DiRT 4 is a simulation/arcade racing game with a strong focus on rallying. You can choose between a hardcore rally simulation, a straightforward arcade racer, or a blend of the two. Career mode allows you to spend your race winnings on new cars, staff, and facilities. It’s a fairly customizable experience that has the potential to appeal to a range of players.
Gameplay
DiRT 4 does a commendable job introducing new players to the concept of both rallying and general driving principles. The tutorial is split up into dozens of different training modules that each cover a specific skill you will need to drive well. There are also overview sessions that only focus on the most crucial gameplay mechanics, in case you are impatient and just want to get to the action. It’s clear that a lot of care went into this part of the game, and it translates into an impressively smooth learning experience.
Once you have a handle on how to play, you can get started in either simulation or arcade mode. From there, you can customize the difficulty if you want a middle ground, but I found that the game was most enjoyable in arcade mode. It’s still challenging, but it removes some of the more brutal realism that I didn’t care for, as well as the micro-management, such as tuning your car for each course.
For those unfamiliar with rallying, it’s a type of race that typically takes place on a winding course with large bumps, U-turns, etc. that are intended to make it difficult to drive based on sight alone. Each driver is accompanied by a co-driver/navigator who calls out every turn and hazard as they go through the course. In DiRT, these notes appear on-screen and guide you through the race. Every track is randomly generated from a set of predefined sections. It gives some variety to the relatively small list of courses, but ultimately, not enough to keep me interested long-term. After playing for a while, you begin to recognize the individual segments that make up each location, and the illusion is broken.
The progression in career mode is basic but still fun as a side mechanic. You can upgrade your cars with higher quality parts, buy new cars, upgrade your team facilities and sign sponsorship deals. The biggest issue with career mode is that normal rally races are roughly 50% of the game’s content. The rest is filled out with rallycross, landrush, and historical rally. Historical rally is fine but doesn’t deserve to be its own race type: it’s the same exact thing as regular rally, the cars are just older. Rallycross and landrush, however, were clearly an afterthought during development. They’re boring races that play like a standard racing game, rather than the much more polished and interesting rally mode. None of it’s egregiously bad, but it’s still only filler.
Presentation
Graphically, DiRT 4 is excellent. My expectations were high given that it’s a modern AAA racing game, and I think they were certainly met, if not exceeded. Everything is beautiful and detailed without being a huge drain on performance. The cars look fantastic and the progressive damage, if you drive poorly, is a nice touch. Each course has its own environment, be it a snowy mountain, forested hills, or a scenic highway. To add even more variety, you can choose the time of day or what weather you want to drive in. Night driving during a torrential downpour is a completely different experience than driving at dawn on a clear day, and bad weather is especially fun because of all the added visual effects, making races significantly more challenging. Playing in first-person is surprisingly immersive, largely due to the superb graphics.
The exceptional visuals are complemented by the great sound design. The audio is crisp, and the cars sound powerful without being over-the-top. My favorite detail is the ability to hear the damage to your car, whether it be an issue with braking, accelerating, gear shifting, and so on. On the other hand, the soundtrack is underwhelming; it’s mostly comprised of generic radio hits, feeling more like listening to a pop station than a video game score. This would typically be a negative, but it’s tolerable because it doesn’t play during races, only being used as background music when navigating menus and managing your career.
Verdict
DiRT 4 is a heavily customizable racing game that allows a wide range of players to enjoy it. The rally mechanics are engaging, the tracks are challenging and the career management is a nice break from racing. Even for a AAA title, the production value is high. The biggest issue is the repetitive gameplay and lack of course variety. It’s fun while it lasts, but it’s not something I would revisit in the future. I’d recommend it to most racing fans, but those that only play hardcore sims or extremely casual arcade racers might be disappointed with its balanced approach to difficulty.
8/10
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No performance issues running on: AMD Ryzen 5 1600, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 1070
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