DIRT 3 PlayStation 3

Released on 23/05/2011

• Dirt3 Review

  Down and DIRT3

  What better than driving fast? How about driving fast, mere inches away from pine trees and cliff edges, in a stripped down car that's been built for just that very purpose?

  That’s the special thrill that Codemasters has made its own in video games, ever since the Colin McRae games on the PSone. As well as being the latest in that long line of titles, DiRT 3 could also lay claim to being one of the very best.

  Mud, sweat and gears.

  There’s now no longer Colin McRae fronting the games – sadly the rallying legend passed away in 2007 – but there’s a new off-road star who’s very much at the centre of the game.

  Meet Ken Block, founder of DC Shoes and an all-round extreme sports supremo, who’s brought a little bit of skateboarding and BMX attitude into the often staid world of motorsport.

  Ken’s biggest contribution to DiRT 3 is the Gymkhana mode, a balletic pursuit that’s like taking to a skate park in a sports car. The aim here is to pull off a series of tricks in locations that range from the harbour of Monaco, to the somewhat less glamorous Battersea Power Station.

  Off to the Gymkhana

  It’s tricky but fun, and once the art of doughnutting around telegraph poles and pulling off hairy slides through concrete pipes has been mastered, it’s easy to spend hours trying to achieve that perfect run.

  Succeed and it’s possible to share all the glory with your friends - all it takes is one button press to upload a short replay to YouTube. While Gymkhana mode feels a little like a modern take on the early Tony Hawks games, it’s every bit as captivating, and just as likely to consume entire afternoons and evenings.

  But there’s more to DiRT 3 than just showing off, and what’s best about the game is how it's included more of the traditional rally that made the series famous.

  Rally good

  This is all about driving from one point to another - fast. There’s a whole world of cars to do this in as well, from classics like the Mini Cooper of the 60s, through to contemporary World Rally Championship beasts and eventually on to our own favourite category – Trailblazer cars that offer 900 BHP of pure anger for you to tame.

  It’ll take all your concentration to avoid wrapping one of these around the scenery- when you inevitably do, Codemasters obliges with one of the best damage models in the business.

  Metal buckles and heels tear off with gut-churning conviction, and it’s entertaining just to watch what happens when a car meets a tree at over 100 mph. At least that’s our excuse for crashing so much.

  It’s not just the crashes that are pretty - DiRT 3 is a seriously good-looking game in everything it does. Whether it’s a sun-dappled forest in Finland, a snowy mountain in Norway or the rain-lashed countryside of Michigan, the scenery is both attractive and utterly immersive.

  Offtrack or On Course

  In the unlikely event you get bored of all that point-to-point stuff, there’s even some more traditional competitive action in the form of rallycross. It’s a discipline that’s part track driving and part off-road driving, providing some real elbows-out racing. It's both fun to play on your own and absolutely hilarious when there are others involved online.

  Speaking of online DiRT 3 doesn’t stop at offering straight-up racing and time trials – there are even some off-the-wall party modes, including one unexpected spin on the increasingly popular zombie phenomenon. Called Outbreak, it’s a high-speed game of tag that’s all about infecting the other drivers, with games soon turning into very messy carnivals of destruction.

  It tops off a package that’s all-inclusive and - most importantly - an awful lot of fun. This isn’t a racer in the po-faced mould of Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport – it’s edgier, rawer and a lot more immediate in its thrills. The result is a game that - in spite of its name - is good clean fun.

  

  BURNING RUBBER:
  + Incredible graphics
  + Varied driving
  + Gymkhana
  

  PRETTY TIRED:
  - Not enough locations
  - Almost too addictive
  
  

• Dirt 3 offers expanded game

  Codemasters has announced that its new extended edition of Dirt 3 will offer gamers a wider choice of vehicles and routes with what the company described as £20 worth of new content.

  The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 editions of the game are set to include this additional content, as is the PC version.

  Gamers will see the award-winning racer expanded with 12 new routes across two locations, new cars and a range of liveries to offer increased replayability and more competition.

  Dirt 3 Complete Edition will offer the opportunity to take part in the Monte Carlo Rally, an eight-stage race featuring hairpin turns and dramatic mountain climbs in the snowy alps.

  The original game performed well among users of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, garnering an aggregate score of 87 on Metacritic.

  Dirt 3 is considered a successor to the Colin McRae Rally series of games, although the branding has now been removed.

  Published: 09/02/2012

• Gaming's Sporting Heroes

  
  

  Olympic fever has gripped the planet, and we're only just over halfway through a year that has already been defined by amazing sporting action. From regular favourites like Wimbledon and the UEFA European Championship, to the glitz of the Olympics and surprise wins in the Tour De France, sport has never hogged so many UK headlines. As always, where there's an audience, there are video games looking to capitalise on the popularity - and a famous face certainly helps to catch our attention (although Mario and Sonic don't really count...). Here's our look back over the history of sporting heroes in games.

  

  You can almost go back to the dawn of gaming and find examples of famous athletes promoting games. Daley Thompson's Decathlon was one of the enduring classics of the 8-bit home computer era, a keyboard-bashing run through ten track and field events overseen by the ghostly white pixellated face of digital Daley.

  

  It was inevitable that a footy-loving nation such as ours would attract a flood of cheesy football endorsements as well, with everyone from squeaky scouser Emlyn Hughes to telly pundits Saint and Greavsie, to top flight players like Gazza and Beckham, putting their name to digitised kickabouts. We even had the bizarre sight of a Peter Shilton goalkeeping game, cheekily renamed Handball Maradona after the infamous "hand of god" incident at the 1986 World Cup. And while there's no name on the box, there's no ignoring the key players endorsing both FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer even today.

  
  

  

  Ever-obsessed with sports and strategy, it didn't take long for American software companies to follow suit. John Madden had already retired as both player and coach when his name first adorned the Madden NFL American Football simulation in 1988, but it kicked off a series which endures to this day and is widely considered to be the benchmark of gridiron gaming. Madden was part of the EA Sports stable, a label that knows the value of the right endorsement. In 1999 the company's popular PGA golf series became Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and the fairway superman has been the face of golf games ever since. Indeed, the close tie between game and name may soon become a problem, as the digital Tiger performs better than his struggling real-life counterpart. Will the series revert to plain old PGA Tour when Tiger's star fades, or will EA find a new golfing hero to carry the torch?

  

  That's the gamble when signing a player at the peak of their game. Sometimes, a games company will sign an up and coming athlete in the hopes of backing a long term winner. That worked for Nintendo, when it paid a young Mike Tyson $50,000 to use his likeness in the NES Punch Out boxing game. Within months, Tyson was on his way to being the world heavyweight champ, and the retitled Mike Tyson's Punch Out benefited from his success in the USA.

  

  In the UK, meanwhile, Punch Out was ported to home computers with our very own Frank Bruno as the main character. Punch Out returned to Wii minus its star, while Tyson makes a surprise return to games this year in WWE '13, re-living the brief sting he spent using his name to boost the wrestling company's ratings.

  
  

  

  Often, a sport will bubble up to the top of the popular consciousness thanks to the eye-catching feats of a particular sports-person. In the late 1990s, it was Codemasters that perked up long-running, but fairly obscure rugby and cricket sims, by shrewdly putting hot new stars like Jonah Lomu and Brian Lara above the title. Likewise, it was only when legendary racer Colin McRae put his name to the publisher's rally games that they became the owners of a blockbuster franchise, and while the DiRT series has continued to thrive without him, it was his name that got the customers through the proverbial door to begin with. Such moves weren't restricted to cult UK sports either. In 1999, Japanese firm Namco quickly rebranded the latest entry in its fledgling tennis series as Anna Kournikova Smash Court Tennis in order to attract European gamers.

  
  

  

  It's perhaps notable that the area where celebrity endorsement paid off most spectacularly was in the rise of extreme sports, where off-beat personalities are more openly celebrated and the players are more likely to be gamers. Tony Hawk pioneered this with his skateboarding games, lending not just his credibility but also his insight and expertise to ensure maximum authenticity. Snowboarder Shaun White and BMX rider Dave Mirra quickly followed Hawk's example. Hawk's back this year, too, in an HD re-jigging of some of his classic titles for Xbox LIVE; he's gone from extreme rebel to a traditional figure, but we still love him!

  Whenever sport becomes national obsession, you can bet an enterprising games developer will seize the opportunity. Gold medal-winning swimming star Michael Phelps has got a head start on his Olympic peers this year, with his Push The Limit game for Kinect already on shelves. Will we see Bradley Wiggins grace the cover of next year's Tour De France game? Will Jess Ennis and Mo Farah be running alongside us in the next Kinect Sports? Whoever is next on the podium, it's a good bet that gamers will be the winners.

• DiRT 3 - Review

  
  

  

  Down and DiRT 3

  What better than driving fast? How about driving fast, mere inches away from pine trees and cliff edges, in a stripped down car that's been built for just that very purpose?

  That’s the special thrill that Codemasters has made its own in video games, ever since the Colin McRae games on the PSone. As well as being the latest in that long line of titles, DiRT 3 could also lay claim to being one of the very best.

  Mud, Sweat and Gears.

  There’s now no longer Colin McRae fronting the games - sadly the rallying legend passed away in 2007 - but there’s a new off-road star who’s very much at the centre of the game.

  Meet Ken Block, founder of DC Shoes and an all-round extreme sports supremo, who’s brought a little bit of skateboarding and BMX attitude into the often staid world of motorsport.

  Ken’s biggest contribution to DiRT 3 is the Gymkhana mode, a balletic pursuit that’s like taking to a skate park in a sports car. The aim here is to pull off a series of tricks in locations that range from the harbour of Monaco, to the somewhat less glamorous Battersea Power Station.

  Off to the Gymkhana

  It’s tricky but fun, and once the art of doughnutting around telegraph poles and pulling off hairy slides through concrete pipes has been mastered, it’s easy to spend hours trying to achieve that perfect run.

  

  Succeed and it’s possible to share all the glory with your friends - all it takes is one button press to upload a short replay to YouTube. While Gymkhana mode feels a little like a modern take on the early Tony Hawks games, it’s every bit as captivating, and just as likely to consume entire afternoons and evenings.

  But there’s more to DiRT 3 than just showing off, and what’s best about the game is how it's included more of the traditional rally that made the series famous.

  Rally Good

  This is all about driving from one point to another - fast. There’s a whole world of cars to do this in as well, from classics like the Mini Cooper of the 60s, through to contemporary World Rally Championship beasts and eventually on to our own favourite category - Trailblazer cars that offer 900 BHP of pure anger for you to tame.

  It’ll take all your concentration to avoid wrapping one of these around the scenery- when you inevitably do, Codemasters obliges with one of the best damage models in the business.

  Metal buckles and heels tear off with gut-churning conviction, and it’s entertaining just to watch what happens when a car meets a tree at over 100 mph. At least that’s our excuse for crashing so much.

  It’s not just the crashes that are pretty - DiRT 3 is a seriously good-looking game in everything it does. Whether it’s a sun-dappled forest in Finland, a snowy mountain in Norway or the rain-lashed countryside of Michigan, the scenery is both attractive and utterly immersive.

  

  Off Track or On Course

  In the unlikely event you get bored of all that point-to-point stuff, there’s even some more traditional competitive action in the form of rallycross. It’s a discipline that’s part track driving and part off-road driving, providing some real elbows-out racing. It's both fun to play on your own and absolutely hilarious when there are others involved online.

  Speaking of online DiRT 3 doesn’t stop at offering straight-up racing and time trials - there are even some off-the-wall party modes, including one unexpected spin on the increasingly popular zombie phenomenon. Called Outbreak, it’s a high-speed game of tag that’s all about infecting the other drivers, with games soon turning into very messy carnivals of destruction.

  It tops off a package that’s all-inclusive and - most importantly - an awful lot of fun. This isn’t a racer in the po-faced mould of Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport - it’s edgier, rawer and a lot more immediate in its thrills. The result is a game that - in spite of its name - is good clean fun.

  GAME's Verdict

  The Good:

  • Incredible graphics.
  • Varied driving.
  • Gymkhana.

  The Bad:

  • Not enough locations.
  • Almost too addictive.

  Published: 25/05/2011

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