Now this is hardcore. After the 2017 detour of Dirt 4, an
accessible and noble experiment in procedural track generation that
nevertheless felt like it had gone too far in blunting the edges of the
sport it simulated, this is a return to deep, satisfying driving with
serious bite. To call Dirt Rally 2.0 a return to form would be
underselling it a little; Dirt Rally was arguably Codemasters' first
true sim, and in my mind the absolute pinnacle of the racing studio's
achievements. This refines and improves that formula in smart, notable
ways, for a markedly better game.
That 2.0 might evoke the much-loved sequel to Codemasters' Colin
McRae Rally, but really it's a game bearing the name of another sadly
departed British great that this commands comparisons to. It's been
almost 14 years since Warthog Games' Richard Burns Rally, but it still
remains peerless in its simulation of off-road driving, and while Dirt
Rally came close its sequel comes closer still. As ever, it's down to a
simple matter of taste whether Dirt Rally 2.0 manages to dethrone that
all-time great, but for my money there's now no finer off-road sim out
there.
Take any given car to any given stage and you'll soon understand
what makes Dirt Rally 2.0 special. Take the forward wheel drive Lancia
Fulvia around the rain-slicked tarmac of Spain's stages, say, and you
can feel the 115 horses under the stubby bonnet slip their way through
those front tyres as they spin beyond the edge of adhesion. You can feel
the weight shift back as you accelerate up a crest, then feel it pile
back on again as the car squirrels under downhill braking, and it's all
so tangible, so pliable. The handling in this game, in short, is
absolutely sublime. Visually this feels like a big leap over its predecessor
- and Codies does a lovely line in moody HDR skies now. VR support
isn't in at launch, but is coming later this year - on Oculus and PC, at
least.
The specifics of exactly what's changed this time out escape me -
attention has been lavished in more than one area - but a new tyre model
does seem to have had the biggest impact. It all serves to bring out
the character of each car - and what characters they are. There are the
brutish Group B cars that thunder along with the constant threat of
violence, the impish and fun Fulvia and Mini or the turbocharged Sierra
Cosworth RS500 that dares you to plant your right foot that little bit
further. I've fallen hard for pretty much every car I've driven in Dirt
Rally 2.0.
Given how much Dirt Rally 2.0 puts car and driver through, it's no
wonder it can form such a strong bond between the two. There's an
element of endurance to off-road driving that Dirt Rally plays
wonderfully to, mistakes being punished with mechanical damage or quite
simply the end of your run. "If in doubt, flat out," ran Colin McRae's
maxim, but here you're better off heeding Alain Prost's philosophy of
winning at the slowest possible speed, minimising the risks lest you
find yourself in a ditch towards the end of a draining 16km stage.
Still, there's something to be said for dragging home a damaged car,
bits of it scraped alongside the scenery as it noisily grinds its way
past the finishing line in one tatty, heroic lump. Choice of tire compound before a stage is new, and the
effects are noticeable. I also love the option to take an extra spare
out with you, at a 20KG cost.
It's seriously tough, and no doubt best played with a serious set
up - I've played mostly on the Fanatec CSL Elite which spins like a ship
wheel in a storm when things get more extreme, and commands a decent
arm workout on most stages - though I'd still recommend it to less
committed players on a pad. The handling acquits itself surprisingly
well there, and if anything this is a more accessible beast than its
predecessor; the funny thing about pushing for more realism in a
handling model is that cars behave in a more predictable manner, making
them that much easier to tame.
There are assists should you want to tone down the experience,
though once again the rewind feature is nowhere to be seen - a move
that's bolder than it's given credit for, I think, given how Codemasters
pioneered the system in driving games with the original Grid. It just
goes to show how committed it is to the cause, and to the demanding
discipline it replicates. Dirt Rally 2.0 asks for commitment back in
turn, though provided you remember there's more to throttle control than
switching it on and off it's never too difficult; most importantly,
every mistake you make feels like your own. Rallycross will likely be the focus of many when it
comes to online with its eight-player races, and there are of course
dynamic leaderboards and daily challenges for the rally stuff. It's fun
offline too, even if the AI can be spotty - there's a nice line in the
unexpected, a competitor's right rear shearing off during one race and
bouncing past my windshield. Now that's motorsport.
The commitment to authenticity extends to some new places this time
out - in the small moment of release beyond a stage's finishing line
where you slow to a halt by a marshal, or in the trill in co-driver Phil
Mill's voice when the speed hits three digits - and most importantly
it's there in the surface of each stage. Track degradation is new to the
series, though genre lovers might recall the feature from its outing in
the brilliant, somewhat underappreciated Sega Rally Revo (it's worth
noting that Sega Racing Studio, the short-lived developer behind that
project, was later acquired by Codemasters). Its implementation isn't
quite as extreme, though it does make a big difference; the quality of a
surface will change depending on where you are in the running order,
with more ruts and divots appearing and demanding a different approach.
It's an ample substitute for the unpredictability that the procedurally
generated stages of Dirt 4 introduced (stages are hand-crafted here -
and I think they're much the better for it), and combined with the new
tyre model it makes the driving feel positively alive.
Problems? There are a handful, though none major enough to take the
shine off the fundamentals. There's a fairly slim number of stages,
with just six environments, though that's bolstered by the inclusion of
eight rallycross tracks which come as part of being the officially
licensed game of the World Rallycross Championship. Beyond that licenses
are slim on the ground - and given the precarious state of the World
Rallycross Championship at present, even that license can feel a bit
thin - and I'm not a huge fan of stages from the first Dirt Rally such
as Sweden and Germany being part of a paid season pass. The stages that
are here are fantastic, mind, from the challenge of threading a
turbocharged needle through the sheer rocks of Argentina to the speedy
wilds of Australia. My hero. Damage modelling is superb, and has a big
impact on how your car handles - plus the heart-sinking mechanical clang
of a car going wrong is, like the rest of the audio, expertly executed.
The career mode, too, doesn't quite sit right - here, under the My
Team banner, you can hire and fire engineers and purchase cars to
develop over time, and while it provides a throughline it feels at odds
with the pared-back authenticity elsewhere. It's also mostly redundant
when every car and stage is available from the off in freeplay, so I'm
not entirely sure why you'd want to other than to have some tools at
your disposal for the daily and weekly challenges that are also part of
My Team. Anything that gets in the way of the driving can feel like too
much of a distraction, so it's for better rather than for worse that
there's not much there to do that.
And when the driving is of such exceptional quality I'm more than
willing to overlook Dirt Rally 2.0's faults. Go beyond that core and
Dirt Rally 2.0 can feel like it's held together with tie clips and
gaffer tape, and after some of the glitzier entries in the series' past
it certainly feels more like a clubman racer. Anyone who's ever braved a
rainy Sunday to watch a 750MC meeting will tell you that's where the
really good stuff happens, though, and Dirt Rally 2.0 is part of the new
Codemasters - the one that brought us the equally brilliant F1 2018 -
that indulges its passion for motorsport. It's deep, involving and
crafted with love, and you can't help but love it back in turn. The
original Dirt Rally made a convincing claim at being the best off-road
sim to date. I think its sequel can lay claim to being one of the best
driving experiences available right now.
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