Dirt 3 PC Review

excellent
key review info
  • Game: Dirt 3
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: N/a
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Dirt 3 is a stunnin racing game

Codemasters' Dirt franchise made a name for itself by not only offering a realistic rally experience, but also by adopting more extreme events like buggy racing, rallycross or special stunt competitions.

Now, with Dirt 3, the UK-based studio has strengthened the mechanics seen in the impressive Dirt 2 and added the worldwide phenomenon which is Gymkhana, a stylized competition where drivers need to do a variety of tricks, usually in a specialized course or an industrial location.

Is it enough to elevate Dirt 3 to a must-have status or should it retire from the racing genre? Let's find out.

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Race in the snow ...
... or in the desert

Story It's hard to talk about a story in racing games, but Dirt 3 does manage to offer something akin to a narrative with its special Dirt Tour mode, which sees the player go through multiple competitions, organized in four major seasons, as well as plenty of smaller, unique challenges that require the player to specialize in certain disciplines.

The Dirt Tour manages to provide a pretty balanced difficulty curve for players, and, in order to help all players, no matter the skill level, it also has plenty of settings for the difficulty and the number of driver assists that can be used in order to make things a bit easier or more challenging.

You're helped throughout this Tour by a few advisers, which provide information along the way, and you can even meet up with North American rally driver and Gymkhana legend Ken Block, who guides you at the start of this special competition.

Sadly, these advisers can get a bit annoying, especially with their desire to make you upload racing footage on YouTube, a special feature incorporated into Dirt 3, and by calling you 'dude' or 'amigo' a huge number of times.

Gameplay Dirt 3 perfectly showcases that Codemasters has been doing racing games for an extremely long time, as all of the huge number of cars feel great, no matter their age, and manage to offer varied experiences.

The developer added lots of cars in Dirt 3, ranging from iconic rally legends from the 1960s, like the Mini Cooper S, to contemporary sportscars like the Ford Fiesta or Subaru Impreza WRX STI, to specialized sprint racers, which are used in unique challenges.

The racing game is also quite scalable, largely due to its many difficulty and driver aid settings, which can accommodate all sorts of players, from ones completely new to the racing genre to experienced virtual drivers.

Codemasters added a big number of various competitions and locations into the game, going from regular rallies, either on regular gravel, in Finland, on snow in Aspen, or on sand in Kenya, to buggy or rallycross races on dirt in Michigan, to group races on the streets of Monaco, or high-speed sprints on deserted back roads.

There are also a few wackier events, like Invasion, which sees players try to destroy cardboard robot cutouts in special locations, while avoiding city building cutouts that penalize their overall score.

The biggest new feature brought by Dirt 3, however, is the Gymkhana competition. This, in case you're not familiar, sees drivers use customized cars around unique circuits in order to do as many tricks as possible. These range from regular drifts, to donuts, jumps or breaking foam boxes. While it may seem weird, Gymkahana is now a global phenomenon, with millions of YouTube users flocking to see the exploits of drivers like Ken Block around deserted industrial locations.

Dirt 3's Gymkhana experience offers some pretty mixed feelings, as the difficulty curve is a bit unbalanced. While the game manages to gradually teach you the mechanics of each trick, when it's time to chain them together in an actual competition, things get extremely hard, even with the special trick assist turned on.

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Race at dusk ...
... or at night

The Gymkhana challenges are split into multiple categories, ranging from freestyle ones, where the driver is let loose on the circuit to do whatever he pleases, to timed events, where you need to execute specific tricks in a specific order in a specific time frame, or timed freestyle ones, where you need to complete a list of tricks, in whatever order you want, but in a certain time frame.

While the latter two events are a bit tricky and will no doubt cause quite a lot of restarted races, the freestyle one can be quite exciting, and, if you nail plenty of tricks, extremely satisfying, so the Gymkhana portion of Dirt 3 isn't all that bad.

Being a recent Codemasters racing game, Dirt 3 also sports the rewind feature, which allows you to stop the race, most of the times after crashing or making a grave error, and rewind to an earlier moment, from where you can prevent the unfortunate from happening. While you won't have much use for it in the first races of the Dirt Tour, later on, as you progress and need to undertake longer races, you'll find yourself using the rewind instead of just restarting the whole race.

The game rewards drivers after each series of events with Rep points, which can be earned by finishing first, completing bonus objectives that depend on the car you choose, ranging from reaching specific top speeds or doing long drifts, as well as refrain from using lots of flashbacks.

These points feed into your driver level, which allows you to get more car offers from sponsors that want to tie their name to your skill. You don't buy cars in Dirt 3, like in other racing games, as they are offered by various racing teams depending on the event you choose.

A special feature built into Dirt 3 is the ability to upload small, 30-second clips of your racing antics onto YouTube, which is mentioned by the in-game announcers all too often. The system is pretty decent, but upload does take a bit of a long time, and the 30-second constraint isn't all that great, especially since, at least on the PC, you can use various software to upload whole races, like we did below.

Multiplayer Dirt 3 offers quite a lot of special multiplayer modes, ranging from regular races, which can be configured in a variety of ways, allowing you to select the cars that can be used, the location of the actual event, to more outlandish competitions.

You can set up various chains of events, choosing to engage in regular rally stages, then moving on to street races and topping it all off with a Gymkhana final, where you and your opponents need to get the highest score by achieving the most impressive tricks.

Codemasters even threw in some unique gameplay modes, with a Capture The Flag-like competition, where players run around a large map and try to keep a special flag beyond the reach of their opponents.

Dirt 3 also has a unique zombie mode, where one car starts off as being "infected," meaning the screen of the player has a greenish hue, and needs to crash into others in order to pass the infection on until everyone is corrupted.

Dirt 3's multiplayer mode was a pretty complete experience even without these bonus events, but their inclusion makes things that much more interesting and will keep the game popular for quite some time in the future.

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Perform impressive tricks ...
... and become a champion

Visuals and Sound Dirt 3 is a gorgeous game. Codemasters has once again proved that it can push the PC platform to its limits, and, if you have a powerful configuration, you'll be enjoying one of the most visually-rich racing experiences on the market.

From the cars, to the circuits or smaller aspects, like dirt or snow gradually covering the car depending on the event, everything is detailed and manages to impress as a complete and beautiful package.

Special mention needs to go to the menu interface, which dropped the whole trailer look from Dirt 2, and adds a simpler one that features your previously driven car and lots of geometrical shapes that look extremely crisp.

In terms of audio, the cars sound great, each having their specific engine tunes, while the soundtrack of Dirt 3 manages to feature quite a few interesting techno tracks that compliment actions in the menu or the replay editor and know when to be quiet during races.

Conclusion Dirt 3 is a stunning racing game that doesn't try to replicate the circuit experience seen in games like Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo or Need for Speed: Shift, instead relying on rallying and other, more outlandish competitions.

It works pretty much flawlessly, even in the rather hard to master Gymkhana, looks great and manages to introduce plenty of new things over its predecessor, making it, as of yet, the best racing game of the year.

Dirt 3 is currently available for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.

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story 9
gameplay 9
concept 9
graphics 10
audio 9
multiplayer 9
final rating 9.5
Editor's review
excellent
 
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