Over the last few years Codemasters has consistently set new standards for excitement and playability in the racing genre. DiRT 3 continues Codies’ run of excellent racing games, with tweaked handling, new weather conditions, night driving and the enthralling new Gymkhana mode. DiRT 2′s “extreme” take on off-road racing has been pushed to one side, resulting in an experience which is more focused on rally, albeit with some hooning thrown in for good measure.

DiRT 3 allows you to quickly upload 30 second gameplay clips to YouTube

DiRT 3 is easy to jump into for players of all abilities thanks to some new driving assists and a great selection of vehicles including rally cars, trucks and buggies. Rally fans will want to switch the assists off, but if you’re new to the sport you will find that the dynamic racing line in particular is a very useful tool to ease you into the new and improved handling model. Codemasters say that they have tweaked the cars’ centre of gravity compared to DiRT 2 and if you played that game you will notice the differences immediately. It is now possible to feel the weight shift around the car, allowing for prolific use of advanced driving techniques such as the Scandinavian flick. With the assists off the game is a big challenge that seasoned DiRT players are sure to appreciate.

Nowhere is the new handling more noticeable than in DiRT 3′s most impressive new mode, Gymkhana. Made famous by American rally driver Ken Block, this discipline tasks you with performing insane drifts and spins for points, based on the speed at which you perform a trick and how close you get to obstacles. The Gymkhana courses are open spaces with carefully laid out obstacles, such as poles to donut around, jump ramps and spaces to spin the car at high speed. Figuring out the perfect route between obstacles is tremendous fun and you quickly learn to chain drifts, spins and jumps together for maximum excitement. You will often finish a Gymkhana event only to immediately start it over in search of the game’s incredibly difficult platinum medals, which are awarded for immense speed and precision in this mode. It is a real thrill to achieve one of these badges of Gymkhana honour. You are further rewarded for your efforts in this mode with access to the DC Shoes Compound, a massive open playground set at London’s Battersea Power Station. Here you can complete 80 extra missions, such as performing a donut around a specific obstacle, or discovering the many hidden packages. The missions encourage you to explore the Compound fully and they also get much more difficult as you progress through them.

Just hooning about

As well as all of this “hooniganism” Codemasters promised that DiRT 3 will provide traditional off-road fans with more rally content than either DiRT 1 or 2. For the most part Codies manage to deliver on this promise. Rally events take place on tarmac, gravel, mud and snow and there are very noticeable grip differences between the surfaces,especially when driving on a stage which has transitions between the different types. There is a mind-boggling choice of rally cars as well, from 1960s legends, to monstrous Group B cars and a handful of modern day WorldRally Championship machines. Unfortunately, for the first two thirds of the single player DiRT Tour the rally stages are incredibly short and rarely come close to reaching two minutes long. However, in the latter stages of the game you unlock World Tour contests for each of the separate disciplines and the rally World Tour includes several much longer stages which take closer to 4 minutes to complete. The only thing that is still missing from the rally experience is service areas between stages, which would allow you to choose which areas of the car to repair before the next race. Instead of this feature, which was included in the original DiRT, you simply start each new stage with the car already in pristine condition.

The rest of the single player DiRT Tour is made up of events which will be familiar to fans of the series. Trailblazer makes a welcome return and is now raced with bespoke hill climb cars, instead of just putting big wings onto the standard rally cars. There is also some enjoyable circuit racing in Rallycross and with trucks and buggies in Land Rush,though Codemasters perhaps ought to have dropped the Land Rush events in favour of more Rally stages. Some of the circuit racing becomes a little repetitive as well due to a lack of variation in the track layouts. In addition to trying to win races during the Tour you are also given extra objectives by the team, such as reaching a certain top speed, in order to earn bonus experience towards your driver level, allowing you to unlock more liveries and events.

The cockpit view is as intense as ever

DiRT 3 makes great use of innovative features found in other Codemasters racing titles. Most notably, it borrows the weather mechanics which were introduced in F1 2010 and builds on them in a way which works brilliantly in off-road racing. Rain creates an extra layer of challenge by greatly reducing your visibility of the road ahead. Snow stages appear for the first time in a DiRT game too and visibility is even more difficult here. During a circuit race in blizzard conditions with other cars kicking snow powder into the air it becomes almost impossible to see. There are night races as well, which challenge you to keep your foot to the floor with only the glow from your headlights to guide the way.

Codemasters have also tweaked the graphics for DiRT 3, resulting in what is easily the best looking game in the series. The detailed car models rival Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo and the lighting engine has been dramatically improved, making for a much more realistic look instead of the under-saturated skies of DiRT 1 and2. Attention to detail is also much better, with fans running across the road in rally stages and an even more spectacular damage model, which continues to thrill right until you press the flashback button to get back on track.In the PC version the graphics are noticeably better, with anti-aliasing, a smoother frame rate and higher resolution textures – so long as your system is powerful enough. The interactive race paddock menus have been replaced with a more traditional though wonderfully stylised list system, which makes getting into races and navigating options a more seamless experience. The audio is superb too, with probably the best engine sounds of any racing game and some great creaks and groans in your car’s chassis. Even the ambient sounds of shocked crowds during gymkhana events have received great attention.

Night racing is a huge challenge

Take DiRT 3 online and you will be able to race in any of the single-player game types in ranked or unranked matches. Ranked games award you with experience which counts towards your level of fame online. You can also earn bonuses which will contribute experience to your single-player game. In addition to the serious business of online racing, you can take part in Party games in the DC Compound. These include smashing cardboard robots for points, a capture the flag game and even a zombie mode where one car starts the round “infected” and car crash into others to spread the disease. These modes offer a fun break from the more traditional action and are particularly fun with friends. There is also local split-screen multiplayer for two players and system link play.

Codemasters’ DiRT 3 is easily the best game in this fantastic series. It provides a huge amount of content for rally fans and combines it with the new Gymkhana mode and stunning presentation to create one of the most exciting racing games for the Xbox 360.

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