Amazon.com: Dirt: Xbox 360: Video Games

32 Reviews

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
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4.1 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)

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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Codemaster decides to make it USA friendly., July 6, 2007

By	Paul Arellano "Last Days on Earth" (VA, USA) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

I'm a huge fan of Colin McRae Rally games from Codemasters. It's the realism. the car handling, the feel of actually driving a rally car. Rally games really haven't penetrated the US market. Only a handful of American enthusiasts cling to this very European sport. I'm one of those Americans. With the release of DiRT, it's pretty obvious that Codemasters toned down the realism of car handling and made it into a very arcadey type of racing. Codemasters went as far as changing the driver and co-driver's voice to an American. No more hard Scottish accents in this game. Now, all you hear is some guy saying American expressions like "I'm stoked! "Awesome all the way!" This is so cool!". I got this feeling this guy was more into surfing and skateboarding than rally driving.

Handling: No realistic powerslides in this game. This is arcade driving all the way. Very easy to do drifting and pendulum turns along tight corners. Cars feel like they're floating on air, almost the car is skating on ice. Braking has been changed to arcade style braking. When you hit the brakes, the car stops like somebody threw a brick wall in front of you. Slight touches on the brakes will put the car to a complete halt. Very unrealistic. Very arcadey. You've been warned.

Graphics: Excellent graphics. No slow downs. Have several driving views. I'm glad they have the dashboard view and bonnet view. I use these views to make everything realistic. Nobody drives behind the car in real life right?

Gameplay: Tons of rally modes. This is a mish mash of different rallies. One minute you're driving a Lancer Evolution and then the next you're driving a MAN trailer truck (without the trailer). Brings some unique driving experiene. They even have the buggy rally. All in all, game can be beaten in a few days. AI not too smart. You can easily dominate them around the turns.

Conclusion: If you're out for a quick rally fix without the real bells and whistles then this game is for you. If you're after realism, wait for the next release. This will disappoint rally loyalists.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get Dirty, June 20, 2007

By	BLEEKER (NYC) - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

First I'll get the negative out of the way first. I was dissapointed in the online multiplayer mode. You only get to choose from 2 types of races, both are time trial events you play as a single car racing to beat the time of other online opponents conducting the same race. No multicar races. No voice chat either. That's basically it. It could have been alot better.

Now he positive... this is one of the best offroad games i've played period. The damage effects alone make this worth while to play but the whole career mode is just a blast to run though. There are 4 different types of circuit races. All look fantastic with realistic enviroments and car damage. I love the navigator that sits next to you, adds a whole new dimention to the gameplay. The variety in vehicles is great, no body cuomizing but it's not missed as the cars all look and perform great. All in all a fantastic game, a little more robust online would give this a 5 star.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DiRTy Racing. Arcade or simulation?, July 6, 2007

By	Jorge Asapche "Turco" (Venezuela) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

If you ask me, DiRT is a mixture of both arcade and simulation. For traditional rally races, I would say they maintain a realistic level while the new race types added to this game come as arcade races. I guess these types of races and vehicle handling where created to attract the attention of new customers in the Colin Mcrae series. It's obvious that Codemasters wanted to change the game a bit since their old CMR series games didn't sell well on America. The first change they made was taking "Colin Mcrae" out of the title of the game in America (The European version of this game is called Colin Mcrae DiRT). I guess people who saw Colin Mcrae on the title knew all they would find in the game were solo point-to-point races which many people find boring. Personally, I think these types of races are the best ones (yes, I'm a rally fan).

The handling and driving in comparison to the old CMR games is different in DiRT, but not bad at all. In DiRT, the handling changes depending on the race type. In some it's realistic and in others it's more arcade. People seem to complaint that cars have a "floaty" feel to them and that they stick too much to the roads (Hey, that's what these Half a million dollar rally cars were designed to do), but in comparison to the old CMR series I think the "floaty" feel was significantly reduced.

As mentioned earlier, there are many race disciplines in Dirt: Rally(close to realistic driving), which you could say is the discipline where cars handle like the old CMR; Crossover(mixture of arcade and realistic driving, cars are glued to the ground here), which is derived from super special stages, Rallycross(close to arcade driving), where you race with other cars on closed circuits; Rally Raid(close to arcade driving), where you race other cars point-to-point, CoRR(close to arcade driving) and hill climb(close to realistic driving). These new disciplines are very fun and a nice addition, but I personally prefer the classic rally races, so to please everyone, there's career mode and there's championship mode. Championships are the ones every rally fan is going to. It's all about racing different Rallies, each one containing many stages (Just like WRC races). Career mode contains every type of event. It's career mode you have to play to unlock new cars and tracks.

On a plus side to simulation in DiRT, the damage on the cars can be very realistic (depending on the difficulty level) and there are lots of options for tuning and car setup which you can change to fit your driving style. Car setup is way more detailed than in old CMR games. What really bothered me was that there is no tire selection and races are also missing rain and snow (yeah it sucks, but hey, the game is called DiRT, not SnoW). Also, the times between drivers at the end of the race are more realistic (unlike old CMR series, where they all finish with a 0.1 second behind). Before, you were most likely to come in 1st place or last. Now, you'll find yourself in the middle of the leaderboard or competing in the top 5 plenty of times.

If you've played old CMR games, you'll definitely notice that the co-driver in DiRT tells you have of the track information than old CMR games. The Sound in Colin Mcrae is awesome, and so are the visuals. Crashes and car damage are extremely detailed. The special and lightning effects are awesome. Truly one of the best looking games on the XBOX360. There's a downside to it, sometimes you will experience heavy frame rate issues. The game practically stops for almost a second like if you were playing a new PC game on a very old computer. Frame rate issues are not that frequent and they usually happen when racing against other cars simultaneously. The frame rate issues also appear when using the chase cam views. I always prefer to play with an in- car view such as helmet cam and I have never experienced frame rate dropping this way. Another things that look amazing in DiRT are the replays. Too bad you can't save them (what's the hard drive for?)

One thing that was a disappointment for almost everyone is the multiplayer. There's not even a 2 player local multiplayer, just on system link or on Xbox live and although you are racing other players, you don't actually see them in you're screen. Here's how it works: Up to 100 players race simultaneously on a point-to point rally race and your current position is displayed for you to know how far you are from the leader. The player who finishes first wins. It's just a normal rally race but there's a little extra pressure since you'll know how close other player are to your tail and if they're catching up to you or you are continuously swapping positions with other players. Since I am a rally fan, I did enjoy this multiplayer, but I do admit there's allot missing (there's not even voice chat!!!).

Overall, I do like DiRT, allot actually. I recommend it to anybody who loves racing games. DiRT has a lot to offer and it is a beautiful game to watch. But beware old CMR fans; the game has changed to attract new customers. I still enjoy DiRT, but CMR2005 is one of the primary reasons I haven't sold my original XBOX yet.