Dirt 3 first off has brilliant graphics on the Xbox 360, but I would say it's only a slight improvement on Dirt 2 for minor reasons. The cars look brilliantly modelled, the reflections are spot on, and with the added weather, seeing your car get wet in the rain or get frosted with snow during a race is rather immersive and cool. The environments are even better, with full 3D background objects and no obvious weak points or poor textures at all (apart from some poor spectators which can look robotic or frozen). Even in different weather and lighting the environments look brilliant, and at night they look even better than brilliant. Another thing I love about the environment is the way it reacts to your cars presence, with thick snow being pushed aside when you drift with your cars rear a little too far out, and loose mud kicking up behind you to leave your tire tracks firmly planted into the track. The reason it isn't as improved is some effects were added which make some tracks hue an odd colour, although still I do believe the game can often look extremely close to real life on many occasions and that's a massive accomplishment. Sound is also top notch with real gritty loud engine noises which sound right in every car view you choose, sounds of gravel hitting the underside of your car and other effects are also added too. The physics are more refined than they were in the last two games, and it's definitely an improvement. They feel right on most surfaces, such as Gravel, snow and mud, but can feel a little over exaggerated on simple road surfaces. Once you get the general feel for the game you can really fling the car around and have some great fun, however it's not always easy or consistent, as if you overshoot a corner or slide a second too long, you will lose control of the car and spin out or worse, end up in pieces. Car damage is still in the game, and it still works as well as it was known for, with crash damage modelling looking pretty good and wheels falling off, real-time dents appearing or tyres popping if you try to play it like an arcade game and don't brake before hitting walls. What I love about damage is the way it affects gameplay, if you drive inside your car and smash a window, it will sound different and get an added sound of air swishing past you, which makes it all much more fun and real. The game has spot on camera modes, with the cockpit being the stand out for me. The realism of driving in the car without a HUD is spectacular, the water splashing up on the window as you drive through puddles, the turbos piercing your ears as you hold down the throttle and the shaking caused by the unforgiving bumps on a winding rally track really add to the games immersion. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of the menu system, as although it's all rather 'cool' having triangles open and close and cars drift around the options, it slows the whole game down because you have to wait for the menu to pop up after all of these effects, and with loading times being decent but a bit choppy, I feel with a more simple menu it may have been much more stable and faster loading events, however looking at the car during loading is a nice touch. DiRT 3 has a good career mode, with many different events including Gymkhana, Rally, Trailblazer, Rallycross, Head2Head among others. Events for Gymkhana and DC challenges are pretty fun generally and challanging to get platinum medals, which makes the game more fun and rewarding, and the variety of some events makes it great fun, such as the Top Gear inspired bobsleigh race. The career feels good, but toward the end it starts to drag slightly, and unfortunately it keeps adding more races to events making them get longer and longer. You also unlock Battersea (a race location in DiRT 2) which now becomes a free roam area with cool stunt areas and objectives, and this is a brilliant addition to the game. You can also share this area with friends online too. Thankfully, it allows singleplayer free playing which is great, as you can simply select a course, location, weather and so on... and just get out and race, whether it's against other racers or the clock. Difficulty on DiRT 3 feels about right with all of the assists off (apart from ABS) and AI difficulty on 4-5ish depending on weather/time of day and your personal preferences. The multiplayer sections of the game are the best in my opinion, the rally races are extremely fun against randomers and you now no longer have flashback as a backup. Pro tour mode allows ranked racing over live, it has a hardcore mode where you're forced to use no assist, no HUD and drive in the cockpit view. If you're more for the fun modes, DiRT 3 has many for you to enjoy. It has such a massive variation of online modes that it's almost impossible to find all of the online games uninteresting for you in some way. My favourite is cat and mouse, while it is extremely frustrating being a Mini with 3 faster, heavier cars hunting you down trying to stop you... it's very rewarding if you win. The online is possibly the best and most enjoyable part of DiRT 3 and that's saying something as it's got decent singleplayer action to keep you happy too. It also has splitscreen for offline users to enjoy too. Aswell as the other great things mentioned, it also allows a 30 second YouTube upload from the console, which is very cool. DiRT 3 is lacking though, I feel some locations don't live up to DiRT 2 where you had lush jungles with beautiful sun and colour, as these have been completely removed from DiRT 3, which is a shame, and it doesn't have the feeling of death around every corner that DiRT 1 had, although it does still often feel a little on the edge and this is nice. Also its menu system is slow and fancy which I don't really like and it still has the annoying pauses throughout the career to watch or hear the boring commentators talk (and these can't be skipped). On some online modes I experienced tiny bits of lag in certain games which made it hard to keep up with the action, but it was mostly lag free. Dirt 3 is a brilliant game; this review doesn't do it justice. However its missing things the first two games had which were really nice, like nicer environments, less talking and menus and more racing. Still to me DiRT 3 is definitely the best in a great series of games and it's definitely worth a try.
Let me begin by saying that DiRT 3 is an excellent racing title. It is far better than the glut of Need for Speeds that are heaped upon us year after year, and for that reason alone it deserves some recognition. Unfor... Read Full Review
This was the first DiRT game i played and i am totally amazed by it. With tons of events to play through, a difficulty slider that caters to drivers of all skill levels, tight, responsive controls, and a solid frame rat... Read Full Review
