Dirt Rally (PS4, 2016)
Here's how I started my review of Dirt 4 last year:
Dirt 4 is not the fourth game in the Dirt series. It's the eleventh full release in a series that started with Colin McRae Rally in 1998. After the various different game modes besides rally driving that featured in Dirt 3 the series spun off into the dedicated Dirt Rally game of 2016, which aimed to be a more serious sim than the more accessible regular Dirt series.
"More serious sim." Well, from what I remember of Dirt 4 I suppose that's accurate. There are three game modes: Rally, Rallycross and Hillclimb. It's all proper stages and circuits rather than the colourful festival feel of the regular Dirt series. There are lots of different rally stages across six locations. The other modes suffer though, with three Rallycross locations and 'only' the Pikes Peak Hillclimb course. It seems like the amount of rally locations was increased since the game's launch, but it feels slightly unbalanced. I suppose it is called Dirt Rally, not Dirt Offroad Racing Multi-Discipline Game.
As someone who's not really played the Dirt games in the right order I found myself in a strange spot playing Dirt Rally. I played Dirt 4 last year and have been playing Dirt Rally 2 on and off for about two years. Dirt Rally is, as you'd imagine, right in the middle of those graphically and mechanically. Graphically it's nothing special, although the level of detail in the damage models is impressive. Nothing else really looks authentic though. It's not an ugly game, it just doesn't look very remarkable. Time of day and weather don't make much of a difference, it all just looks okay. I've probably been spoiled with all the time I've spent with Gran Turismo Sport and Dirt Rally 2, but the lack of anything standing out really stood out.
I only played the game with a pad, not a wheel, so I can't comment fully on how realistic the driving model is. I did find it quite easy on a pad. Really easy. The only thing I ever struggled with were the Group B cars, and that's to be expected. There are several different classes of rally and rallycross car and the differences between each are noticeable. You will have to adapt your driving style between each to be at your best, but even then they're all still easy to pick up. The Rallycross Supercars were really weird at first, feeling really large and heavy but I eventually got the hang of them. This is all using default setups, so I imagine it's accessible for people with less experience of racing games than me.
I think the best experience I had with Dirt Rally was the hillclimb mode. If you're going to do hillclimb you might as well have the most famous course in the world and learning Pikes Peak was great fun. In the championship mode it was split up into sections to start with before being stretched out to the full course. By this point I had learned where I was going and on dirt or tarmac it was a real thrill getting everything right. Even by the end of my time with the game, I'd be driving towards a bend which I knew was flat out at ~130mph only to still hesitate because I can only see road and sky. Beating the AI on the highest setting here was as satisfying as any circuit racing I've done in other games, which is about the best thing I can say for it.
It's going to say a lot that a time trial in a closed setting is the best and most satisfying experience I had with this game. The AI's rally times are wildly inconsistent. AI times seem massively dependent on the location with no real logic to how fast they'll go compared to you. On Swedish stages they seem to be on rails, yet in Germany they're so slow I think the drivers take the day off and put their grannies in the car. The rallycross AI has the same problems I remember from Dirt 4 in that they pay no attention to where you are on the track. I've watched real rallycross racing and it's very much a contact sport, but a fifty-fifty chance of being punted by three cars who aren't stopping every time you go into the first corner isn't fun or realistic.
The biggest problem with Dirt Rally is something I've never really been able to figure out about its sequel either - the sense of progression. My experience of racing games started with Gran Turismo and its very structured, gradual career modes. You start off with cheap, slow cars. You win races and you buy faster ones. In Arcade mode you can drive a select choice of some of the faster ones which makes you want to unlock more of them in your career. Modern racing games don't follow this pattern. They can't, with the way media is now. You need to give the player everything or they won't be interested. As a result you end up with the worst of both worlds. You can go straight into a custom championship on any course and in any car you want.
But then the game steers you towards the Championships where you start in smaller courses like I mentioned then work your way up as you win or place well and do longer courses, unlocking longer championships against tougher AI. You can buy your cars and hire your engineers and the more you run with a car the more it gets upgraded, adding power or losing weight. There's very little sense of achievement in this however. In many classes it's almost impossible to win with a fresh car with no upgrades, even on easier difficulties. Having to upgrade the car to be able to compete doesn't give you a sense of progress, it just feels unfair. You're effectively being made to wait for something you can do elsewhere in the game whenever you like.
From what I remember of Dirt 4 it felt like a bit of a mess after Dirt 3. The decision to separate the 'real' offroad stuff into its own dedicated series seems to have been a good choice. Being able to see the development and refinement of the series is really interesting, and I think I've had a greater appreciation of that from doing it in the wrong order. It's still accessible enough for just about anyone, with enough challenge hidden in there to really feel like a test if you spend long enough with it. Just stay away from Sweden, the snowbanks are stupid.
