![]() If you add in a wheel – the GT 300 RS we used feels like a perfect companion, but anything from Logitech, Thrustmaster and Fanatec with force feedback will do nicely – then things get even more immersive, though as is often the case I wasn’t able to improve on any of my performances from playing with a controller as I wrestled my way through a stage. ![]() ![]() Even without the benefit of VR, which will show up later this year for PC players, there are few racing games whose sense of place is as strong. In some racing games there’s a mental disconnect between what’s happening on screen and what you’re doing, but Dirt Rally 2.0 manages to make you feel like you’re genuinely in the seat of a rally car, hurtling down a gravel track in the rain. Codemasters have excelled themselves here, and it makes the still decidedly tough daylight stages feel like a reprieve. Wrestling my car through a night time stage with a bunch of my internal organs in my mouth was unlike anything any other racing game has put me through, and I’d readily argue that Dirt Rally 2.0 plays host to the most enthralling, involving and downright terrifying night time racing committed to digital form. The lack of a rewind feature speaks volumes to Codemasters’ intentions, but you do at least get a limited number of restarts if things go really wrong. Suddenly you’re looking at a sixty second hole that you’re going to have to drive yourself out of, and it feels – quite rightly – as though it’s entirely your own fault. You can be sitting at the top of the leaderboard after the first couple of stages of an event only to lose your headlights five minutes into the next race, forcing you to limp home while you’re straining to see the solid grey of the track in front of you. It doesn’t take much for it to all go wrong. It all adds to the series already impressive level of realism though, which will please the hardcore, while more casual players can probably get away without giving it too much thought. In what was already an exceedingly tough sim racer, Codemasters have really just doubled down on the difficulty for those further down the running order. It’s much more nuanced than the arcade stylings of last generation’s Sega Rally, but there’s still a clear difference between an early run and a later one. The headline feature this racing sequel brings to the track is surface degradation, with the track becoming more uneven, with deeper ruts and troughs the further down the running order you are. ![]() If you want a rally game that captures that feeling of a few inches being the difference between success and wrapping yourself around a tree, then Dirt Rally 2.0 has you ably covered, especially if you fancy taking a spin in one of the viciously difficult RWD racers.ĭirt Rally 2.0 goes to great lengths to really put you in the role of a rally driver, and even the loading screens flick away with information about the track you’re about to tackle, from its elevation above sea level to the time of day that your slot is at. You’ll need to be ultra-sharp just to stay on the course, with the previous game’s precise handling model returning as you attempt to negotiate the often exceedingly narrow routes. This is a game where it’s you versus the track everything else is an afterthought. Once you’re happy with your set-up – you can take part in a good few shakedown’s before the next stage of any event to check – then it’s time to race, and while there’s a bevy of other racers out there trying to outdo you as you hurtle around, the only thing you actually see while rallying is the time. It’s all given a decent enough explanation that even someone with only a passing interest in cars will be able to tailor their vehicle to their liking. You can tune pretty much every aspect of your cars, from the ratio of each of your gears to your tyre compound (a new feature for Rally 2.0), and even how many spares you’re going to bring. Fortunately those good looks are backed up with some gaming nous, and there’s all of the expected settings for armchair racers to delve into to tweak a car’s underpinnings before you take it out onto the course.
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