[Official] DiRT 2

[what]

Why is the 360 upside down :blink: Either that or the video is mirrored.

Edit: it can't be mirrored actually. His shirt is the correct way round.

No, it's upside down, but it's probably a dev box with everything on the drive.

[Richard Hammond]

Im impressed, from what i can see the cars dont look like floating jellies wobbling about the track like they did in GRiD.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

No, it's upside down, but it's probably a dev box with everything on the drive.

I'm sure all of the dev consoles are black?

It can't be an every day 360 though, even if the game was installed to the HDD it requires the disc and it would fall out the tray if it was upside down.

Very odd :p

[san.W10]

Dirt 2 Hands-On

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/101/1011706p1.html.

August 6, 2009

[san.W10]

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 Hands-on Preview

I'm a big fan of the Colin McRae Rally series of video games and racing games in general, so when a teaser build of DIRT 2 popped through the VideoGamer.com letterbox I revved my engines in glee. Not much can beat the feeling of powersliding a Subaru around a long, tight corner, gravel being churned out behind your tires, spectators getting the perfect view from the most perilous positions imaginable. Something could hurt this though - say, for instance, a trendy front end and lots of people talking as if they're the coolest people to walk the Earth. Has Codemasters' attempt to make DIRT a fashionable game backfired?

Right off the bat the difference between this and the original DIRT is plain to see. Gone is the simple, stylish, easy to use grid event structure, replaced with a white canvas with events popping up as they're unlocked. This is housed in your tour caravan, complete with info on various in-game tasks to complete (distance travelled, height jumped - that kind of thing), stats, info on your relationships with various other characters in the game and a list of co-drivers. In our preview build the rest of the menus were locked away, but the final game will include a suite of multiplayer options so you can play with friends online.

Step outside the caravan and you've got a raft of other options to choose from. The My Rides menu lets you look over the cars you own, and those you don’t, letting you spend hard earned cash on new rides if you fancy something different. There's also a notice board, which we assume will give you vital in-game updates, but it's locked in the build we played. Finally you can see your currently selected car and head off to the race event.

When you're ready to actually start an event you're greeted with a set-up screen that lets you customise your experience slightly. The key things here are difficulty, vehicle damage and vehicle set-up. Difficulty is quite self explanatory, although the harder the setting the more money you can earn and the less flashbacks you can use. That's right, flashbacks from last year's GRID are in DIRT 2, so if you make a mistake you can rewind time as if it never happened. Vehicle damage can be set to be on or only visual, meaning you can be driving a heap, but still running in peak condition. And set-up is just whether or not you want to tinker under the hood or not.

Key to progression is XP, earned through race performances and any in-game tasks you complete. As you level up you open new events, and so on and so forth. It's not a new mechanic, but it's presented in a flashy style that might not be everyone's cup of tea. Our biggest gripe with the presentation at the moment is the few moments you're forced to look at the festival atmosphere after an event before returning to your caravan - it just makes things feel slightly sluggish when you want to get on with the next race.

In terms of what race types are on offer we can only really comment on what we've played. Rally Cross is present and correct, as we experienced in races set in Battersea, London, and Shibuya, Tokyo. These circuit races against AI drivers are pretty brutal affairs and nothing like rallying as you might imagine - assuming you didn't play the previous DIRT. Standard Rally events are also on offer, with the preview build offering a gorgeous stage in Croatia to scream around at an insanely high speed as mountains tower in the distance and the sunlight beams down a glorious orange glow on the scenery. Even though the game as a whole seems considerably edgier than previous McRae titles, it's good to see that the core rallying experience will still be well represented.

Baja racing will also play a major part, with the buggy like vehicles racing around wide tracks in an attempt to cross the finish line first. These events are more likely to see drivers crashing into each other as the cars handle somewhat more loosely, but they're good fun and certainly different to the rest of the race types on offer. The final event type we got our hands on is Trail Blazer, a high-speed point to point rally event that seems highly reminiscent of some of the events in the superb, now dead series, Rallisport Challenge.

With only a handful of events on offer it's hard to get a good feeling for how the final game will shape up, but on the track everything appears to be in order. We're far from convinced about the presentation elsewhere, though, with the festival atmosphere and in and outdoor locations feeling a little unnecessary in our books. Hopefully the sublime visuals, thrilling racing and presumably strong online features will make this something that's easy to over look.

DIRT 2 is due for release on Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 11. A PC version will follow with DirectX 11 support.

http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/colin_mc...eview-1889.html

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

As long as the driving is done proper then I'm happy.

I'm disappointed about how much they are American-ising the game, especially if the menu really is a mess. DiRT 1's menu was gorgeous. As long as that's the only place they are dumbing it down then fine. Hopefully they receive a lot of criticism and say screw it to the yanks next time and give us something nicer in DiRT 3 (if there ever is one).

Even though the game as a whole seems considerably edgier than previous McRae titles, it's good to see that the core rallying experience will still be well represented.

All I needed to hear.

Hopefully it's not a let down in the final game.

[+Mystic MVC]

The menu's in the first were indeed gorgeous. What is American-ising a game?

[what]

The menu's in the first were indeed gorgeous. What is American-ising a game?

Moving away from the typical rally stages and focusing more on stadium and street events. I never enjoyed the buggy and baja events in the original DiRT, it was all about the traditional rallying, but in DiRT 2 it seems to be the be all and end all.

[san.W10]

ya, those buggy & baja events were kind of strange in CMR title.

why dont these guys atleast make the game moddable, like rFactor.

i'm pretty sure lots of rally (game) fans will make add-on tracks.

in cmr05, the stages i really like-

UK: mixture of road surface - tarmac - mud - gravel :D

Finland: no need to explain here :D

Spain: fast swooping corners.

Japan: hairpins & hills (in cmr05, if you do too much of lateral braking, the tyres degrades really fast, wears out by sector 2-3)

Sweden : Iccccccccccccccccceee :D

unfortunately cmr05 doesnt run in vista & Windows 7 :(

so far no news about these countries in dirt2.

strangely no re/pre viewer is talking about tyre degradation. :/

[Elliot B.]

ya, those buggy & baja events were kind of strange in CMR title.

why dont these guys atleast make the game moddable, like rFactor.

i'm pretty sure lots of rally (game) fans will make add-on tracks.

in cmr05, the stages i really like-

UK: mixture of road surface - tarmac - mud - gravel :D

Finland: no need to explain here :D

Spain: fast swooping corners.

Japan: hairpins & hills (in cmr05, if you do too much of lateral braking, the tyres degrades really fast, wears out by sector 2-3)

Sweden : Iccccccccccccccccceee :D

unfortunately cmr05 doesnt run in vista & Windows 7 :(

so far no news about these countries in dirt2.

strangely no re/pre viewer is talking about tyre degradation. :/

'05 was brilliant.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

CMR05 should work in Windows 7 with XP Mode.

[Victor Rambo]

Does Dirt 2 have trucks? :p

[san.W10]

CMR05 should work in Windows 7 with XP Mode.

d/lin XP Mode. :D

460MB :o

[deletedxyz]

460MB :o

That was my expression too. I'm too used to seeing 4-15GB installations for games.

unfortunately cmr05 doesnt run in vista & Windows 7 :(

I was able to play it under Win XP SP2 compatibility mode on Vista.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Matthew Horsman, Chief Designer interview..

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/chief-de...er-dirt-2/53844

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnh6xoIPlRg.swf

You can see the single player career map in the background around the 1 minute mark, it doesn't look too bad, but no where near as gorgeous as DiRT 1's.

That hands on article made it sound really horrible.

Also, every event can be played online :s How's that gonna work with the rally stages? Unless it's classic ghost races?

Edit: night races and completely reworked the handling :D

Edit 2: can't get over how gorgeous the game is, it takes a dump all over Motorstorm and even DiRT1. This is what Sony wanted from Motorstorm to be like. The cockpit view even gives Forza 3 / GT5 a run for it's money :drool:

Edited August 8, 2009 by DrunknMunky

[houlty]

-snip-

The cockpit view even gives Forza 3 / GT5 a run for it's money :drool:

not sure the graphics hold up quite that well in the cockpit, all looked a bit blocky to me... although i did like the bit where the wipers come on after going through water. that did look quite cool.

the rest of the graphics look stunning though, i think this might have to be another buy for me as i loved DiRT...

[san.W10]

Also, every event can be played online :s How's that gonna work with the rally stages? Unless it's classic ghost races?

this time its not ghost car system.

every player gets 10second gap.

say, if its you and me, you'll start the race 10 seconds after me. [vice versa]

if you are really fast in that stage, you might catch up & even overtake me. :D

you can also crash on to me. just like real rally.

i just hope ati hd4850 can play dirt2 at atleast good settings

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Ah cool, well not sure how that will be but I hope it's fun. I mean, it makes the game more "real" because that's how the stages work irl, but this will be the first time in CMR series it actually does it. Will definitely make races more heated if you screw up and you gotta correct yourself before your passed by the other player.

[san.W10]

Ah cool, well not sure how that will be but I hope it's fun. I mean, it makes the game more "real" because that's how the stages work irl, but this will be the first time in CMR series it actually does it. Will definitely make races more heated if you screw up and you gotta correct yourself before your passed by the other player.

imo, it'll be awesome. :D

the player in front will be in a lot of pressure once he see's the other car in his mirror :devil:

if tyre wear is in the game, it can play such an crucial factor in every stage.

no room for errors :D

now one problem will arise, thats the retards :p, who go online just to ruin others race.

the noobs go the other way around, for head-on collision. it has been a huge problem in GTR2 (& i think in GRID too).

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Don't the cars turn to ghosts when they go the wrong way?

Every racing game I can think of since PGR2 on the original Xbox does this, no?

[san.W10]

watch :p

[Victor Rambo]

tbh, i don't care about mp, i just want awesome trucks, cars, graphics, career and menu. :woot: :rofl:

[carmatic]

sounds like you could mix and match vehicles when playing online? with the exception of bikes, atv's, big rigs and monster trucks, that sounds like abit of motorstorm thrown in there...

you could definitely see that the engine is 2 generations ahead of the original Dirt... except for things like foliage and stuff its practically photorealistic on youtube normal quality... my computer cant do youtube HD so not so sure about when you see it in HD...

i remember that first CORR track that you get access to in Dirt 1, and i could see just how much better it looks in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1yfmUOAHnk

Edited August 8, 2009 by carmatic

[deletedxyz]

watch :p

lol, proof that Benny Hill makes anything seem funny. :p

[+Mystic MVC]

What is the name of that song in the background? I've always wanted to have it because it just makes me laugh!