Today Codemasters released a new video starring WRC driver and DiRT 3 technical consultant Ken Block, focussing on the all-new gymkhana game mode. The trailer mixes live action with gameplay footage as Ken Block explains the origins of the discipline and how players can hone their rally skills by unleashing their inner hoonigan.
The video introduces gymkhana, the freestyle car driving showpiece pioneered by Ken Block whose video series has become a 90 million-plus views YouTube phenomenon. The trailer shows Ken Block performing incredible stunts and stunning feats of car control in a heavily modified rally car and shows how you can perform the same stunts in DiRT 3’s unique gymkhana discipline. By pushing cars to their limits around purpose built arenas littered with obstacles and jumps, players will learn skills that can be put into the practice in the other game modes.
“The gymkhana stuff got started for me as a simple way to get extra seat time to practice for rally,” said Ken Block, DiRT 3 Technical Consultant. “For me gymkhana is an amazing feeling because it’s very similar to the things I love in rally, like sliding the car at speed. Having a gymkhana element in a game like DiRT 3 just adds a whole new aspect of fun ways to do things with the car. Going through a course and trying to do it for a time or for style points is always fun but on top of that feeling you [can] use those courses to go out and learn the techniques of driving those cars, and to be able to just kinda hoon around.”
In DiRT 3’s gymkhana game mode players can practice their skills in free sessions or take on challenge events where they must complete courses by performing spectacular stunts, racking up combos and earning style points. Players can also play or compete with friends in split-screen or online multiplayer and become gymkhana stars themselves by publishing their most spectacular runs direct to YouTube.
Coming Q2 2011, DiRT 3 will boast more cars, more locations, more routes and more events than any other game in the series. With more than double the track content of 2009’s hit, players will enjoy a career as an elite professional driver, competing in off-road racing events featuring jaw-dropping damage and race-changing weather. DiRT 3 will feature the most amount of Rally content to feature in the series to date, accounting for 60% of its extensive career mode. With rally stages set across three continents, including the addition of all-new locations Finland, Kenya, Norway and Michigan, players will learn to master the conditions on tarmac, gravel and snow in dry and wet conditions for the most authentic rally experience.
Set to raise the bar for authentic and accessible off-road racing again, DiRT 3 is now in development at Codemasters Studios for a 2011 release for the Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3, PC Games For Windows LIVE.
