Xbox Reviews

DiRT 4 Review

Review DiRT 4 | I have always loved to watch Rally-footage on TV and play them on consoles. Colin McRae Rally or WRC to name a few. Without a single doubt, I can firmly say that DiRT 4 is the best Rally-game I played so far.  Read more why in this review!

  • One thing I noticed with other Rally-games is that they take it for granted that players know what the co-driver means with L3 into R1 100 L2 jump 300 L5 don’t cut. Is this some kind of Alien language for you? Don’t worry, DiRT 4 has one of the deepest tutorials I have seen, really explaining you why Rally has a co-driver and what everything means. Not only the Rally language is explained but also some clever and necessary driving maneuvers, for example the Scandinavian flick. Making this the most accessible Rally game yet.
  • Not only the deep tutorial makes DiRT 4 the most accessible rally game on the console-market. When you start you can pick two driving handles, gamer and simulation. Gamer is for players that just want to have an easier time and have fun, Simulation is hardcore players that want a real challenge. Don’t get me wrong though, both playstyles need your full attention, one slight distraction and you are off the road against a well placed tree.
  • Despite the fact that newcomers and casual gamers can enjoy DiRT 4, the game is made for the hardcore. Tuning the difficulty up to the hardest setting is absolutely relentless! A careless action, a split-second late manual transmission and you are facing the last position on the leaderboard.
  • You don’t have a map giving you heads up. You really have to listen to your co-driver, and what a great talent did they take for that! A lovely girls voice that cheers you on and provides some of the most authentic experience possible, if you want you can also change it to the fantastic voice of Nicky Grist. Some other languages are supported too like Polish and French, but I haven’t tried them.  (Sorry!)
  • The best DiRT 4 feature? Something with only two sliders and five environments. Creation mode makes a brand new track for you, with the sliders you can set the length and how complex it will be… let me tell you, this is fantastic! While you can’t really edit some parts it still provides a way to keep playing this game for weeks and months.
  • What would a game like this be without online-play? Players can return each day for the daily, weekly or monthly challenges, fighting for that highest place on the leaderboard. You have to be careful though, you only have one chance to ride this track. If it’s a bust you will have to live with the disappointment and failure. Full-on multiplayer is available too, so you will always have something to do with friends or the best racing players from DiRT.
  • The amount of content is simply crazy, as if all the realistic game modes aren’t enough Codemasters have also created an arcade-like mode called Joyride. In this mode you have mini-games to drive through all blocks on a nonlinear track, or set a specific time for a lap. You get medals depending on your result. This mode alone provides gamers with hours and hours of content.
  • Damn that soundtrack! Songs that get your blood pumping, and while driving your car through dirt, snow or asphalt you can say damn yet again. The only word I have for DiRT 4’s sound is magnificent.
  • I have quite a few positive bullets already but I also wanted to say something really positive about the physics. Each and every car feels right, going high-speed throwing your weight right and immediately left for cutting.. what an awesome feeling and most importantly what a great design. I can’t imagine the hard work for reaching such great results. Well done Codemasters, well done!

  • Visually DiRT 4 can look beautiful and at the same time look as an Xbox 360 game. That might be a little harsh but it isn’t far from the truth. Let us start with the positive things, effects like smoke, heat and weather are awesome, the same can be said about the car models. On to the negative, environments often look unpolished, blurry and out-of-place. Trees or flowers that grow out of nothing for example. You don’t really notice it when you are driving fast but that doesn’t mean that things don’t have to look nice when the game isn’t in motion. Right?
  • The Rally is fantastic, joyride is fun, rallycross is okayish but the game mode landrush is a dreadful experience, one that you luckily aren’t forced to play. At first its fun to play something different but playing extremely small tracks over and over again isn’t really my thing. First you play 4 laps to get into the A or B finale, after that you need to play the same track again, yes again (!) for 5 laps. Repetitive to say the least. They encourage you to test it, but DiRT 4 has enough other content to last a lifetime.

  • Most of the times DiRT 4 runs perfectly, as you know, each split-second in rally is extremely important. That’s why it’s a damn shame that the frame rate lags at some occasions. Driving fast, reaching the cars limit in a tight corner and BAM, the frame rate takes a dip… the result? Your expensive beautiful Rally-car is laying kaput in the side ditch.  Is it worth mentioning if it only happened three or four times in ten hours of gameplay? Maybe not for some reviewers, but I found this frustrating and definitely worth writing about.

Codemasters is one of the most respected racing developers, with reason! DiRT 4 is a fantastic racing experience for newcomers and hardcore fans. It has so much content, you will be playing this for months and months!

 

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