DiRT

freestyler105

Golden Master
Messages
7,883
I got this game yesterday, and it's great.

Good Stuff:
- Physics. The physics of this game are probably unrivaled by any other racing game out there today. Drifting around sharp corners is awesome, but the best part is the damage. This is nothing like GTR 2 in the respect that you have to figure your car's damage into the race. That said, going around and crashing into things is a hell of a lot of fun on it's own. Your doors can fall off, they'll accurately fly away. You can smash off your wheels, crack or break the windshields, and even lose parts of your car's body.

- Graphics. Another area where DiRT is the best of it's class. The cars are perfectly detailed, and so are the tracks. The question is can your hardware handle it?


- The tracks. For each track, you've got to work out a custom plan. If you go ahead and try to take a turn on some wet gravel the same you would as on dry tarmac, you'll be off a cliff before you can hit the brake. They're all gorgeous as well. The lighting is perfect, and accents the environments and cars just right. Everything in the tracks pretty much is destructible, although from experience I wouldn't recommend trying to take on a roadblock.


- Gameplay. The developers have really struck a golden balance between arcade and simulation. This isn't a Need for Speed game, but it's not GTR. You can afford to bump into stuff, in fact it's pretty much impossible not to. On the other hand, if you ram into a tree at 100 mph, your car will be totaled. The best part about it is the variable difficulty levels. On the easier ones, you're afforded more mistakes. It takes longer for your car to be severely damaged. On the higher difficulties though, one slightly imperfect turn could be the end of the race.


- Menus. This might seem weird to discuss, but the menus in it are great. Almost fun to navigate. The loading screens are also nice, displaying some of your various stats as you wait.


Bad Stuff:
- Starforce. Who in their right mind would use this, I have no idea. Why should I have to install a driver to play your game? Besides this, it doesn't even help. The latest version of Daemon Tools works with it.

- Frame rate. I have a pretty high end system. Currently, I've got an X1800XT video card. Given, that's nowhere near top of the line, but it's not a bad card. The game is unplayable for me at high settings. I've got to lower the resolution to 1024x768 and put the settings on medium to get 40+ FPS. Good thing I don't mind playing at around 30 FPS. It's partly because the game is so resource heavy, but I think they could have optimized it a bit more.



Overall, I'd give it an 8/10. It's an awesome game. If you've got the system to handle it, I'd say it's a must have. If not, then honestly I wouldn't bother. A big part of the greatness of this game is the eye candy, although the gameplay is good.
 
hopefully I'll remember to rent this sometime and give my input as well. :)
 
so what kind of system do you need to handle this well ? , or what are your specs
 
must play it!!!!!! Idt ne of my comps can handle it though i dont have a 8 series card garbage....did it come out for x box360???? it sounds so cool!!!
 
My current (relevant) specs are:
E6600 @ 3.6 GHz
2 GB Corsair DDR2-800
Radeon X1800XT

To really run this decently on good settings, I'd recommend a Radeon X19__ or an nVidia 79__ or better.

It also came out for 360, but I can't comment on it. The Gamespot review said it suffers from some framerate issues in spots.
 
my comps are fairly nice i got duel 7900 gtx's 4 gigs of mem but i got xp so idt it can use all of it....i think my cpu in my xps sucks though look at sig.....but i also got a custon comp with a e6600 but it only has a gforce 7600 in it and then my notebook check specs then i got to hps with low amd 2 cpus and 7300 le but i would love to have a 8 series but i want a new car and i need to save 15 grand so no more comp stuff....and that sux about the x box360.....i love playing racing games more on my x box then i do on my comp.....but i like playing oblivion and stuff on the comp.
 
Yeah, you can always plug your 360 controller into your PC though if you want the PC graphics with the gamepad.
 
i never really thought about it like that but i really like my 60 inch tv opposed to my 20 inch monitor!
 
Yeah...I guess I'm more of a PC gamer. I've got a 360 and a 50" plasma, but I think it's because I love shooters, and shooters just aren't the same on console.
 
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