In recent years, Codemasters have two core racing series, Grid and Dirt. The Grid series was changed in each iteration which went from a semi-realistic driving game, to an arcade racer, then to full simulation, leaving the series very confused. On the other hand, Dirt has introduced more modern, trendy aspects such as Gymkhana, but has had realistic Rally at its core...until now.
Dirt Showdown has changed the style so much that it's just silly branding this game with the Dirt brand. Showdown does include some racing events and Gymkhana, but there's a lot more focus on Destruction Derby style events and the handling and race style has been changed completely.
In my opinion, a racing game should offer one or more of: authenticity, speed, realism, or drama. A game like Forza offers authenticity, realism and speed (depending on class). 'Split/Second' gives you speed and drama (lots of explosions), and previous Dirt games give you authenticity, speed and realism. Grid games gave you the speed and the drama of battling out with your rivals. I feel that Showdown offers none of these elements.
For a start, the sense of speed is so slow. The cars have a boost feature which makes the game arcade-like but this doesn't give you a significant increase. You can tell Codemaster's didn't care about the racing since there's no option for manual gears, no cock-pit view and not even a speedometer on the HUD. The handling has changed so you go around corners without much need of the brake, instead you can just release the accelerator a bit, or nudge the hand-brake. You'd think you'd be power-sliding around corners but I didn't see much scope for that because the handling seemed pretty rigid.
There's a variety of race types but I didn't find any of them to be fun. The normal 'Race-Off' and the 'Domination' modes are boring because the racing is boring. Elimination doesn't work too well because the intervals are too short and one mistake (or if you get rammed) means you get eliminated.
The Demolition style events should be fun but the damage model isn't dramatic enough to make things look a spectacle. Cars just plough or nudge into each other. There's no dramatic spins or flips, nor do you notice any change in performance as you take damage. I remember one thing that made the old Destruction Derby games fun was trying to steer with a tyre missing, but that doesn't feature in this game. Even when your car is destroyed, you just respawn at full health. These events just seem random since I wasn't convinced the AI knew what it was doing. Sometimes you would just see them go full speed into a wall or just drive around confused. In the Hard Target event, several cars try and take you down, and you have to survive as long as possible. One time I just parked up and watched them get confused and ram into each other, then struggle to reverse out to begin an attempt to ram me. By the time they actually destroyed me, I achieved a time good enough to come 2nd. There's a race event under the Demolition category called 8-Ball. This puts you on tracks with crossovers (like a figure of 8) which means there is a chance you will crash into someone. This takes away the skill from the race and becomes based on luck.
In Dirt 3, the Gymkhana events were quite an enjoyable distraction to add variety from the main races. I think the reason why they aren't as fun in Showdown is because of the new handling. I remember thinking it took great skill to slide around obstacles without touching them. In this game, it seems like you are being assisted, with your car driving more 'on rails'. There seems to be significantly more targets to destroy too, giving you easy points for no skill.
There's a mode called Joyride that is copy-and-pasted from Dirt 3. This places you in the Battersea Power Station and gives you a list of tasks to complete; performing Gymkhana drifts and doughnuts and finding the Icons scattered around. It's mildly entertaining but if you have completed it in Dirt 3, then you probably won't care for doing it again.
The majority of racing games these days take a serious time investment. Recently, I've clocked up 15 hours in games but there would be plenty of content still to play. Showdown barely has enough substance to last 6 hours.
In terms of audio, the soundtrack sounds pretty cool but is so quiet it may as well not be there. Even after tinkering with the sound levels, it still wasn't that noticeable. The announcer is embarrassingly cheesy with such quips as "it looks like two cars are kissing" when they slam head-on.
In the end, the phrase "Jack of all trades; master of none" sums up this game completely. I'm not sure what Codemasters were thinking with it. The idea of making an 'arcade' rally game isn't that bad if you get the speed and the handling right. Flying around dirt tracks at extreme angles should be great, but what you get is trundling around them at low speeds. The idea of Destruction Derby should be good, but it's poorly executed and lacks the drama and excitement. You don't need any skill to play this game, just a bit of luck. It sure looks good and plays well from a technical sense (ran smoothly, no bugs). From a game-play sense, it's a huge step backwards and is an insult to the fans.