DiRT is an awesome offroad racing experience, with a great singleplayer campaign & high-end graphics.
---Gameplay:8/10---
As I said before, DiRT focuses on offroad racing, which means that half of the tracks are dirt roads,& the other half narrow & dirty asphalt roads going on top of hills, trough forests or deserts, or on some special circuit tracks. Now,I'd love to say more about the cars, but it isn't too much to say. There are from simple rally cars (with special mentions for the Toyota & Subaru vehicles) to buggy cars & even some huge trucks. Now you can change some parameters for these cars, the way the parts will come along together, but you can't really change the parts theirselves, which is not really cool. The only thing you can do for the exterior look of your car is to buy some sponsor layouts for them...which only differ from stickers & colour, nothing more. Now about the races themselves, we'll first talk about the career mode, which is obviously DiRT's top component. You will see a huge pyramid built up from events. Now these events might have one, two or more races in them. Thing is, you'll start at the base & you'll advance to the top of the pyramid. It might look like a lot of racing to do but trust me,it's not. It won't take you more then 8-9 hours if you are a good driver. Now there are several race dificulties... the easier ones will help you out in some situations but you'll get less money out of the events you race on that difficulty. You get the point... but don't worry,you can change the difficulty setting for every upcoming event & the computer will even tell you when he considers your driving good enough to make the step on the next level. Okay,now let's see what's with those events anyway. There's a variety in them, so you won't get bored of a certain type of events. Now I'll devide them in two big cathegories:rally & cross.
***RALLY***
-Rally (the classic rally) is a sprint track with a lot of turns which takes place mainly on a dirt road. You will be alone on the track & only compete against your opponents by the total race time. You'll see your race time compared the the opponents' ones when you pass trough the checkpoints, but the only one that matters is the last one, the rest being just orientative. You'll also have your co-pilot along you, & he will guide you on the track.
-Rally Raid takes place on a rally track, but on both dirt & tarmac, & you'll race against your opponents directly on the track, so to win you'll just have to stay ahead of them. Quite simple.
-Rally Cross is the combination of rally & cross. It takes place on a mixed rally circuit on multiple laps, with the pilots racing together on the track, so the objective is the same as in Rally Raid. Unfortunatelly,here you won't have the co-pilot to guide you trough the track.
-Hill Climb is basically a classic Rally race, the rules & objectives being the same, with the only difference that in here you'll have mixed surfaces & one way:up. You'll have your co-pilot with you, which is of great help, because a wrong turn can make you end up falling down the hill. And you seriously don't want that to happen, trust me!
***CROSS***
-Carr races take place on special circuits during multiple laps, & the players start all together in a straight line. You don't have the co-pilot but you won't need him here. These are possibly the most boring races because they're so much like like all other races in most racing games.
-Crossover are unique & very interesting races, by far my favorite type in DiRT. It's a head to head challenge against one opponent, & you'll race on two different tracks that will start as parallel & at some point they'll intersect (don't worry, one on top & the other one under it). When you finish your track you'll get on the opponent's track & he'll do the same with your first track. Whoever finishes both tracks first wins the race,as simple as that.
-Rally Cross, as I mentioned earlier, are the mix between the rally & cross race types. I told you before about it, so I won't repeat myself.
Okay, now that you know about the cars & the races I'd like to tell you about the co-pilot's instructions, because they're really important & are imperative on the higher difficulties. He will tell you the distance till the next turn (60 for 60 metres, 200 for 200 metres) & the degree of the turn (6 means only a slight turn, while 1 is an 180 degree turn), along with the direction of the turn (left or right, geez). Yeah, you'll have the minimap on every race,but the co-pilot may prove more helpful than that.
Alrighty, now let's touch on the final aspect of the gameplay, car control & damage. DiRT is a cute mix between arcade & race sim, so the controls are pretty much a mix between those too. The cars respond realistically to your controls, whatever you'll use as a controller (keyboard, joystick, steering wheel). Not as realistically as in the Race & GTR series or in Richard Burns Rally, but cool enough. They will take the turns according to the surface they're racing on (don't even try I sudden turn at high speed on a dirt road, cause you'll most certainly regret it). Now the damage is made depending on the speed & force of impact, & wil technically affect the vehicle's performance accordingly. Sometimes is really annoying when you slightly bumb into a small, thin pole & both your front wheels will fall off, but you'll get used to that after a while. There are more components of the car which take damage, & will affect it in their own way. If you'll damage the exterior or the cooling system you won't feel a big change too soon, highly damaging the engine, driveshaft, suspensions or wheels may get you to a lost race. Between two races you'll be given the chance to clean & repair the vehicle. You'll get an hour, & considering that each component's repair takes a different time, based upon the degree of damage & the component itself, you'll be the one who'll distribute the time & will decide which components should be in mint condition for the following race.
---Graphics:10/10---
The graphics are certainly one of DiRT's strongest aspects. They're simply awesome. You'll have your share of breathtaking views from all over the world: Australia, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, France, USA, Japan & others too. High-res, extreme quality textures for both the tracks & the cars make a visual masterpiece out of DiRT, something never seen before it. Not only that everythings looks absolutely fantastic, but it also gets more fantastic during the races, if you know what I mean. The dirt on the tracks will get on your car, which looks dirty very cool &... realistic shall I say. Also when you'll crash you'll have to say some of your paint goodbye, plus that the dents look really really awesome... especially if they're on your opponents...:). But because there always is a high price to pay for graphical masterpieces like this one, the system requirements are quite outradgeous if played on maximum settings. Of course, low will work even on the weaker computers, but even the high end computers will experience huge frame rate drops on maximum settings, & yeah, I'm talking about 2 or three frames per second, whcih is definitely not cool at all.
---Sound:9/10---
The sound of DiRT is good, but it ain't awesome at all. I mean the sound effects, like the car engines, bumps, crashes sound really cool & realistic, but nothing more. The voice acting is really nice & the co-pilot's tone really makes you feel in the middle of a rally. Unfortunatelly, the music is not good at all. As hard as I try to remember I can't recall it being cool or contributing to the atmosphere... it was rather annoying.
---Multiplayer:6/10---
Multiplayer is unfortunatelly DiRT's biggest problem. You can't race directly against other human opponents, the only options being Rally & Hill Climb, played trough ghosts, that is only by the race times. It's such a pity, what a great multiplayer this game could have had...
---Overall:9/10---
With a great singleplayer component, awesome graphics, a good variety of atmospheric races, the only apparently big problems of the game are the very high system requirements & the way multiplayer has been implemented. But if you have a great computer & will play in singleplayer, DiRT will easily be one of the best racing games you've ever experienced.