Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3056 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Codemasters Limited
• Released on: 2007-06-15
• Platform: Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review

It may be tempting to think of this simply as Colin McRae Rally 6.0, but for once a game has been rebranded not to divert attention from an aging and discredited formula, but because it really is a whole evolutionary step forward for the series. There’s now a far greater range of cars and race types than just point-to-point rallying, with everything from hill climbing to rally cross events included. The game’s also far less parochial than before, with plenty of officially licensed international rally tracks and competitions.

As exciting as all this may be though the game’s trump card is clearly its graphics. After what seems to have been an endless series of next gen disappointments this is one game that clearly could never have been done on the older consoles. The level of detail is incredible, both on the cars and the environment, but what really impresses is how interactive everything is. Pranging your car not only damages it realistically, but whatever you’ve hit as well, from roadside barriers to other racers.

The game’s other great triumph is ironically also it’s only serious flaw. The car handling is superbly realistic, but so much so that it actually makes getting anywhere in the game extremely difficult without an awful lot of practise (and ideally a good steering wheel controller). At least you can go online for a match against others at the same skill level as you though, which does help to avoid too much frustration and helps you appreciate what is probably the best next gen racer so far.
Harrison Dent

Manufacturer's Description
Colin McRae: DIRT is the most diverse and exhilarating off-road racing experience ever with sensational gravel, mud and dirt events the world over. Events include the series' intense point-to-point races and takes players further off-road than ever before.

Race in challenging heavyweight 850bhp cars, drifting on the loose gravel and high-speed blind corners of Hill Climb events along perilous cliff edges. All 12.4 miles of the world famous Pikes Peak International is included, with over 150 precarious turns to negotiate through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

How about engaging in multiple car races with Dakar-style trucks and super-powered 4x4s on the toughest desert terrain in Rally Raid competitions? Then there are Rally Cross events, switching between dirt and road racing, where the competition is always tight, fast and collisions with your opponents are inevitable. Colin McRae: DIRT also offers a dedicated mode for European, International and Global rally championships featuring official 2WD, 4WD, Classic and RWD rally cars.

Colin McRae: DIRT delivers the wheel-screaming exhilaration of off-road racing with the next generation of the series' sublime car handling and physics system and a devastating new damage engine that ensures players experience every bump in the track, every loose rock, every inch of shifting dirt through the reactive environments.

With an incredible range of off-road vehicles, thrill-packed tracks, modes that make the most of online multiplayer, and more varied events than any other single-championship rally game, Colin McRae is a bigger, faster, wilder racing experience.

Customer Reviews

AC
The game is great, lots of different types of rally racing to choose from the career mode will need sometime to compete. I personally do not have any problems with playing on it with my laptop which only have a ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 one advise would be make sure you have the latest card drivers for your computer and leave at least 12.5 GB of hard disk space because the game needs a lot of space! Overall it is not like some people say you need a super computer to run it if it is jerky try turn down the graphics to Low and the detail is still amazing.

Compatibility Monster
Well, my PC trashes the required spec for this game, and beats the recommended spec by a good margin. Its just a shame that after install the game wont run. The reason it wont run is the over aggressive StarForce copy protection, which doesn't like the nVidia chipset HDD drivers (which it detects as being drive emulation software).

McRae? No, it's not really.
The McRae series has always been pretty much British based. Colin was a Scot. The overall FEEL of the series has been European, and the fans loved it. Now though, we get some American guy calling things "gnarly", and the worst of it is you can't even turn him off.
Not only that, the menus are, for some bizarre reason, set at a jaunty angle making them unintuitive to the McRae series fan.

We also now get a frankly silly array of cars, countries and racing events to take part in. It's just a big mess. What was wrong with providing good RALLY racing? McRae was a rally driver after all - I don't really think of stupid American drag cars or pickup trucks when I think of Colin McRae. The series has branched out, but what's the point? It just kills the fun.

To really destroy the game though, we have the handling. Using a joypad you simply can't even keep the cars going in a straight line - it's like driving on ice. Considering handling has always been a huge high point of the McRae series, this is just unforgivable.

Graphics? Who really cares, when a game is as irritating and unplayable as this big mess. Save yourself some money and buy McRae 04 or McRae 2005, both vastly superior games which provide fun, nice graphics and rally driving value.