If someone gave you the opportunity to join a rally cross racing tour, would you put everything down and jump into the car with no questions asked? If not can I take your spot? There are many racing styles out there but rally cross has to be in my opinion the most dangerous and hazardous, because of the open off road world where many hazards can happen. The tracks are unpredictable, switching up between dirt, mud, rain, and snow. I hope you are ready to put your driving skills to the test, because it is time to buckle up for Dirt 3.
The story is all about you as a new racer or, if some of you are like me, a returning racer to the series. As before you start off with your name, nationality and desired nickname through the series. That is pretty much it, not that complicated to start off and it becomes a lot simpler when you go into choosing a vehicle and race venues. The game’s focus is on sponsorships and you meeting certain rep points depending on the cars you choose. The more rep you earn the more courses you unlock and the games narrators will give you much praise for your performance as you do well through your tour. The “Dirt Tour” will consist of four seasons and within each season are three sponsored races ending with a championship race that will lead you into the next event. The areas that you will visit are Finland, Aspen, Kenya and Monaco which are too quiet and need your help to storm through with dirt and asphalt flying.
The one thing that always seems to catch my eye when “Codemasters” make a driving game is the personality. In Dirt 3 you will always feel like you have a coach or a co-pilot near you at all times; especially in some races that provides you with a navigator giving you detailed instructions on turns, jumps and hazards along the race. I find it pleasing when a game talks to you and it is not annoying or the game encourages you even when you fail; this in turn does not make you want to rage quit as much.
I would like to talk about the difficulty of Dirt 3. The game is pretty simple when it comes to choosing races and cars, but the complication will be in you as the driver. There are three levels of difficulty to choose from beginner, intermediate, and advanced. It all depends on where you feel comfortable as a driver; when choosing beginner level the game will help you with your braking on corners and a bit of steering assist. The intermediate will give you more car control and will make the A.I opponents a bit tougher to deal with. The last is advanced and you will get no support what so ever in this mode; plus the A.I will be very ruthless when racing you. In all that difficulty Dirt 3 gives you what I call it the, “If you F**ked Up” button, but they call it the “Rewind” feature. It depends on how many tokens you have on your left hand screen. So if you crash and hit the rewind button to start you back at a certain point and attempt to not crash again. The downside is it will hurt your points at the end of the race so try not to use it too much.
This game will give you much variety when racing either in a stunt based Gymkhana events, rally cross/land rush with dune buggies and trucks, or to the more weird events where you have to destroy robot alien cardboard obstacles. It goes into regular and forces you to ask, “Why did they add that?” until you realize that you are having fun. This brings me to the multiplayer where you will have regular races, capture the flag destruction derby style, infected racing where if you are tagged you become infected or scoring the most points in an invasion style race bashing into robot alien cutouts. The variety is amazing and keeps things interesting.
The new feature that I have yet to see is the replay option where you can upload your races straight to YouTube. The downside of this feature is that it’s only 30 seconds of footage and the resolution is at 480p. The upload takes a while too but I find it a cool feature and you can log into your own account to make it much faster.
The bad areas of Dirt 3, to be honest I can’t really see much NOT to like about it. The game is simple and easy to pick up; some might argue the fact that you can’t buy cars or customize, but there are other games for that. The environments are amazing to look at and you get the feel of actually driving in a real rally race. If I were to find something to bash would be that the track does not deform when you are racing, however there is no pixilation when picking up dust or kicking up snow during your races. I find it funny that there are a lot of tri-force icons in dirt 3 which one of our “YouTube” watchers pointed out.
In the end Dirt 3 is a definite BUY, it is amazing how the series keeps getting better and does not lose its luster which each sequel. I have to give props to the developers for really getting down and making an exciting racing simulator that keeps a consistent play through that does not leave me bored or tired. I just found out that it is time for my race, so in closing Dirt 3 will be out May 24th and I hope to see you on the tracks gamers….oh damn I have to hit the throttle now so stay frosty and enjoy my race below!
