Codemasters have made a serious name for themselves in the racing game market over the last decade. They have commanded a strong lead in Rally games with their venerable Colin McRae Rally series which started in 1999, and have had an impressive showing on circuit racing with their TOCA Race Driver series, starting in 1997. The TOCA Race Driver series would eventually be modernized with the title ‘Grid’, and Colin McRae would become known as ‘Dirt’. Though never known for extreme sim-level driving physics, Codemaster’s racing titles found a fun balance between arcade and sim racing, and always complimented the action with some of the best car damage modeling found in the industry.
Codemasters really ramped up their racing titles in the last three years with the introduction of a brand new graphics engine. The Neon engine, introduced in 2007 and later renamed “EGO”, was one of the first graphics engines to elevate racing games to high-definition visuals. The car damage was detailed beyond words. Advanced shader technologies enabled cracked windows and mirrors to refract images, scratches in paint were able to show specular highlights, and sunlight was able to glint off of polished cars. The motion blur added credence to an already impressive sense of speed. Engine sound would bounce off of near walls and reflect back into the interior. The lighting engine produced real time shadows on everything, making a rollover seen from behind the wheel a cavalcade of dancing shadows on the telemetry and dashboard. Dirt was the first game to utilize this engine, followed in 2008 by Grid, and now we see it once more in Dirt 2. It may be three years old by now, but Dirt 2 serves to prove that this impressive engine is far from being exhausted. After 10 years, Codemaster’s rally franchise may just be coming into its prime.
The cars don't look this good for long
The visuals in Dirt 2 are some of the best out there. It builds on the gorgeous foundation of Dirt and Grid while adding a lot of new tricks. One such addition is windshield water splash. When driving through puddles of water, the liquid will splash onto your windshield, smearing around and distorting your view until your wiper blades can remove it. The lighting system has also seen significant improvements, and in its current form, it is one of the most impressive examples of real-time lighting I’ve seen. Lights reflect off of the cars in a brilliant luster, glinting in a very convincing manner. During the dusk and night time races, the amount of light source reflections are staggering, and it really must be seen in action to be appreciated. Codemasters has also added a Michael Bay-style lens filter to the game, so every bright spot creates a blue aura that stretches out in a majestic fashion.
Dirt 2 is one of the first games to implement DirectX 11. If you are running DirectX 11-compatible hardware, you can crank the detail settings to their true maximum. It allows you to enable the highest post-processing effects level, which adds a more detailed motion blur and ramps up the lighting effect detail. In addition, DirectX 11-exclusive technologies DirectCompute and hardware tessellation are available. The tessellation is only applied to cloth dynamics and water—and though that may seem like a wasted effort, when you see it in action it makes all the difference. In DirectX 10 and under, water puddles show dynamic splashes and waves with simple 2D shader effects. That same puddle in DirectX 11, with hardware tessellation in action, will create 3D waves that dynamically move away from the car. The waves are tessellated in real time, and it creates an extremely impressive display. All of the Icrontic staff whom have seen the tessellated water in Dirt 2 agreed: once we saw that in action, we couldn’t possibly be happy with 2D splash effects again.
DirectX 11 brings some serious water effects
Dirt 2 plays much like its predecessor: you travel around the world racing different off-road circuits and disciplines gaining money and cars. The more you win, the more races become available to you. It’s your typical racing game ‘story mode’ where you start from the bottom and work your way up until you’re the champion of the world. Fortunately for Dirt 2, there are enough different racing disciplines and race types to keep things interesting as you progress. Types like Rally, Raid, Rally Cross, and Trail Blazer are expected of a game like this, but Dirt 2 also keeps things interesting by adding in special modes such as Domination, Last Man Standing, and Gate Crasher. Each are unique and present unique challenges in a familiar racing environment.
The variety in car types is a welcome addition. You’ll find a spectrum that includes Subaru Impreza WRX rally cars, high performance off-road buggies, Dodge Ram pickup trucks, and Hummer H3 Raid trucks. The different disciplines serve to keep the racing experience fresh, and though the sheer amount of styles falls short of massive games such as TOCA Race Driver 3, the disciplines of Dirt 2 feel more polished and refined. Unfortunately, the selection of cars for each discipline leaves a bit to be desired, as you generally only find 5 to 8 cars to drive per discipline. In fact, the lack of differentiation in cars makes it feels as if your choice of car has little effect on the race. You can win regardless of what wheels you buy, as long as you know how to handle them in the dirt.
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