Colin McRae: DiRT 2

This week, we take on the DS counterpart to the disappointing Wii driving game.  Can it fare any better than its big brother?

I feel I should start with an admission.  It’s important to be honest as a reviewer, no matter how many freebies are being thrown at you mercilessly by companies.  And I’m not just saying that because no one has seen fit to bribe me in any way (for the record, I’m a medium in t-shirts and like models, toys and other random pieces of plastic crap.  Just saying).  So, a confession before we begin: I’m not really one for driving/racing games.  Not realistic ones at least. I tend more towards the fantasy side of things: jet-packs, rocket cars, that kind of thing.  The more realistic the ride, the quicker I am to fall asleep.  So, in theory, not the best person to review a game like this.

Or am I?  I mean, if a game like this manages to impress me, someone who doesn’t even like the genre, then obviously, it must be something special, right?

Okay then, where to start.  How about the graphics?  Well, they’re chunky, as you’d expect for a DS polygon-based title, but animated smoothly.  The tracks look nice and everything flows nicely.  Nothing massively special, but it’s nice for what it is.  The soundtrack, on the other hand is worthy of mention, and not just for the fact that, unlike the Wii version,there is one.  You play a game like this, you have certain expectations for the music: mainly that it’s going to be filled from head to toe with the same me-too pop punk that’s in seemingly virtually every other sports game that doesn’t involve a ball of some variety.  Blame Tony Hawk for that one, he started it.  So it’s really a pleasant surprise to find that the soundtrack here consists mainly of indie-style songs.  Unfortunately, this is tempered by the fact that the soundtrack consists of all of about 8 songs, so you’re probably going to get pretty sick of them pretty quickly.  Especially since the game seems to have a nasty habit of playing one or two of them more frequently than others.  Maybe it was just me and my bad luck, but I had one song play something like five or six times in a row.  Not something you really want happening in a game no matter how good the music.

Then we come to the racing itself.  There’s a variety of different styles of racing one can partake in, ranging from basic circuits of a track, to actual A-to-B races to rally driving and so on.  There’s a few ‘Xtreme’ events too, such as car launching just in case you’re getting bored with all the driving.  There’s three levels of difficulty which, naturally, affect the other drivers’ performance.  Thing is, however, there’s a surprising leap in difficulty between each one.  The basic difficulty is pathetically easy to beat, while the intermediate level drivers are worryingly aggressive, having no qualms about ramming you out the way if you happen to be where they want to be.  And on the hardest settings, you’ll be lucky if you get to see them at all, they’re off like an absolute shot.

The ramming has an extra aspect to it, as your car can take damage from collisions and impacts.  It varies on what kind of impact and how hard, but your steering, acceleration and more can all take a hit if you’re not careful.  And since the computer drivers aren’t shy about slamming into you for giggles, it’s a rare race you’ll emerge from completely unscathed.

Winning a race earns you cash and points.  Cash is used to upgrade and buy cars, of which there’s about 20 or so.  Upgrades are your typical acceleration/handling bunch, nothing out of the ordinary there.  You can, however, buy custom paint jobs for your vehicle.  There’s a basic design editor for your own logos and colour, but nothing as complex as what you can buy.  The points, on the other hand, gain you access to further races and events in the game, each one requiring a certain total to unlock.  You can breeze through the easiest rank, gaining pitiful cash rewards, but sooner or later, you have to gird your loins and move up to the next rank, the cash rewards and number of points increasing greatly with each difficulty.

Winning races also earns you parts to use with the track editor.  You can create your own tracks for use in the multiplayer mode.  The range of parts and length of the tracks you can create is, frankly, impressive.  There’s a hard limit to what you can put down at once, but you can make a stupendously long track long before you reach it.  Unless you’re like me, and have all the skill of a drunk walrus when it comes to any kind of editor or designer, in which case you’ll make a simple oval with lots of bumpy bits and send your car flying every three seconds.

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 surprised me, I must admit.  It’s no Gran Tourismo, which is probably a good thing, since the in-depth tinkering the game goes into bores the hell out of me.  It’s not quite a serious driving game, so anyone looking for some hardcore gear-heading on the move would do well to look elsewhere.  For others… well, as I’ve said, I normally avoid driving games, and this kept my interest for far longer than I ever would’ve expected.  If you actually like driving games, feel free to add an extra point at the end here.  If you don’t, give this a try, it may well surprise you.

+ Easy to get into
+ Soundtrack is a nice change from the norm
+ Game offers a good selection of events
+ Very in-depth track editor/designer

- Limited soundtrack means songs will be heard way too often
- Jumps between difficulties result in uneven pacing

Score – 7/10