Getting dirty has never been so much fun. Dirt 3 is bigger and badder than Dirt 2, with over fifty plus cars that span across 5 decades. The car models range from the early 1970’s to more modern day.
If you felt that Dirt 2 was the best rally racer around, then Dirt 3 with its extreme handling and outrageous physics and environments will not disappoint.
Dirt 3 has more locations and routes than previous releases, making it the biggest and most content enriched rally racing title to date. This doesn’t include the upcoming downloadable content.
For example: in the last release of Dirt 2, there was a total of forty-one possible routes you could travel while racing. In Dirt 3, there is a staggering one hundred plus active routes to travel across.
The single player campaign “Be a Pro” will take you on the ride of your life. The rally tours will take you around the world from Africa to Europe and around the United States. These new locations bring different – and sometimes intense – weather conditions that will make it difficult during your climb to become an international superstar.
In both single player and offline play, there are six different game modes/styles to participate in. The different game modes include Rally, Rally Cross, Land Rush, Trail Blazer, Head 2 Head and Gymkhana.
Gymkhana is more than just smashing targets this time, but rather pushing you and your car to its limits. Now drifting, burnouts and power sliding is added to your arsenal as you rip and roar through the course, racking up as much points as possible within a set time limit.
Each Gymkhana course is setup like a huge skating park; there is everything from jumps to tractor trailers to drift under. The more tricks you perform before crashing or messing up, the bigger the chain combo and the more points received. But there is a catch; if you keep performing the same boring tricks, the fans will lose interest and the tricks will become less valuable.
If you find Gymkhana fun, you’ll enjoy playing with 8 players online. What makes Gymkhana so enjoyable online is one simple thing: the other players appear as ghost cars. You can see them performing at the same time as you, but they can not hinder your performance whatsoever.
The same thing applies to game modes Rally and Head-to-Head as well, leaving the other game modes such as Rally Cross, Land Rush, and Trail Blazer open seasons for players to mess around with you. Plus before you play online, you can choose between solo or team play styles. Solo, as the name implies, places you in a free-for-all against other gamers. Team play places gamers into groups and pits them against each other. The single-player campaign tour is a wonderful offline experience; there is plenty of intense gameplay to keep you coming back for more.
The online experience happens to be one of the best experiences in the game. For example: if you don’t finish in the top three, you are still awarded XP towards your overall level. Even during offline games you will gain XP, so the process never stops. Plus, for every level gained, more cars and liveries will be unlocked.
The rewind feature makes a return in Dirt 3. As the name implies, this feature allows you to rewind an accident or a mistake that was made during the course of a race. This is a very handy ability to have; it’s a lot better then having to restart the entire race over again.
The sounds are some of the best ever heard in a racing game. If the car you are driving happens to have turbo, you can hear it whining as you race across the track. What I really like is hearing the exhaust pop as you shift gears; it really adds to the experience.
Dirt 3 is the most fun I’ve had in the dirt since I was a little paisano in a diaper. So let your inner child out and experience how much fun playing in the dirt can really be.
Dirt 3 puts the fun back into getting dirty.
James ‘Daripp3r’ Pittaro
Platform: Playstation 3
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
ESRB: T (Teen)
Price: $59.99
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |  |
| Outstandingly beautiful; the cockpits of the cars and the environments are superb. | |
| Sound | |
| T Simply remarkable; the engine/exhaust sound are incredibly realistic. | |
| Gameplay | |
| Plenty of features and replay value. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Dirt 3 is off-road racing at its best; nothing can come close to what Dirt 3 can offer. | |
