Bought the first Dirt a couple of weeks ago for 7€ from a sale bin. The physics feel extremely unnatural, you really have to learn the ‘rules of the game’. For example the brakes are way too powerful, you can just head aggressively to a corner, then make a full lock last minute brake and go through the corner with no problems. In RBR you would end up in the gutter with a broken car.

Another thing I don’t like about rally driving games is the lack of dirt. In the first video of this article for example the cloud of dirt dies of way too quickly. Even in RBR there sn’t enough smoke, but you can at least add a mod that partially addresses this issue. Just look at real WRC footage where they drive on dirt. There is a huge cloud of dirt behind the cars.

What about Blur?

iRacing is the easiest racing game (well they call it simulator) I have ever played. Guess why? Because the physics are top notch. You don’t have to learn the rules and physics of that particular game or game engine because you already know them from real life. Now I’m not saying I’m any good at iRacing because I’m not. I’m saying it was the easiest racing game ever to learn (but not to master) because basically I didn’t have to learn anything.

Yeah, I know, people play games because they want to get out of their real lives and just want to enjoy these games eating popcorn on their sofa while driving 300mph into steel walls. That’s where game settings come into play, you can easily turn a game from a sim racing game into an arcade racing game if you first do the engine and physics properly. Just putting arcade and sim modes into your game settings is not really doing it properly like some of these games have done, you have to actually include the sim version, too.

If you want to experience WRC rally racing, there’s only one title out there for this. It’s Richard Burns Rally. It’s five years old and it doesn’t really include an arcade mode. I’ll challenge any developer to include anything close to that game, just the physics mind you, into their rally game and I’m completely sold. Because god knows, RBR is running out of tracks, juice and it doesn’t even play properly on newer operating systems. We need something new.

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I’m not sure at what point did I lose my original point but.. don’t use the word sim in your game unless you bother to implement physics into your game. On the rally racing front it’s easy, just match five year old RBR and you are all done. On the track racing front, competition is a bit tougher nowadays…

Also why do all Codemasters racers have to be ‘Xtreme!!1′ to be exciting. Simply get the tracks and the driving physics correct and refined, and you wouldn’t need all the overwrought fanfare to have fantastic and exciting game.

Regardless I will probably play DiRT2, and no doubt have fun doing it, but I’m still to be convinced that my beloved F1 isn’t going to be completely butchered by them…

Oh and although it’s unrealistic, simlutaneous multiplayer where you can crash into the other players would be fun (as an option).

Very much looking forward to the sequel. I heared somewhere you can update the original DIRT with the GRID engine code. Am i mistaken?