Colin McRae: DiRT
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ESRB:
Alcohol Reference,Language - Mild,Mild Violence
Publisher: Codemasters Genre(s): Sports / Racing Home Page: http://www.codemasters.com/dirt/
So pretty it hurts to break it allMuch of the hype surrounding DiRT centered around the game's new damage system. That hype was justified: damage modeling is realistic, and visually the system is unrivaled. Under the hood, the game keeps track of even the most gentle bumps. A percentage system is used to track the car's vitals. Depending on the selected difficultly level, as a particular system degrades, so do the associated handling or drivetrain components. It's not the über-detailed accuracy offered by GTR 2 - body damage has no detrimental effect on aerodynamics, for instance - but it's close.
In terms of appearance, however, the damage system in DiRT stands alone. Every body panel and chassis part has the potential to be dented or torn off, and there's no canned texture or model replacement: the car's body is deformed and parts fly off based on real-time calculations. No two crashes result in identical damage. As with the handling, the damage may be a bit exaggerated in the name of dramatic effect, but I spent a fair amount of time doing some crash testing - in the name of a thorough review, of course, and not for any masochistic purposes. Let's get this out of the way: there isn't a better-looking racing game on the PC than DiRT. The game is a visual tour-de-force, with an impressive attention to detail in every aspect. DiRT is a showcase for the features of Codemasters new multi-platform Neon engine, a complex piece of middleware developed in-house for a variety of titles, from racers like DiRT to other genres, including FPSs. From highly detailed car models to uncanny reproduction of real-world tracks to lighting and shadows, DiRT excels graphically. It's a beautiful game in every respect.
The lighting and textures give the game an almost ethereal feel though, and I would have preferred some sharpness for a more realistic slant. However, the visuals fit with the overall theme of the game, and major points to Codemasters for modeling the cockpit of each vehicle. Using the cockpit view, you can look around the car and watch as your co-driver notes turns. Even the antenna on my rally car swayed with the centripetal force as I sailed through a corner. On the downside, the weather effects aren't up to par with the rest of the visuals, and there's no permanent track deformation such as tire ruts (then again, no current PC racer offers this feature). Finally, I'm going to coin some new phraseology here: "Getting Bloomed". Getting Bloomed is like getting punk'd, only with less Aston Kutcher and way more light-source glare. You get bloomed to death in DiRT, which manages to outdo Oblivion in its overuse of cartoon lighting. There's no option to turn off the bloom, either in-game or by editing the game's configuration file, so much of the graphical detail is lost in a wash of light. DiRT is the first game you may actually wear sunglasses while playing. Vrrrmm noises not needed but...Audio in DiRT is a mixed bag. Travis Pastrana's aforementioned voice-over work could be culled, or at least redone by a professional voice actor. If you have the time, you may want to record your own narration; it's that bad. Sound effects are top-notch, as is the in-game voicework. 
DiRT has both EAX and OpenAL support for positional audio.
Audio is projected from the vehicle, and with 3D audio enabled (via OpenAL or Creative's EAX), the position of the camera has an effect on the perceived origination of the audio. The positional audio is very well-done and is best experienced from the cockpit, where the sounds of the track are muffled slightly by the body of the vehicle. Whether it's the sound of gravel kicking up from the rear wheels or the devastating crunch of a mid-course collision, the atmosphere is always enhanced by the great audio.
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