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DiRT 2 strives to give players the "true rally car racing experience." To this end, non-racing portions are spent hanging around the mobile trailer, plotting the next stop on a world tour to rise up the ranks. More difficult tracks and events reap bigger rewards in terms of experience points and cash. The cash goes towards buying new vehicles while the XP unlocks new cities and events. There's a nice variety of racing modes that range from straightforward rally races to more puzzle driven challenges like Gate Crasher, where racers have to smash through as many barricades as they can while trying for a good track time. Winning races also improves your relationship with real-life pro rally car drivers like Ken Block (who was a consultant in the game's development), whose voices are featured in the game. Gain a high enough rep, and they'll offer more personal challenges for you to overcome. Becoming best buds with these racers allows you to partner up with them for cooperative events.


What makes the PC version of DiRT 2 unique is that it's the first racing game that supports DirectX 11 graphics, making it the most sophisticated racing game available today. Unfortunately, our video card doesn't support DX11, so we can't comment on those features. Those fortunate enough to have one DX11 capable video card will benefit more from playing DiRT 2 because they'll be able to experience the extra touches that add more realism to the game. However, we'll attest that the game still looks great when operating in DirectX 9, and that's saying a lot, considering how the tracks are mostly comprised of dust, water puddles and dirt decorated with tall grass, rocks and drive markers.

The gameplay challenges racers with the thrill of driving at high speeds in a car that's constantly on the verge of going out of control. Driving on some of these dusty rounds can almost feel like driving on ice, and a small miscalculation can send you spinning out or flipping over. Some tracks switch between paved and off-road surface types, so players need to be aware of their surroundings to compensate for changes. Passing other racers can be especially difficult on these narrow tracks, since fender benders and smashing into guard rails can damage your car and significantly impact how it drives. Opponents will often call you out for bumping into them. Fortunately, there's a wide range of difficulty settings to accommodate both casual and hardcore players, including setting the car damage so that it's just cosmetic. Higher difficulties bring better rewards. DiRT 2 also borrows a bit from Grid, a different circuit racing game developed and published by Codemasters, particularly the rewind feature that lets players go a few seconds back in time for a chance to avoid a catastrophic wipeout. Lower difficulties have more rewind tokens while the highest difficulty removes them altogether.

We wish the game had more of a practice mode for new players to learn the tracks. There's Free Ride, where players can customize the event rules, but that's still a competitive racing mode. A practice mode would also make more use of the co-driver, which more-or-less acts like a GPS navigation voice to let you know what twists and turns to expect and recommends how you should handle them. They're generally used for a specific type of event and not much else, but come in handy when playing a track for the first time. However, even when set to simple mode, the co-drivers use a decent amount of jargon, and the general pace of the game means that they'll often spout out a list of instructions faster than some drivers can process them.
These minor events build up toward the prestigious X-Game competitions, which string together multiple events from across the world into one big race. These events bring in a great deal of cash and prestige, but the experience isn't too different from playing the events individually in the main game. The main difference is that if you're not good at one of the events, you can try to score well in the others to get ahead in the final rankings.

DiRT 2 promises a realistic rally car racing game, and apart from being shoved into a real-life race car and tasting sand in your mouth, it accomplishes this goal. It's also a game that's generally accessible to new and casual players, so it's not just about the hardcore driving experience. Any way you look at it, it's a well designed game that caters to a very broad range of racing fans.