Resident Evil 2: Dual Shock Edition: Review (1998)

Resident Evil 2: Dual Shock Edition Review

Survival Horror. A term that wasn't invented until Alone In The Dark came upon us in 1992. Released for the PC before being ported to the 3DO, it was groundbreaking for its time featuring fixed camera angles, tank-like controls, a likable protagonist; Edward Carnby, creepy environments, puzzles to solve, combat and of course a ton of atmosphere. All of these facts led it to be critically acclaimed and it was a breakthrough title at the time.

(Alone In The Dark was the first attempt at the Survival Horror genre)

Naturally many, many people wanted to take advantage of this new success in a different genre and many game developers tried and failed to live up to the standard Alone In The Dark set. Until Resident Evil was made. At the time, the Sony Playstation had just entered the ring of new consoles and it was lacking a killer app, something that would help keep it driving home sales to sustain its lifespan. Capcom, a company known for making Street Fighter games and the Mega Man franchise decided to make a survival horror game that would ultimately change the way horror games were made forever. Enter Resident Evil.  

(Resident Evil was a major success for Capcom and the Sony Playstation)

Resident Evil or Biohazard as it's known in Japan really set the tone for what was to come. First off it had likeable characters. Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton. All these characters are still well known today and fans of the series really love to mention these characters, due in part of them becoming icons in survival horror games. Secondly, it had a great story. With bizarre murders happening around Raccoon City and the missing S.T.A.R.S. members from Bravo team, the Alpha team from S.T.A.R.S are sent in to investigate. Once they reach the site, the helicopter is found but, only the remains of a corpse is found. The team is attacked and now the player had to survive the horrors that await them in the mansion.      

(The game has legendary voice acting... For the wrong reasons)

To help advance the story, the player could find different diaries entries and files, written by various people, detailing what was going on behind the scenes. It helped develop the series and gave insight as to what was really happening in the mansion.

Finally, my favorite reason for the game being so good was its awfully, hilariously bad voice acting and script writing. Say what you will about it but, Resident Evil was so campy in this aspect, it was actually good. All of the legendary lines spoken by the actors and their delivery is so bad it's funny. It kills the serious mood the game tries to establish but, you cannot help but laugh once dialogue starts to be read out by the voice actors.   

(Resident Evil had numerous jump scares)

By copying what made Alone In The Dark so great along with adding different features, Resident Evil sold like hot cakes on a cold winters day. It became the first Playstation game to sell well over one millions copies worldwide, a feat that many other games would soon join after this one. So with success running high, Capcom wanted a sequel to the game and not long after release, they began to develop it.

Just a note here, I will not be talking about the cancelled version of Resident Evil 2, since it would take too long to write here in this review. For those of you who want to see that, click here:

(Cancelled version of Resident Evil 2, dubbed '1.5' by fans.)

Now onto the meat and potatoes of this review; Resident Evil 2. This game puts you into the heart of the now famous Racoon City virus outbreak with two new characters to use; Leon S Kennedy and Claire Redfield, the sister to Chris Redfield, the protagonist of the first game. As the two characters fight and make their way out of the city, they are joined by Sherry Birkin, a child who was sent to the police station for protection but, now wanders alone in the virus ridden city. Then there's Ada Wong, a spy who is sent to get information on Umbrella, the pharmaceutical company responsible for starting the whole incident in Raccoon City, along with retrieving the G-Virus sample for analyzing.

(Players could choose either Leon S Kennedy or Claire Redfield)

I won't give away many details of the story after that since that is the beauty of a video game; playing it for yourself to find out what happens in the story. Plus seeing how complex the Resident Evil story can get, you'd get lost trying to read and understand it. So, here's what I think of Resident Evil 2 at a gaming point:

Presentation:

So right off the bat, there are two disks to choose from; one has Claire's scenario and the other has Leon's scenario. Basically, Resident Evil 2 has what's called the 'Zapping System'. What this means is both characters have an A and B scenario and in return that's four total scenarios for you to play. So whoever you choose first, you'll play their A scenario. Once that scenario is completed, the other character's scenario is unlocked and once you complete that, you can swap them over to see a different side to the story. This also affects what items each character gets and well as changes to the scenario depending on what character picks up what item in each scenario. It all sounds complicated for a horror game but, in truth this system does not really do much for me since the changes are so small, it feels more like padding than substantial content. It just ends up being an afterthought than a fully, fleshed out idea. 

(An example of what the GCI cutscenes look like in Resident Evil 2)

Now once you truly start the game, a voiceover monologue will talk about what happened in the previous game. I like this because not only does this allow players to recap what happened in the story but, newcomers will get a taster as to what the characters in the first Resident Evil had to experience in the mansion incident. It really gets you in the mood to experience survival horror once again.

(Sherry, the character Claire must protect during her scenario)

Then depending on who you picked, that said character's intro movie plays. We see both characters face a zombie for the first time and how they deal with it before finally both characters cross paths. Now the cutscene is in GCI rather than the live action scenes from the first game, which I might add were poorly shot. This change is better, it's certainly more serious looking now and I can see it's much faster paced this time around, reflecting the developers decision to go in a more Hollywood style of gaming. The movie itself is.... Cheesy at best to be brutally honest. The animation is a bit stiff and the voice acting, while miles better than Resident Evil 1, it's still bad. But, overall, so far so good.

(Leon teams up with Ada in his scenario)

Gameplay:

This is where things get complicated. There's a lot of ground to cover here so, please bear with me. Right, once you finally start playing, you'll once again note that Resident Evil 2 moves quicker than the first game and also features better animation from the characters. Sadly, the tank controls from the first game returns, making turning and dodging still cumbersome to do. With the increased pace, running into walls and getting stuck becomes more of an issue than before. I'm telling you, the amount of times I've tried to turn a corner, only to then become stuck on a wall is too many to keep a count of. Then again, the game adds a new auto-aim feature so your character will lock on to enemies, even ones on the floor, very useful me thinks.

(Fighting in narrow corridors is tough work!)

If you are unlucky enough to end up bitten, you'll find yet another new mechanic; you can quickly shove off zombies by quickly hitting the square button to push them off you. You'll still take damage but, less so than in the original game, where you had to hope you wasn't killed by zombies biting you, since you couldn't do a thing about it.

 If you do take a lot of damage, the characters posture will change from running fine to holding their arm in pain to slowly limping if on the verge of death. Certainly better than checking the status screen every single time you get hit. To recover health you can either use first aid sprays or, the better way of recovering health is to collect herbs. Green herbs restore health. Red herbs do nothing unless mixed with a green, which then makes it equivalent to a first aid spray. Blue herbs cures poison and all herbs can be mixed together to create various different herb mixtures.     

(One of the many bosses you'll be fighting)

Speaking of zombies, other creatures to fight will include zombified dogs, a new creature called lickers, a creature you will grow to hate and not just because it has a razor sharp tongue. Also you will fight crows, plants, naked zombies, spiders, a killer moth, (no joke) and numerous boss battles that I will not spoil for you. Trust me when I say, all are fun and challenging to beat.

Now in the first Resident Evil game, each character had different attributes and support characters to help them throughout the game. In Resident Evil 2, both characters play the same. The only differences are the starting items and the support characters. Leon starts off with a lighter and has Ada as his support character for more firepower. 

Claire starts with a lockpick and has to look after Sherry once she is following Claire. Sherry cannot attack therefore putting those who use Claire under more stress. In fact, to further back this up, Leon can upgrade his weapons by finding keys to unlock small desks around the police station. That and the lighter is way more useful in this game than the lockpick, which is only used to unlock those same desks and nothing more. Claire is the harder of the two to use.

(The first puzzle in the game on show here)

The puzzles, which were hard to solve in the first Resident Evil are near enough glazed over in this game. All puzzles have hints to help you find out what you need to solve the puzzle but, these puzzles are very easy for the most part and I feel like they slow the game down, making it tedious to keep running back and forth throughout the police station. It's so easy even the maps are not really needed for this game. Because you have a limited number of spaces in your inventory, you have to dump items you do not need into these magic boxes peppered throughout the game. 

(The inventory and status screen)

It's just annoying to keep going to these boxes when you accidently pick up too many items at once. Also, you have a limited number of ink ribbons to save the game with, meaning saving the game is necessary to do; die once without saving and you'll have to start the whole game..... Over again! Gosh. Ammo is limited too so, if you want to kill every enemy well, it's just not going to happen. You'll run out of ammo then you may as well restart the game over if you cannot find anymore. 

Graphics:

Let's move onto graphics. Now in 1998 this game was one of the best looking games of its time. It featured better 3D animation on all models, better rendered pre-rendered environments, much more detail into characters, creeper environments and more varied locations to visit this time. Of course the inclusion of the GCI animation in the cutscenes also helps to keep the story going forward.

(Not exactly the best looking animation here...)

But, these days Resident Evil 2 is very outdated in this department and really needs a remake at this point. The characters movement is stiff and robotic, the pre-rendered backgrounds stick out like a sore thumb compared to anything that is rendered on real-time 3D, characters legs and arms will constantly clip through and look blocky, the camera angles don't make seeing things easy sometimes, the lip syncing on the GCI cutscenes is almost always off and the whole thing has a cheesy/campy look to it.

(Pre-rendered backgrounds really stick out here)

Sound:

Continuing with the cheesy theme, even the sound has suffered here. Where do I start? The voice acting. It's a billion times better than the first Resident Evil game but, with how blitzed the voice acting in that game was, it wasn't hard to improve on it. Saying that, the voice acting is still poor and the script, while once again massively improved, characters still sometimes say really weird lines at times. The other sound effects such as gunfire and zombie grunts also sound unrealistic and cheap to the ear. It's clear here that the sound effects have dated so badly, it's very hard to take them seriously now.

The music and the ambient sounds however do actually hold up quite well. The ambient sounds help to make each environment feel creepy to explore and the music really does help to drive home the fact that you're in a city, trapped and trying to escape this nightmare. It certainly makes you weary that each step you take could be your last and it really makes the atmosphere feel more to life with it playing.  

Overall Verdict:

For all its flaws, Resident Evil 2 is a fine squeal and it was exactly what the series needed at the time. Faster gameplay, more shock and terror and a good build up on an interesting story. While many aspects are dated now and can turn players off, Resident Evil 2 is a game that just makes you keep coming back to it, even when you complete it because let's face it; how can you put down a game that improved on the first game in a huge number of ways? All in all, if you haven't already, play this game and brace yourself for some shock and terror in Racoon City.

(This guy....Boy he's one deadly customer)

Presentation: 5

Dated and cheesy presentation do not make the game look good but, for all that is wrong with it, the good bits are still keep the horror vibes going strong.

Gameplay: 6

Hard to control, very easy and tedious puzzles suck out some of the fun here. When you then add camera angles that obstruct your view sometimes, as well as not being able to save frequently and having to backtrack a fair amount is a big problem for newcomers. That being said, there's something fun about this game as once you get used to it, forgetting these issues is then quite easy to do.

Graphics: 4

Blocky, muddy and sticks out is how I would describe Resident Evil 2's graphics. It really sucks you out of the serious tone the game is trying to going for and makes it look all campy and cheesy instead.

Sound: 4

Aside from ambient sounds and good music scores, the rest of the sound effects are either cheap, unrealistic or just plain annoying. Really doesn't make the player engrossed in the experience when the same cheesy grunt and horrid gunfire noises are heard over and over again.

Overall score: 7

Resident Evil 2 is outdated. Somehow it does just enough still to warrant a look at if you are a fan of the series or even a newcomer to the franchise. While hard to recommend now, if you are in the mood for survival horror at it's finest, you need to play Resident Evil 2.

A review written by:

Jonathan Burden 

  

  

The PSone: Console Review (2000)

The PSone Review

(The Console that made Sony's debut onto the video gaming market complete in the mid 1990s, the Playstation)

For those of you who were born in the 70s, 80s and early 90s, (like myself), you'll know one thing was true; video games were rapidly changing from sprite based models and cartridges to advanced 3D graphics and the CD-ROM based format, a format that allowed up to 650mb storage; something which benefited game companies for many reasons; the cheap cost, ease of use and being able to put much, much more content on games than what was previously possible ultimately lead to the demise of cartridge based home consoles in the early noughties.

(The SNES, a cartridge based console which was popular in the early 90s)

Let's back up for a second and return to the year which made CD-ROM based consoles cool to own; 1995. With that, enter Sony's Playstation. What started as a betrayal from Nintendo ended up being a system to die for at the time. Despite being newcomers to the video gaming industry; Sony knew what they had to do, beat both Nintendo and SEGA at their game and gain millions of fans in the process. They also had to make a system that was easy to use, cost effective, reliable, easy to programme games for and of course look cool in the eyes of the consumer.    

(Sony Had to beat the N64...)

                                                                                                                  (... Oh and the SEGA Saturn.)

After a massively successful launch in 1994/1995 across the world, Sony dominated the 5th generation of gaming by a huge margin. In fact, 102 million Playstation consoles were sold by 2006, making it the first console to reach the 100 million mark. That's how popular the Playstation was, nothing ever came close to making it break a sweat or threaten its lead other the other gaming consoles at the time.    

In this review however, i'm here to talk about Sony's first redesign of the Playstation, the PSone. In the year 2000 the 6th generation of video games was well underway and Sony's Playstation 2 looked to take over where the original Playstation left off. But, rather than let an old legend die so soon, Sony took the Playstation, shunk it, took a few ports off, made it look more modern and hey presto, a new look PSone was out. In its first year on sale it managed to actually outsell the Playstation 2 that year. Not bad for a console which was already six years old at this point. 

(The size difference is immense!)

So, what do I think of the PSone? Well let's get one thing straight, this device is tiny.... No really, it's baffling how small this console really is. The original Playstation was a huge beast of a console, it was massive in size. The PSone is only half the size of the original, that's crazy just to think about a fact like that. Of course the size reduction then leads to another positive change; the weight. it's only 550g, meaning the console could be easily picked up with just one hand and, when taking the console with you, it was much easier to store away in a carrier bag.

In terms of specs, the PSone is the same as the older model Playstation, meaning nothing has changed here. So if you was expecting better graphics or faster load times, you'll have to look to emulators for that kind of experience. Also, all Playstation games will work on the PSone so, there's no worries about compatibility issues either. You might be asking me, "So why don't I just keep my older Playstation unit? It's the same thing really." You see, Sony is known for making good inventions and here is one that made me want a PSone quite so badly; the combo pack.

(This LCD screen goes onto the PSone for some basic portable gaming)

Yes the combo pack. Basically you get the PSone console along with an 5 inch LCD screen and it would include a portable car power supply so you could play the console in a vehicle, via the cigarette lighter. It would have cost around £120 here in the UK at the time, a steal for those who wanted to play their Playstation games on the go. You could actually argue that this is an early version of the PSP, a handheld console that could also play PS1 games on the go, using batteries and a 5 inch screen. Sadly the PSone requires a power source and it has to stay plugged in at all times otherwise, it will stop. There was a battery pack made for it but, it's very expensive and hard to find so good luck with that.

(This is how it will look once everything is set up)

How did the screen work then? Simple. The LCD screen was a separate add-on to the PSone. Simply take the LCD screen, match up the screws on the LCD screen with the console, tighten it up with a screwdriver and wallah! All done. Then plug in the power supply at the back, plug in a controller and you can play PSone games all day long. Does it need a separate power supply? Heck no. Unlike the SEGA Mega Drive add-ons, the SEGA Mega CD and the SEGA 32X, each of them needed their own power supplies, meaning a total of three power supplies. That's way too much for anyone these days and even back then it was a mess to get all three working at the same time. Sony's console only needs one and... That's it. A miracle eh?   

(There's too many wires here!)

(Simple yet... Elegant)

Mind you, as amazing as this screen is and it's lack of needing a lot of electricity to power it, there are some issues. The screen is an LCD screen, meaning you have to look at it correctly to get the best out of it. You can't for example play from side onwards, it just will not work. The small screen size means that trying to play with another player is hard to do since one or both of you will not get a good view of what is happening on screen and the built in speakers, while they offer stereo sound and decent volume, the sound quality is not the best, it just sounds a bit tinny to me. Then again the inclusion of an 3.5mm headphone jack on the LCD add-on is the best way to go for having the best sound quality on this device. It is also very useful for blocking out parents who try to speak to you and siblings who try to disturb your peace at night time.

(The PSone reminded me of this later handheld device from Sony)

When all is said and done, the PSone is a nice redesign from Sony and that LCD screen makes gaming on the go easy and fun to do. It's no wonder this console outsold the Xbox and the Gamecube, it's a nice looking device and it did what it was supposed to do, keep the PSone alive and breathe it some new life again. If you want this console, now is the time to get one, while it's cheap and in stock. If you get one, you won't be disappointed.

(A video on the PSone screen)

A review written by

Jonathan Burden

Colin McRae DiRT: Review (2007)

Colin McRae DiRT: Review

Ah yes, Colin McRae DiRT. Way back in 2007 I was able to get a good look at this game, due in part of numerous trailers, interviews and of course, gameplay videos. Yet, every one of the videos shown of the game all had one thing in common; that is the game  looked extraordinary, it pretty much blew my mind away; I even remember seeing one particular trailer and I said, "Wow I really, really want that game!". I begged for weeks and weeks for it and that very year I brought it on PC. Only later on did I find out my old computer could barely play the damn thing. It was slow, ugly and prone to crashing. Unfortunately, my old computer specs were weak and being unaware of such things as 'graphics cards' and 'processors' my twelve year old self did not realise all this until much, much later on.

It's 2015 now and of course I've learnt so much about computers, various specs and even partly building one last year do I finally purchase a rather nice laptop to once again try my hand at DiRT. So, has my view on the game changed or is it time to put an old broken dream to rest? Read on to find out...

Presentation:

First i'll start off with how the game opens up to the player. We first see at the time, the newly designed logo of Codemasters, the developers of this game coming towards us to end up nicely at the midpoint of the screen. After this the opening CGI kicks in to remind you just how much you'll be having to do in the career mode of DiRT with the various vehicles shown not limited but including Buggies, Hill Climb cars and my favourite, the Rally cars. After a spectacular crash-out, the menu music plays, the game makes you do a profile and you are almost ready to play. 

(Highly detailed menus? Yes please!)

The very first thing I take into my eyes is the highly talked about menus of the game. Usually a menu is well, menu; it is just there to allow the player to go to different sections, changing various settings before finally starting the game proper. In DiRT however the menu is a fascinating thing to behold. Everything looks superb here, from the high quality visuals, to the use of blur effects to the way the transitions work. It is seamless, loading screens free and just a sight to relish at. Before the start of every race the stats of your racing career come up and its a nice reminder as to the possible achievements you've done during your time playing DiRT.       

(Important stats about cars are explained in the career mode)

Sadly, once you start the actual career mode, Travis Pastrana talks you through the basics of how the career mode works as well as explaining your cars and what each different component on a car does... Which is very nice. Mind you, Mr Pastrana cannot be skipped until he finishes boring you to death with information you already know about or in some cases, do not care about. Ultimately this dampens the excitement levels a tad but, once he finally lets you race, it's time for the fun stuff.   

Gameplay:

DiRT is actually a rather huge game, so huge in fact you will not completely finish the game for at least 10-20 hours. Trust me the difficult nature of the game will make sure it is finished later rather than sooner. So, there's a good number of different vehicles in this game; about 46 to be precise, all with different liveries, a kind of way to apply basic customising to each vehicle. You have different rally cars, trucks, buggies, pickup trucks and hill climb cars. Honestly, all are fun to drive and have different ways of changing up the gameplay. Rally for example is a single car timed event, meaning you have to finish a track in the quickest time possible without wiping out and totalling your car. Every stage has a set of checkpoints to determine how fast you are compared to the rest of the field. You will not see another car in this mode, meaning all that stands between you and first place is your own driving skills and of course, mother nature.  

(Mmmmmm, nice interior...)

The modes CORR, Rally Reid and Rallycross are all circuit based modes where you have to race a certain number of laps against other drivers, trying to beat them while you continue to fight the elements in typical rally fashion. And finally Hill Climb will see you using powerful-super modified rally cars with big spoilers rear and front, combined with lots of horsepower to climb various mountain peaks, all in the name of seeing how fast you can beat nature and survive. (Note you cannot fall off and blow up your car. *Sad Face*)

(Hill Climb events will test your courage and skills)

How does the game feel to play then? Well with a keyboard, (Which I do not use, thank god!), its not good at all. The cars feel loose and lack weight and it's just not the ideal way of trying to play this game. Granted you can get somewhere with a keyboard if you practise and give it time but, as is the case for most modern games, you are better off with a controller. Now with a controller, the game is much more fun. You can easily adjust the turning, you can control the breaking and acceleration more smoothly and in general it feels all the more responsive than a keyboard. Not only that but the track design is thoroughly well thought out too. Tracks are littered with signs, dirt, potholes, trees, bushes, fences; essentially any obstacle you can think of, this game will have it. Minus whales, turtles and battlefields in the distance of course.

(The AI will keep you on your toes as you go through the career mode)

Although lacking weight, the cars are fun to drive. Each car has it's own unique properties, such as being more resistant to damage or having quick changes in gears. Either way, all cars respond well with excellent breaking, agile turing and of course that satisfying feeling when accelerating and breaking. Of course when switching camera views, once you get to the nicely rendered head camera, it shakes, rattles with jumps and bumps, its a really nice way to view the experience and it makes you feel like you really are in the vehicle, tearing up the tracks and driving these souped up rally cars.

(Pickup trucks are a challenge, especially with jumps!)

But, the biggest draw for me was the damage model. Oh yes the second best thing this game has to offer is the way cars deform when they collide with anything in the game environment. Cars wrap around trees, bits and bobs fall off, cars deform in a number of ways, resulting to wreaks never being the same, cars can get scratched, windows break, bushes and small trees can be run into and crushed and of course for the first time in the Colin McRae series cars can finally be killed in a number of ways. Oh the joy I had destroying cars in this game, so much pleasure just seeing what the damage model could really achieve. All I can say is DiRT's damage engine is still one of the best out there, almost ten years into it's release.

(An example of the damage engine on show here)

The only real disappointment here is the online mode. Basically all you can choose is rally and hill climbing modes and you randomly choose tracks by voting. You never see your opponents, just ghost cars and you can hardly talk to people due to how fast the voting system is. I honestly believe this game should either have been single player only or, Codemasters add in the other modes where you would be able to race other players on the same track as you. Overall it's a massive let down on a otherwise great game here. 

Graphics:

The one thing I could never enjoy as a kid is finally realised here. The game is drop dead gorgeous. The game engine used in this game is called "Neon", an engine which allowed the developers to push the boundaries of how cars and objects should behave in environments, as well as produce stunning graphics and a great damage system. The results are brilliant. The textures are all of the highest quality, from the trees, to the environments and of course the stay of the show, the cars themselves. Every bit of this game got the high class treatment and it shows every time you play it. You just appreciate all of the hard work Codemasters did here and it still blows my mind to think a game from 2007 not only looks this good but it is also capable of running at 1920x1080, in 2007! Even just seeing different textures on the ground to the huge draw distance to the high quality text on the sign posts and the game's nice use of motion blur all adds up to a game that is just a pleasure to the eyes.  

(This was made in 2007? Wow, still looks good to me...)

We all know that games are nothing really if the gameplay is as good as getting a rotten apple to eat but, seeing how much this game pushed consoles and average PC's at the time, it's no wonder my friends keep saying how good DiRT really looks after all this time. Codemasters really need to push this kind of level of graphics again and, hopefully the new game in the series, DiRT Rally can finally rectify this issue. 

(Racing doesn't look sweeter than this right?)

Sound:

Sound design is important in gaming. Without good sound effects, music or voice acting, one's game experience can get dampened somewhat and it can change how we think of certain games. DiRT's sound effects are very good. Most of the great sound effects come from the sound of the cars themselves with their gear thunks being loud, the superb crash sound effects that will deafen your ears, I promise you and the nice roar of the engines as they speed past spectators to their destinations.

 (That will hurt!)

Mind you, the music in the replay mode was a bit.... Hmmm... Well I only liked two songs and even then the songs are bland and forgettable in my opinion. They just do not provide the kick ass entertainment other racing game songs would provide and on their own, without the game background noise going on, it just sounds like a very weak effort here.

Then again after having to hear Mr Pastrana constantly tell me to, "Move on up to pro am mode", in the career mode over and over again, i'd be happy to keep hearing that music just so I can rid my brain of his over obnoxious voice over. The long time co-driver of Colin McRae, Nicky Grist has also been replaced too, for the worst. The unknown man just spouts jokes that only people who may have watched Saved By The Bell, a 90s sitcom which featured similar jokes to the ones this man blurts out, will understand. While funny the first time, after the 6th time of hearing, "I'm mister cool and you're mister smooth", all I want to do is kick him out of my car and drive without his "help".

Overall Verdict:

With the game out for cheap on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, DiRT is a fantastic rally/racing game. Despite some silly issues, such as the voice overs and the lack of a decent online mode, DiRT is a game you shouldn't miss out on and for everything the games does right, it practically exceeds or meets of expectations of a true next generation game. And besides, with how powerful PC's have become, its finally time to enjoy DiRT the way it was meant to be all those years ago. Codemasters out did themselves with this and now we can finally experience this game the way it was meant to be nearly ten years ago. Happy racing!

(I bet you like the look of this, don't you?)

(Gameplay Of DiRT in 4K)

  

 Presentation: 8

Great menus, decent menu music and of course, those transitions though!

Gameplay: 7

Floaty driving and poor keyboard controls aside this is a fun, well built and fluid rally racing game, with amazing ways of deforming and destroying every car.

Graphics: 9

Back then, graphics like this was only something us gamers could only dream of. Even today the game still looks stunning and still holds up better than most games released in 2007.

Sound: 7

The game's crash sound effects are well worth hearing, as are the cars themselves. The replay music is dull however and the voice overs get annoying rather quickly.

Overall rating: 8.3 out of 10 

Great!

This review was done by:

Jonathan Burden