Colin McRae DiRT demo

[JP]

I did actually enjoy Richard Burns Rally!!!

I know that I'm in a minority though. I do like my driving games to take a lot of effort to play...or I like them to be pure arcade and this does seem to have gone very much for the middle ground to try and please everybody rather than taking any risks.

As to the demo being 3 months old, to be honest it seems that anywhere between 3 months and 6 months is standard for demos in the industry. At least they've had nearly 6 months before release to get some excitement in there.

Come on Rushy, let's get WRC back on the track!!!

[Kotatsu Neko]

You'd rather they cut back on the graphical fidelity and upped the fps then ?

As I already said the build is 1/4 of a year old.

They shouldn't have to cut it back. Dirt looks pretty due to it's colour palette and bloom effects; the actual geometry is pretty simple (particularly in the environments). So it should run 60fps as it is...

[PeteJ]

I thought it played well, looked great and ran smoothly! I read all the comments on here before playing and I was expecting some stuttery, tearing mess. Nope. I'd be happy if the final game ran like this to be honest, I didn't see any drops, even in the buggy stage.

I thought the menu was over-produced but I guess it did look nice. The stats on the loading was a nice touch but it is there to hide a very long loading time. The voiceover was a touch that was not needed.

The graphics were very solid, can't say they blew me away and it doesn't help that you can't move the camera about when in 3rd person (not that I can drive in 3rd person!) to admire the cars. Lack of replay is a shame too. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for with this 3D grass, looked exactly the same as grass in other games to me! Loved the lighting though, particularly on the buggy stage, the back of the buggy looked ace.

I'll be picking this one up for sure.

[Yoshimax]

The stats on the loading was a nice touch but it is there to hide a very long loading time.

I'll take the load with stats and instantaneous restarts over a load every time I need to restart the track anyday.

See here :

Play 1080 snowboarding (N64 or GC) and when you need to restart the race because you messed up, you press start and then restart and it gives you the 3,2,1. All good.

Forza1: gah. Messed up there. Ok, well, I'll restart. Start, restart. Loading. eh hang on. Loading? I only just loaded a second ago. What's wrong with cache?

Forza2: surely this will be fixed now? Nope. I'm sitting on the start line, but to restart from here, I still need to load something. Bah.

Blacksite Area51 demo: 2 minutes of gameplay in a very small arena. Can't be that much going on? But restarting isn't instant. In fact it takes an age.

Tragic.

It's the one area that I feel should have remained constant with advances in technology. Instead it has steadily got worse since we moved away from solid state. Oh well. Rant over.

Please assure me there are lots of games that are able to restart instantlyish on the next gen hardware.

[Commander Marklar]

I thought it was much better with the wheel than the pad. Much more involving. Here's a mate of mine playing the demo with the wheel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj1Zd...elated&search=

Ace, ta.

I can't believe some comments (not specifically from 'ere) regarding feedback and control related to the control pad. Get a wheel!

[Nembot]

After the 4th attempt I`ve finally managed to download this demo!

I`ve gone through phases in my life where I`ve enjoyed certain types of games at certain times but my driving period was back in the days of Ridge Racer and Daytona USA so, I wasn`t sure if I`d like Dirt but I thought it deserved a go.

I`ll have to say eventhough I`m very **** I really like this game. I thought that the little intro movie at the begining looked great and the game itself isn`t too shabby either. Whether the "does not represent finished game" message means anything or not, I might give this game a look when the full version comes out.

[Malc]

Can't wait for this to come, only 3 weeks. But with forza 2 coming a week before i won't have time to get stuck into one or the other.

[merf]

i've revisted Motorstorm this morning and have to say whilst its graphically superior to this the off road buggy section on Mcrae handles far better and feels much more responsive.

i've never bonded with the handling model in Motorstorm and this is vastly superior.

roll on the release date

[Bleeders]

I'm enjoying this, I found the handling a little floaty at first, but with perserverance, I've gotten the hang of it and revisited it on numerous occasions.

Bring on the 15th June!

[Yoshimax]

Too many games this month ! Seriously it's getting ridiculous.

[bignige]

I'm preferring Motorstorm to this. Dirt looks good, but MS looks better & handles loads better.

[Bleeders]

I agree, Shadowrun, Darkness, Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3), WarTech and of course, Forza 2.

[Mardigan8]

Its like a manager having his entire squad fit and playing well at the same time its a good kind of headache, hehe. What do you we play??

After playing this on Yoshis steering wheel and 40" HDTV my mind was made up, essential purchase. Even playing it on my more modest pad and 32" Widescreen its still a no brainer, it looks gorgeous, handles nicely and is will be even better when it arrives.

As good a reason as any to buy the 360 wheel and I may just do that if the funds are in place.

[charlesr]

Is this still pivoting in the middle? The way the car slides out on the hillclimb seems weird to me. Like it's not swinging, but just twisting.

[Yoshimax]

I don't get that impression and realistically I'd be surprised if they'd use that kind of physics model in this day and age - You get that impression in the buggies ? I certainly don't.

Again, with the wheel uphill this is a tremendous buzz - I can't wait to try out some more hill-climb tracks.