was playing it on my old rig and it was choking so maybe i owe the demo another go. That damn RBR will ruin everything for you, it's the best driving model ever done.

[Delicieuxz]

Well they're two very different driving styles for sure... but there are also a lot of different handling styles within DiRT itself, and some of it I don't like (buggy, truck) while some of it I do. So far, at least the way I've been playing it, DiRT hasn't really been a handbrake game, although it works nicely on the sharpest corners. That contrasts with RBR, which is very much a handbrake game. DiRT has plenty of its own shining aspects, stuff that isn't in RBR.
Maybe I'll make some racing vids with fraps to post.

[Nessus]

Was looking on youtube. Great looking game, looks pretty fun too. I can't believe how fast the action was on the Pikes Peak run I was watching. Is this at normal game speed? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBfND2sYR10&feature=related

[Delicieuxz]

Yeah, it's really that fast for that race, I just did it with that car today. I've had a few rushes from the speed while playing this game - it's pretty exciting when everything comes together and you're just flying through twisty narrow tracks and managing to handle the vehicle perfectly.

I noticed in that video's comments that someone says there are physics fixes for the game, I'll have to look into those, but I'll probably wait until I've played through the game once with stock physics.

Also today, I got a "like new" Logitech Momo steering wheel with shifter and pedals off craigslist for pretty cheap, but I'm experiencing a mondo learning curve with it, I'm all over the place at low speeds! I have the handling down pretty well with my analogue gamepad, but this steering wheel is totally different, I hope I get get it to an equal controllability level as the gamepad.
I guess having the steering wheel gives me one more reason to pick up GRID.

I've confirmed that the slowdown I experienced on select tracks (3 maybe? and which are all circuits) has to do with something in the game other than graphics settings, as the problem is just as prevalent after turning off shadows and AA (which I otherwise have on 4x). Weird.

[Lethe]

GRID is hands down one of the best racing games I have ever played, and I played lot of them. Be sure to pick it up. Your post encouraged me to give another chance to DiRT. First few races put me off first time I tried it.

[Delicieuxz]

How's the re-trying of DiRT going? I haven't started GRID yet, in fact I've had no time for any game since I finished DiRT, but I've still got it in mind, and plan to begin playing it soon.

[shiranui]

McRae is making games from the grave now?

[Phait]

No,
Colin McRae: DiRT (shortened to DiRT in North America) is the sixth racing game in the Colin McRae Rally series, developed by Codemasters, and the last of the series to be published before Colin McRae's death