Interviews

When's a racer not a racer? When it's a dirt racer! We caught up with Codemaster's Colin McRae DiRT 2 designer Ralph Foulton to find out exactly what that will mean for race fans this autumn...

Hi Ralph. Can you tell our customers who you are?

My name is Ralph Foulton, and I'm the Design Manager at Codemasters Racing Studio.

I'm going to start with a bit of a controversial statement. Some people say that if you've played one racing game, you've played them all. What do you say to that?

[Laughs] It's an interesting point of view – not one I subscribe to! Do they say that if you've played one shooter you've played them all?

I guess there's an obvious difference between a futuristic shooter like Halo and a war shooter like Call of Duty. But to the untrained eye driving games with real cars in them tend to appear quite similar...

What I think is great about DiRT 2, and what certainly distinguishes it from the other racing games coming out the autumn, is that it's an offroad racing game. That gives you a completely different sense of speed, control and craziness. It certainly gives you a lot more freedom than in a circuit or tarmac racer.

The other great thing about DiRT 2 is that it's a much cooler, much more relevant title than a lot of racing games. We've achieved that with partnering through the right people – we've got Ken Block who's a huge star in America and was on UK Top Gear not so long ago. We've got a brilliant soundtrack, with a lot of support from Christian Stevenson at Kerrang Radio, and all of that blends together to make a consistent, relevant piece of entertainment.

You're using the EGO Engine – could you maybe explain why that's a big deal?

It's our own technology we built from scratch, so we know it inside out. We've been improving on it ever since the first DiRT. The cool thing about starting a new project is that you know at the very worst it's going to be the quality of the last game – and our last game, Colin McRae DiRT, won a Bafta, so our quality bar is pretty high!

When we started DiRT 2 we asked "how much further can we push it?" Turns out, quite a lot! You'll see it in the graphics, lighting effects, the way we do water now – all of that is improved. Our physics are much more sophisticated now; you can see that in the handling and the way the cars perform on screen.

The cool thing for a punter is that they can look at what we did last time, read the reviews, see the awards, and feel assured it's going to be at least as good as that. The great news is that it's actually a lot better.

You mentioned the Bafta there...

I did, didn't I! [smug grin]

Haha. Can you tell us a bit of background about that award-winning first game?

Before DiRT we were making the next game in the Colin McRae Rally series – a series that had been going since the PSone. We were up to working on number six, and there was a general feeling that it had ceased to be relevant – something needed to change. Even Colin at the time had moved on from WRC (World Rally Championship) and was doing new, exciting things that caught our imagination.

That's what inspired us to make a break and create DiRT, which is a spiritual successor, but encompassed all these new things that Colin at the time was trying out; competing in the X-Games; competing in the Dakar Rally; pooling about in cars – that was his passion, and that was the genesis of the idea behind DiRT. Of course, we never foresaw that Colin would die in the manner he did, but the seed was already sewn.

What you see today is DiRT 2. Certainly it hasn't been informed in any way by his death, but more by what he did in the years before that. It's actually a celebration of his whole career.

You've mentioned how the DiRT brand is unique – but what about gameplay? How are gamers going to find it differs from a conventional tarmac racer?

What I love most about DiRT 2 is that you spend most of your time sliding. There's something about powersliding that runs right the way through the best racing games. Whether you're talking about Race Driver Grid or Mario Kart, that act of just putting a car sideways round a corner is just immensely satisfying.

We've spent a lot of time making sure that these cars slide in the correct manner – so that it's physically correct, but also just fun. Getting that back sliding out and the nose sliding into the corner – it's just a really cool sensation; one of those really cool gaming moments.

What's the best way to do it? I just played it, and found I just kept going into a spin!

Our physics are smart enough now to let you slide how you'd do it in real life. There are a number of different ways depending on what car you're in and what surface you're on.

I use what rally drivers call the Scandinavian Flick, which is flicking yourself in the wrong direction first, then transferring weight in the car to send you into a spin the right way around the corner. Of course, you can just yank the hand break, and there are ways of sliding just by letting of the power and then spinning your back wheels. There's no one way to do it; I think that just shows how sophisticated our physics are. If you do it how you'd do it in real life, it'll work in DiRT 2.

Ken Block has found that when he plays the game – in a racing suit with a wheel set up – it really feels like the real thing. I think that realism struck him most – he didn't expect it.

Does he play from the cockpit view?

We've got this really expensive seat called the D-box with pneumatics and everything – big plasma screen in front. In that, I think he drives from Bonnet Cam for maximum sense of speed. At home with a pad I think he plays from behind.

So that's history and handling – let's jump into talking about the main singleplayer mode, the Career. In the presentation you just gave there was a lot of jumping about from different countries to different race types – it's a bit hard to get a sense of continuity. Can you explain a bit how players will progress through it?

The backstory behind the player's participation is that he's a new, up and coming offroad star, joining the tour – a fictional series of race events held all over the world. Think X-Games meets Glastonbury. There's racing going on but also DJs, a crowd, a whole festival atmosphere. That's what we show in the menus. You're travelling the road in your RV (Recreational Vehicle) and you step out to see all of these people having fun, listening to music – we really wanted to capture that festival vibe.

The way you progress is by earning XP – but it's not as cold and calculated as that. We wanted to emphasise the personality of the characters. Some are fictional; some are real-life superstars like Travis Pastrana, Dave Mirra and Tanner Foust. You start off in Battersea, and the more races you win, the more they invite you to new races and the more they open up for you.

These are guys who did other X-Games events and then went into driving disciplines?

Oh yeah – Travis was the X-Games Motorcross champ, he was the first guy to do a backflip on a dirt bike. He mostly does rallies these days; in fact he helped popularise it in the US as an extreme sport. In this country it maybe has a staid reputation, but when you think about it it's an extreme sport – a car, hurtling round a dirt track at intense speeds.

And you get to face him in the career...

Yep, you meet these guys, get invited to other competitions and start to get more experience. It opens up organically – lots of choices; DiRT 2 is not a linear experience. Conveying that sense of touring the world and exploring is something we've done really well – with that festi atmosphere and the music running right the way through. It makes the game a really continuous, well thought-out experience.

Does that not stop it being as pick-up-and-play?

I don't think so – you can dip into it at any stage. We don't punish the player for the options they want to switch on and off or the difficulty they pick. Whatever's cool for you is cool for us. Easy setting your Gran could play. Hardcore mode is for extreme nutjobs. There should be a difficulty mode in DiRT 2 for everyone. And if something's proving to difficult on the track you can flashback and get out of it that way, or drop the difficulty and enjoy it that way.

Are there different Achievements and Trophies for different difficulty settings?

No, we don't do that. I hate that. Personally, I'm a gamer, but I'm not a hardcore gamer. I don't start a game and whack the difficulty all the way up. Most ultra hard difficulty levels I'm just not good enough for – it's just not fun, y'know? When I see 200 points purely allocated for someone playing on like, Ninja Difficulty, I just think "that's 200 points I'm never going to get". So we try to make sure that you have as much chance of getting the achievements however good you are. It's all about what you do and how you do it, rather than what difficulty you do it on.

You talked a bit about the Flashback feature – can you explain a bit more about what that is?

Sure! Flashback was a feature we first introduced in Grid, whereby at any point in the race you can hit a button and it'll allow you to rewind time, and it will flash you back, like, start you again from where you found it difficult – so if you've screwed up a corner you can do it over. It went down really well in Grid because it took a lot of punishment out of the racing genre. I think those people from your first question will think racing games are SO punishing – even more so than a shooter game like Operation Flashpoint. One mistake and that's your race over.

Flashback made that not the case, so it was a total no-brainer to include it. Without it, DiRT might suffer from the same problems. With it, suddenly it's a much more engaging, forgiving drive.

What other modes are there in DiRT 2?

As well as Career we've a Free Race mode where you can set up any race on any track; we've a Time Trial mode, which is cool for racing against ghost of other people's fastest times. You can download the world record ghost, your friends ghosts...

We're really keen on you comparing yourself to your friends. There a constant set of updates in DiRT 2 within the front-end about "your mate's better than you" and you'll say "oh, is he now?" There's no more powerful motivator than beating your mate. On any of the stats pages you can see who's best out of your Friends List, hopefully motivating you to get better at the game.

And of course you can play against them in online multiplayer. Only eight players though. How come?

‘Only' eight, yes. Obviously the prevailing logic is "more is better". Technically it's not a problem for us getting more – we could chuck around up to twenty on a track. But from playtesting, what we found with DiRT 2 is that when you've got more than eight players it gets a bit bashy; a bit crowded; the fun diminishes a bit. And fun is what it's all about.

We decided that eight was the sweet spot. With an eight player race, there's enough to feel competitive, but not enough to feel restrictive. And locking it at that we've been able to spend a little more on making it look amazing. Obviously PRs like to be able to slogan higher and higher numbers, but in this case we think less is more.

About it being "bashy"... would you be tempted to release a Destruction Derby style Battle Royale mode via DLC?

Not a bad idea at all! There's one in Grid and it proved by far and away the most popular mode. Even if you go online on Grid now, there's far more people playing that than anything else. So it's definitely something we'll consider.

Any other DLC planned?

We do have some, but I don't think I'm able to talk about that at the moment. We'll make an official announcement.

Obviously with the recession, customers are going to be very selective about their Christmas buying choices. How long can they expect DiRT 2 to last?

The singleplayer Career, you're talking easily 15-20 hours. There's a LOT of content – over a hundred events. You're talking a LOT of playtime to close the game out.

But for me the longevity is in the online. The fact that we're allowing you to choose any car, any track… it makes DiRT 2 almost limitless. And I think that's where a lot of the fun is – and then you've got future DLC on top.

I'd also stress that you don't need to wait ‘til Christmas – they can buy Colin McRae DiRT 2 from 11th September!

Cheers Ralph.

Interview by: Mark 'In A Spin' Scott
Interview Published: 14.08.09