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CodeMasters excel at producing racing games and Colin McRae:

Introduction

DiRT 2 is no exception. In Dirt 2 you play as a rookie off road driver looking to drive himself/herself to victory. Before starting your career you will need to customize your driver this includes: driver's name, gender, nationality and a really cool feature audio name, this is a name that your in game buddies will use when talking to you. Once you're finished customizing your driver you will be greeted by your first buddy Ken Block. Ken will show you the ropes and set up your first car a Subaru Impreza which belonged to none other than Colin McRae himself.

Gameplay

The DiRT 2 navigation menu is an excellent way of getting the player to feel what it's like to be on tour, the navigation menu is built into parts of an RV and a small area outside which you walk around in first-person. DiRT 2 includes a very lengthy single player world tour which will take you from the muddy terrain of Malaysia, Southeast Asia to the sandy U.S. State of Utah. As you progress through the single player tour your RV will begin to fill up with souvenirs that you have collected from various locations around the world.

For each race you compete in you will gain experience and over time you will gain levels that will unlock events and tournaments and they become much harder as you progress. DiRT 2 includes six difficulty settings that can be changed before the start of each race, this caters to players of all skill levels. By increasing or decreasing the difficulty level this will impact on the number of flashback’s available, the flashback feature isn't new to DiRT 2 but is a welcome addition, after doing eight laps making an error on the last corner would be frustrating, instead of having to restart the race you can use a flashback and rewind the action by up to 15 seconds.

DiRT 2 isn't the most realistic off road driving game out there however the handling does take some getting used to and each car will have it's own unique feel to them and with 40+ different vehicles to choose from you are spoilt for choice. Vehicle damage is very forgiving you will regularly damage your weels and you will notice a slight drag where there were impacts but nothing that can stop you from finishing the race, the cosmetic damage is very realistic your windows will bare cracks on impacts and sometimes even blow out if the G force is great enough, the body work of the car will also become crumped, if you hit a post at excess of 100 mph then your vehicle is going to show the scars.

There are three types of vehicles in DiRT 2 rally cars, buggys and trophy trucks each can be customized with a wide range of liveries which you unlock has you progress through the game. You can also decorate the interior of your vehicle with dashboard and windscreen toys and even horns.

Multiplayer is a great way to test your skills online, each player has a level which is a good indiction how good your opponents are, you will gain experience from competing and completing achievements and over time your online level will increase. Playing with friends is an easy process, you can invite up to four friends using Games for Windows - LIVE and then the host can search for a game which everyone will be able to join, all of the race modes available in single player can be played online but some modes work better than others. Overall multiplayer in DiRT 2 is a fun experience and best of all mostly lag free.

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is one of the first of three games to be released with support for DirectX 11; the main key feature of DirectX 11 is Tessellation which is the ability to render smoother curved surfaces resulting in more graphically detailed gaming experience.

With DiRT 2 being released at roughly the same time as ATI's latest high end graphics, cards the first to support DirectX 11, CodeMasters have put a lot of effort into making the game visually superb. The attention to detail is mind boggling, CodeMasters even took the time to make the flag movements natural using cloth tessellation, this basically means that there are a way more polygons on a DirectX 11 flag compared to a DirectX 9 flag, water is also tessellated and the realism of the water as it's displaced has to be seen to be believed.

If you were playing spot the difference between replays and realife footage you'd have a hard time telling the difference. DiRT 2 is a beautiful work of art and I hope that other game developers take note of CodeMasters masterpiece.

Summary

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is an amazing addition to the racing genre with an engaging navigation menu and lengthy single player, there are plenty of difficulty settings available which caters to players of all skill levels. Multiplayer is very competitive and user friendly, with the ability to join a game with a group of friends. DiRT 2 sounds and looks great alot of time and effort has been put into this game and the attention to detail is simply epic.

source: CSS Mixer

by: Akbar Shah Khan