Colin McRae: Dirt 2

My girlfriend bought me this game as an early christmas present, and I have to say that I am extremely pleased with it.

The game runs very well even on my fairly mediocre system, even at full settings in DX9. The game is very processor intensive, so bear that in mind.

The only niggle I have with the game is that it uses the ever interminably irritating Games for Windows LIVE, as as such you need an active internet connection to save your game and play, even single player. While this allows PC gamers access to features like achievements and a proven multiplayer service, it can be annoying for people who just want to play offline, or while on the move.

I enjoy the game immensely, and other than the fights with Windows LIVE, I have no complaints and would recommend this to any racing game fan, especially those who enjoy rally and other dirty race sports.

Definately worth 5 stars from me, excellently put together, everything oozes fun and excitement, HOWEVER, as others have already stated, Codemasters seem to have appealed to 10 year old American kids, with their annoying commentators shouting out "dude", "cool" and "awesome" every 30 seconds, so, what about the rest of the world?? You're an English company, Colin Steele McRae was Scottish, what about dumbing down all these Americanisms for the rest of the world just a tad in your next releases, PLEASE, hence my typically English phrase in my game title, especially, as one of the circuits is Battersea Power Station.....
Now, as an over 40 year old, yes, we do play computer games, ya know. I'd like to ask a couple of questions and would appreciate any comments/answers please in the appropriate area. I purchased the PC CD, there was no exit button in the game when it was released, and the only game patches I've found on the web are for the downloaded versions through Steam and Codemasters. Is there a patch available for us PC DVD users please, does anybody know?? I also noted that you need to open an account on Games for Windows Live, which is fine, but, when you went on-line this stated it is for XBox customers, what about those of us who've obtained this PC version, do we still need to register this game, as I haven't bothered to do that yet, until I had an answer to my question.
Anyway, to the game itself, this is yet another winner from Codemaster's stable, and as long as you have modern and higher recommended specs on your computers, this is a true epic. Stunning, is the only word to describe the texturing, scenery, graphics and car designs. With most driving games these days, you need to improve your driving rating to unlock more tracks and better performance cars as you strive for the ultimate challenges. This is a great game for either, single players, or, multi players utilising the internet connection, something, I'm personally not bothered with, but, it's a modern developers ploy to keep all their customers happy, and the way games will be played in the future, no doubt.
I use the keyboard buttons to control my vehicles, which after lots of practice on other driving simulators has now become second nature and doesn't detract from playing the game properly at all. I got a podium finish yesterday obtaining a 3rd place, so, it can be done with this arcaic function. I presume those of you with wheels and gamepads are equally as happy and the frame rates are superb if you've uopgraded recently. I needed to have lots of goes on every circuit, as driving along the wow factor hits you constantly with the scenery, trees, spectators and local buildings in each area. If you watch the various gameplay videos around, you'll see what I mean. Rally driving in Croatia was a fabulous addition to start off with and set the standard to other areas around the world, including, Los Angeles, Malaysia, Japan, Morocco and London. Each stage is different in appeal and as to the different cars you can drive, personal options can be configured quite easily with a couple of clicks. You can also get rid of the annoying commentator as you don't need to hear him/her every time to click through the motions, just follow the green highlighted words and you can get into the races pretty quickly in complete silence, it's absolute bliss.... You have different choices of terrain, from dirt racing to rallying and street circuits and the fun never really ends, the ground textures are quite superb with huge puddles and mud everywhere, the eye candy has certainly added to the driving experience, hopefully the developers will carry this on, now, if only I could find an exit button, so, that I can eat my tea.....

UPDATE : I have read that using ALT + F4 ends whatever session you're in and closes the game, however, I've found that sometimes when you do this your game isn't saved in the Games for Windows LIVE system, so, you do this at your own risk of losing all your points and step ups to the next section, I doubt if I'll purchase another one of these Games for Windows LIVE anymore, you cannor get on-line half the time and when you do you have to download and install an update, then reboot, then when you go back online again, it still says, you have an update to download, this is damned ridiculous.....
I'm going to knock a point off my original review for this, as it means I'd have to stay in the game for several hours offline to achieve getting to the other routes to play them, as it doesn't save where you are when offline, this isn't fun at all, very frustrating......

First thing with the game you note is that you need to set-up windows-live account and log on to it - or you can't save your game progress. At the first log-on the game loaded a bunch of updates - alltogether with all failed logins and hassle the first start took good two hours...

After the initial logins, the game starts and logs on to the live account in few minutes - you just need to keep pressing enter at approximately 10 occasions (sounds stupid - and trust me, it also feels and is stupid).

The interface choosing the game options is graphically quite nice and intuitive - and seems to work well. What is _extremely_ annoying are the forced video clips and explanations - which cannot be skipped in any manner.

A bit back to windows live - unless one is playing multi-player game, I really fail to see point why should one log-on to the system every time starting the game. It is absolutely against my privacy consciousness that some third party (microsoft with codemasters) keep track on when I play, what I play, how I succeed (who I play with, in case of multiplay)... And - it's impossible to play the game off-line (so that the progress would be saved). The live-thing probably helps fighting illegal copying, but for us, who purchase legal copies, the burden is too high. Period.

Then to playing experience: absolutely fabulous. A lot of different tracks - nice graphics - and quite good touch in driving.

How the races develop & which car can be selected for which race is a bit of a mystery still - and compared to old Colin MacRae rally the total competition is not as clear - and there is no 'rally season', if you like.

Summary:
* Game (playing experience) = fabulous
* Game loading (& mandatory Windows Live) = sucks
* Game interface = ~ok, except the mandatory videos
* Game tracks & development = quite nice, but not very intuitive