DiRT Rally

[DisturbedSwan]

Developer: Codemasters

Publisher: Codemasters

Platform: PC (Consoles TBA)

Release Date: Out Now PC, XB1 & PS4 April 5th, 2016.

So, a sudden announcement yesterday from Codemasters, where they announced the latest addition to their popular DiRT franchise, DiRT Rally.

DiRT Rally brings the series back to its routes, focusing purely on Rallying and Rallying alone, there's no Ken Block or Gymkhana type stuff in there now and neither is the zaney colour scheme or music, think back to the original Colin McRae Rally and it's a bit like that, this may be Codemasters' first ever SIM racer, everything is incredibly in-depth in DiRT Rally and they've done away with the popular Rewind feature.

At the moment it's out for Steam Early Access, and will continue to be worked on in the months to come, with Codies gathering feedback from the Steam Community as to what they like, don't like etc. all future DLC/Features/Expansions etc. are free.

Here's the new features they are adding to the game in the months ahead:

April - Early Access begins

May - Pikes Peak Pack

June - Tarmac Terrors & Classic Icons

July - Rallycross Pack

August - PVP Pack & Rallycross Expansion

September - Flying Finland

October - Modern Masters

November - Winter Wonderland

This announcement really caught me by surprise, I guessed Codies were working on something all this time, but I really didn't expect this, the announcement totally came out of left field and the game was released the same day! Crazy, anyway, I love the series, I love everything about DiRT, Codies and the work they do in racing/rallying games over there and very pleased the series has gone back to its routes, was going to wait until the Steam Summer Sale to pick this up, but felt like I needed to have it to try it out with my new Wheel when it comes sometime this week.

Anyone else excited by this?

1 hour Dev walkthrough:

 

Played an hour of this tonight, haven't got my wheel yet so just played it with my XB1 pad, I'm incredibly impressed.

As others have said in the community, it definitely doesn't feel like an Early Access game, everything feels extremely polished from the menus to when you're in game, the graphics surprised me quite a lot, I don't know if it's just my PC or what, but it looked pretty damn nice, not TO1886 nice, but didn't think it looked bad at all.

You start off by setting up your profile on there (Name, Nationality and all that jazz), then you select the number of assists you want (to be honest I was surprised they even had any assists on there) the less you have on, the more of a Credit reward you get etc. They also start you off with 50,000Cr to buy a car.

It's all pretty basic at the moment, but they've got Online stuff (Daily Event, Weekly Event and Monthly Event) thought the Daily Event was as good a place as any to start off, so gave it a go, it is definitely as difficult and people are saying, although perhaps a tad easier than I expected or maybe it was just me getting used to it a bit by the end of my 1 hour play session I don't know. Most difficult thing I still need to suss out is hairpins, I end up slowing down far too much and can't decide whether to use the Handbrake or the brakes, so end up using a combination of both and slowing down to a snails pace, want to get a drift round to hairpin going but haven't sussed it yet.

Did the Daily (posted an atrocious time of 11 minutes-odd ), you can't restart either you can just 'retire' if you fu*k up as it's a Daily Event and you only get one shot, then I tried a Championship (Single-player offline) event, bought my first car (Mini Cooper) and eventually came 5th after doing a 4-stage 'Event' which then led on to the next one, did a couple on this then moved on to try the Monthly Event, a lot of races in this (24) so only did 3 tonight and then saved and quit.

But, yeah, I'm impressed by it, it definitely felt so similar to the Colin McRae Rally PlayStation games of yesteryear.

Also, this video is incredible:

 

[illdog]

Well tickle my bollocks, this is good news. Thanks for the in-depth post too Blakey the kid, good stuff.

[retroed]

Nice impressions.

I want this on a console, I'm dying for more DiRT!

[spatular]

yeah! good impressions there.

i got this too, was pretty excited, thought i'd love it, but initially was a bit disappointed, played it more now though and liking it more.

the force feedback is a bit broken with my wheel which is disappointing, not completely broken, it sort of works, but not when you're going straight, and when it is working it's quite weak. early access though so i guess they'll sort that. also, realistically the tracks are really narrow, but this is making it hard for me to get a feel for the handling and sliding the car round and stuff, because as soon as you make a mistake you're off the road, very hard to recover from any mistakes. some wider road tracks (like the old cmr games) would be nice, maybe the rallycross pack will provide that. the pace notes are really detailed but that sometimes makes them a bit hard to follow, sounds realistic though. hope they add a map. also the damage - i like the mid rally repair options like the old cmr games, but the damage is sometimes annoying, my headlights broke in the dark which made it like an eye strain simulator. and if you fly off the track, keep hammering reset because it allows you to, then decides your car is unrecoverable if you don't do it quick enough sometimes. the handling is the most important bit and i'm struggling to get an impression of it, but it certainly seems ok. on the ice i was using the handbrake to steer all the time in the mini as it wasn't turning at all.

i wonder if this will come out on consoles as is, maybe toned down a bit as part of dirt 4?

[DisturbedSwan]

I've got a theory that this is just a way to appease the hard-core audience, so they can pretty much do what they want with DiRT 4, make it arcadey, have Gymkhana, Races, Ken Block wanking over himself, Destruction Derbies etc. in there and maybe no rallying and they'll just go 'we've got a game for the hardcore rally fan, it's Dirt Rally".

I've still not got got my wheel so can't comment on the force feedback, but will try it out if it eventually comes and report back, I do kind of hope they don't add a map though, I must say, I like it a lot as-is.

Did an online custom league today and rallied on some different surfaces in Monaco and Wales (only previously rallied in Greece), and couldn't believe how different the surfaces are, I found the Tarmac of Monaco so SO nice compared to the Gravel, was absolutely aceing these stages, but the Ice/Snow sections are terribly difficult, was slowing the car down so much just to avoid skidding off the side of a mountain or something, had to use the Handbrake a lot here as well, lovely bit of variation though with the different surfaces.

Got a feeling this will never make it to consoles, but DiRT 4 definitely will, at some point in the future, but who knows how far off that is.

[spatular]

Yeah you might be right about this not coming to consoles, it can be really quite a frustrating experience, I think it'd have to be toned down a bit at least, and there isn't much market for propper rallying outside Europe.

I've played quite a bit now, and have a sort of love/hate thing with it, it's great, and addictive, and it's nice to have another rallying game as I really like rallying. But I'm struggling with the pace notes, I can't comprehend what's going on quick enough and have to rely on the pictures which don't give as much info. And occasionally the notes are too slow, only calling a hairpin when I'm right on top of it. I changed the setting so they're called earlier but that makes everything else too early and more confusing. Think that's why I'd prefer a small mini map in the corner, but I can see why that's not realistic so people wouldn't want it, not that the icons are realistic either. And you could turn it off if you don't want to use it. And I'd quite like the rewind option in there too, again not realistic and hardcore, but less frustrating and more fun for me. And it's not like anyone would have to use it, and sure disable it online or for leaderboards.

Despite the frustrations I'm playing lots and having fun, been working my way through the career mode, picking a car from the next group up each time, I'm not sure you have to do that and I may have taken it a step too far this time with the group b cars.

[DisturbedSwan]

Wow, this is insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnPuk2ECaIQ

WRC Rally Driver Kevin Abbring playing a stage in DiRT Rally.

[spatular]

oh, that's crazy.

i really struggled with the group B cars in the career mode, ended up well down, got loads of cash just for taking part mind. it looks like you can't try again on the earlier difficulties and just have to keep retrying whatever level you're on till you get top 3 - i'd like to do the early ones again and try and win instead of just top 3, and i like less stages for a quick go too. anyway just did the first rally again in one of the slower classes and had a great battle with 2 AI drivers over second place. was ace fun.

[Craymen Edge]

Wow, this is insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnPuk2ECaIQ

WRC Rally Driver Kevin Abbring playing a stage in DiRT Rally.

The co-driver instructions are pretty much gibberish to me in these games anyway, but the ones in this video were so far ahead of the actual turns/hazards that it really confused me.

[spatular]

yeah there are problems with the pace notes, firstly i struggle to process the info quickly, which is more my problem, and there's a setting to have them super early so that explains that...but sometimes they're still too late. i'd prefer a mini map or something.

ace game though, great news that its coming to consoles

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah good news this is coming to Consoles for you guys, think they announced it a while back but I just forgot to post an update in here, out 5th April for consoles.

Highly recommended for any Rally game fans for sure, but the toughness and sim aspect of it won't be for everyone.

[spatular]

just having a look in here as it's out on consoles now, and i've been playing it again, i really like it. odd seeing i wasn't that positive at first, although the force feedback is a lot better now. the new rallies they added are really good too. there was a 17gb patch, to bring it in line with the console versions i guess, not sure what's different apart from a few new cars, into video and some tutorials.

[illdog]

This game is hard man. I am very shit at it indeed but it's good fun. It stresses me out too, listening to those co-driver calls and trying to get them in my head. I have to play something else for a bit just to calm down.

[illdog]

God damn, I am extra shit at this game. I just cant win. I cant control it for toffee and I just dont know what im doing wrong. I put it on yesterday and it was like a time trial event. I was coming last by about 15 seconds, And just when I got used to that track and clocked in the 4th best time it changed course and i was behind by 20 seconds, So I just turned it off.

 

Any advice from anybody good at these rally games? Spatular? Cos i don't want to hate it but it's hard to like a game when you're really bollocks at it.

[spatular]

you know i'm not sure if there are proper difficulty levels, all i know is each time you finish in the top 3 in the career mode rally championship it increases the difficulty (i've read you can reduce the difficulty by retiring from rallies - not tried it myself though), and all it does there is make the AI times faster, first place is always really fast and doesn't change that much but everyone else gets faster. 15 seconds behind sounds like you're doing pretty well there tbh illdog, i've been playing in the rllmuk league and i'm pretty happy if i'm ~2 mins behind at the end of a rally. not sure i'm that good at this but will try some tips... try not to go off the track at all, don't cut, and if you do go off track slow down asap, slow and steady is a good plan, slow down early for tighter corners, slow down for jumps, or if you're not sure what's coming up - i personally find it hard to follow the pace notes, so if i can see the corner that's fine but lots are blind so i'll listen out for tight corners like 1/2/hairpin, and just slow down for other corners as if they might be a 3. I think most of the difficulty in the game comes from the narrow tracks. if you fly off track at high speed keep pressing the reset button, to get a reset when it flashes up to avoid retiring. there's some assists you can turn on, think i have auto gears and ABS on, there's others that might be helpful too. you can make the pace notes earlier too but that's both a good and bad thing. i've heard people think it's ok with a pad...but id probably struggle a lot more without a wheel.

[illdog]

Cheers dude. I think I just need to persevere huh? You know what they say about practice.

 

 

[spatular]

I really like the game but man can it be annoying sometimes, dont think I've ever won a career championship, but at the half way point I was doing really well in this one, in the lead...its as if the game knows and is trying to screw me over, the 4th rally was all in snow and/or fog making it really hard to see, lots of crashes and restarts later the best I could do was 6th, at least that's over...oh wait the next rally starts and it's in the fog and at night 

[spatular]

Yeah, like I say I really like it. But I think I'd like it even more if the tracks were wider, the narrow tracks are the main difficult part about the game imo, the handling isn't too tricky, and the weather I was moaning about isn't usually too bad.

[spatular]

there's been a virtual reality add on for the ps4 version so i re-bought it on ps4, and it's ace in VR. i usually use chase cam so it's been weird using the in-car view (figgured it makes sense to use that one) but i'm really enjoying it now.

 

despite my moaning in here and agreeing with other peoples moaning, i do think this game is amazing.