DIRT 2 review
Codemasters have had great success with the Colin McRae Rally series, which has pretty much turned into the de facto standard rally game whenever it’s released — kinda like Madden is for football. Dirt 2 is the successor to the great, but technically flawed Dirt (known in Europe as Colin McRae rally: Dirt), and where the original was flawed and lacked attention, the sequel fills all the gaps. Even though the game moves a bit from the “simulation” into the “arcade” ballpark, Dirt 2 is still the best rally game out there today, and even with a weak competition, the developers still pushed themselves to deliver a great game.
In Dirt 2, you play as a rookie race driver who’s competing with pros (all from the real world Rally Series), and the campaign follows you through tons of races and competitions. It even starts fairly emotionally, as you’re given your first car, which is none other than the Subaru Impreza that the late Colin McRae drove. The campaign is fairly long and your competitors are quite good — but not too good. The difficulty can be adjusted before each match, and as something new in the series, 
you have a “flash back” feature, where you can turn back time a dozen seconds, which is paramount when you make a bad turn just before the finish like and lose the number one spot. It’s a great feature, however, it’s not prone to too much abuse, as you have a maximum of five flashbacks on the easiest setting, and even fewer on the harder settings. The campaign mode has some 100 events, some of which comprise of multiple races, but it’ll still give you about 10 hours of gameplay. In addition to that, there’s an online multiplayer mode, which is well executed and a lot of fun to play, however, there is no split-screen multiplayer mode, which is kind of a shame.
There are 35 cars in the game, all which can be upgraded and tuned before each race. If a tack has a lot of long, straight parts, you can adjust the transmission to give you a higher top speed instead of faster acceleration, and vice versa, if it’s a track with plenty of turns, you do the opposite.
Best of all, everything is easy to explain and simple to use, and you’ll quickly get a hold of it. In Dirt 2, you can not only drive standard rally cars, but trucks and buggies too — which are quite fun. All cars feature damage and deformation as you bump into other cars and rocks, however, you can adjust so that the damage can impact the performance of your car, or simply be cosmetically different. One of the things that stands out compared to the predecessor, is the AI. Your opponents are some of the most believable in a racing game, and you constantly get a feeling that they’re “real” folks who are trying to win the race just as you. Occasionally, just as you will, they’ll gamble too much and crash. Another great update is the co-driver, who’ll give you accurate directions and criticize you if you’re doing bad, and should you smash into something, you’ll hear them scream as well. It can get too repetitive, but it does the job well, as you will rarely be looking at the minimap, and instead just listen to your co-driver.
Technically, the game looks gorgeous, runs smooth at a constant frame rate, and exhibits almost no bugs and glitches. The little details like the dust gathering on the car as it progresses though the race are great touches. If you’re into racing, not just rally, Dirt 2 is simply a must have game.
The Good:
Great campaign mode
Visually stunning
Online multiplayer
The Bad:
No split-screen multiplayer
Overall score: 9/10