Well I haven't posted in quite sometime and the few reviews I've written have met with mixed responses, but I couldn't help but put in some words for this title. Sorry if this seems to come a bit late but I wanted to play through the whole thing before doing this.
Pros: Runs smooth even on older systems, Quite possibly one of the best looking racers to date, Long single player campaign, good online play, vehicle tweaks and rep system are functional and meaningful.
Cons: Even after patches still suffers a few minor bugs, Assist features over compensate to the point of frustration but can be turned off, physics occasionally spiral into ridiculous, Un-skippable often redundant voice overs can be frustrating early on.
System as tested:
PC - Core Duo 3.0ghz - ATI 5850 - 8 gig ram - Windows 7 ultimate x64
The first two comments I have to make when speaking about this game is how smoothly it ran and how good it looked. I could not get over how clean it was on my admittedly aging gaming system. This positive was compounded by on of the first viable keyboard control tweaking systems I've ever seen in a racing game. (racers are admittedly generally better when a hand controller is in use)
Having played all the previous Dirt series games I went into this expecting varying locations, terrain, and play modes. Dirt 3 did not disappoint. As a con though some tracks become a tad over repetitive as the game goes on, but some level of familiarity helps as the difficulty increases through the Single player Campaign. They did at least make an effort to see to it the tracks were provided at both day and night and in different weather conditions just to mix things up a bit.
I found myself making use of the in game car tweaks often changing them from track to track, race to race. Though I found the default configuration for the snow levels to be about as good as you could do for most other tracks a little nudge this way or that would allow better control on various surfaces or better turning in rain and mud.
The biggest notable addition to Dirt3 was the gymkhana challenges, that pop up constantly as you progress. If I found anything lacking about gymkhana in Dirt 3, it was that it may have been a bit too easy most of the time. As long as you pull off a few solid tricks and manage not to crash into anything you would generally win or place a silver medal at the very least. Challenge level aside it was, for me at least, some of the most fun the game provided.
In the past I have personally been critical of a lot of racers, this isn't one of them though. The assist system, the level of control customization and the difficulty settings should provide a good mix of challenge and fun for most gamers regardless of their experience or individual skill level. The smooth performance of the game should allow it to run well and even look good on just about any modern PC.
At the end here I should probably note what was for me one of the largest downsides to this game, even though they have provided a time rewind feature to undo mistakes (kind of reminded me of the old prince of Persia rewind) There did seem to be many times when taking a turn or cut the exact same way I had done several times before would somehow result in losing complete control of the vehicle forcing me to use the rewind system for no real reason. This wouldn't be so bad if the use of the rewind system didn't come at the price of rep earned for that race. While I think it's good they included a cost for using such a feature. The almost manufactured way I generally wound up using it was a horrible disturbance to a otherwise enjoyable game.
At the end of the day I would rate this one a buy, at least worthy of a rental if you're a console player. So far as racing games go, I have seen much much worse.
Pros: Runs smooth even on older systems, Quite possibly one of the best looking racers to date, Long single player campaign, good online play, vehicle tweaks and rep system are functional and meaningful.
Cons: Even after patches still suffers a few minor bugs, Assist features over compensate to the point of frustration but can be turned off, physics occasionally spiral into ridiculous, Un-skippable often redundant voice overs can be frustrating early on.
System as tested:
PC - Core Duo 3.0ghz - ATI 5850 - 8 gig ram - Windows 7 ultimate x64
The first two comments I have to make when speaking about this game is how smoothly it ran and how good it looked. I could not get over how clean it was on my admittedly aging gaming system. This positive was compounded by on of the first viable keyboard control tweaking systems I've ever seen in a racing game. (racers are admittedly generally better when a hand controller is in use)
Having played all the previous Dirt series games I went into this expecting varying locations, terrain, and play modes. Dirt 3 did not disappoint. As a con though some tracks become a tad over repetitive as the game goes on, but some level of familiarity helps as the difficulty increases through the Single player Campaign. They did at least make an effort to see to it the tracks were provided at both day and night and in different weather conditions just to mix things up a bit.
I found myself making use of the in game car tweaks often changing them from track to track, race to race. Though I found the default configuration for the snow levels to be about as good as you could do for most other tracks a little nudge this way or that would allow better control on various surfaces or better turning in rain and mud.
The biggest notable addition to Dirt3 was the gymkhana challenges, that pop up constantly as you progress. If I found anything lacking about gymkhana in Dirt 3, it was that it may have been a bit too easy most of the time. As long as you pull off a few solid tricks and manage not to crash into anything you would generally win or place a silver medal at the very least. Challenge level aside it was, for me at least, some of the most fun the game provided.
In the past I have personally been critical of a lot of racers, this isn't one of them though. The assist system, the level of control customization and the difficulty settings should provide a good mix of challenge and fun for most gamers regardless of their experience or individual skill level. The smooth performance of the game should allow it to run well and even look good on just about any modern PC.
At the end here I should probably note what was for me one of the largest downsides to this game, even though they have provided a time rewind feature to undo mistakes (kind of reminded me of the old prince of Persia rewind) There did seem to be many times when taking a turn or cut the exact same way I had done several times before would somehow result in losing complete control of the vehicle forcing me to use the rewind system for no real reason. This wouldn't be so bad if the use of the rewind system didn't come at the price of rep earned for that race. While I think it's good they included a cost for using such a feature. The almost manufactured way I generally wound up using it was a horrible disturbance to a otherwise enjoyable game.
At the end of the day I would rate this one a buy, at least worthy of a rental if you're a console player. So far as racing games go, I have seen much much worse.
Tho I haven't tried anything after the first Dirt, it was absolutely horrible with a wheel, so in the case of Dirt, I would agree, controller is the way to go. In any case, keyboard is the last thing you want to be racing with, you got that right.