DiRT Rally 2.0

DiRT Rally 2.0 nails everything it sets out to do. Players need to know going in though that this is a brutal game, unforgiving at times. Even with the easy option this is still no pushover. I had to earn every victory I achieved and that is certainly a turn-off for players looking for an arcade-like experience. Codemasters continues their trend of excellence and maintain their spot at the upper echelon of racing game design.

I sort of have to criticise, you know? It's the job. Truth is, though, I've really enjoyed every minute I've spent with Dirt Rally 2.0, just as I did with 1.0 before it. The handling is gorgeous, the routes are truly beautiful to look at, and the management is ...manageable. The cars all have tons of individual character, the rallycross feels scrappy and frenetic and everything just comes together wonderfully. Codemasters, eh? They really have the hang of this thing.

I don't need oodles and oodles of modes, distractions, and persistent progression to feel accomplished, but I also don't expect anyone to happily pay $60 for a game with less content than its predecessors. DiRT Rally 2.0 might be the best-feeling racer Codemasters has ever produced, but it most definitely is not the best iteration of this long-running series.

Basically, it doesn’t matter which car you will drive and which stage you will take on because every lap in this game will make you feel the thrill of the off-road ride. This is the absolutely triumphant game which brings the best off-road driving model, we dare say, ever. For all the people who consider themselves petrol-heads this is the Holy Grail of a game and a masterpiece, they will enjoy every second playing.

Dirt Rally isn’t reinventing the wheel nor is it looking to offer an accessible experience to a rally racing novice. While that’s a bummer in and of itself, Codemasters still delivers an incredibly satisfying racing experience that’s second to none when everything comes together. These moments of joy feel far too spread out, mostly due to a reliance on servers that rarely work as intended in their current state.

Regardless, for devout rally fans it’s still pretty much essential. They’ll just bemoan having to fork out for DLC to expand the locations available and to finally take the game’s wonderful assortment of vehicles out for a spin in snow. And those hoping that DiRT Rally 2.0 would be a little more forgiving will just have to look elsewhere to get their rally kicks.