Sound and Graphics

You might be surprised why I’m talking about these first. Don’t worry, it’s not going to be a shallow overview gushing over the sweeet visuals or “pounding techno tracks” because no self-respecting gamer would judge a game on these elements solely.

What I do want to cover, and this will be an over-riding theme in all previews and reviews, is how are developers using the new powers available to them with the new generation of consoles?

Well, from initial impressions with DiRT, Codemasters are doing well in that regard. Whereas games like Gotham Racing 3 and Gran Turismo 4 feel like racing a metal box on wheels around a track, this feels like you are driving a car.

There’s various squeaks and creaks from the car as you throw it from side-to side. You can hear the type of road you are on (or not) at all times and you just get a handy sense of what sort of shape the car is in before a tough bend. You know whether you are balanced and ready to throw it in at full throttle or whether you really need to get your back wheel off the grass and slow down before trying it.

Graphically, the game is beautiful. With each new console, when we used to get more and more polygons, I felt with car games, we just got shinier and shinier cars. GT4 and PGR3 were sterile, they looked too nice. With DiRT, you get dirt!. Your car gets dirty and your car gets ripped to bits – with PGR3, the damage was cosmetic and with GT4 it was limited to tyres only. With this game, you’ve got a real sense that your car is made up of separate parts.

The sound and graphics really do improve the gameplay as the graphics are your feedback and trigger but the sound is also constantly feeding you information. A very slick job, indeed.

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