My FOV: DiRT Showdown
("My FOV" is the name of a new series of reviews aimed at giving you my opinion of new releases in a familiar review format, but with a unique look at widescreen and multi-monitor related goodness you won't find anywhere else. If you would like a "My FOV" of your game, email dom[at]wsgf.org)
As is common now, DiRT returns like all popular IPs on a yearly basis to try and suck the digital 1s and 0s out of your bank account before you can say "Isn't this basically the same game I've already bought?". Colour me pleasantly surprised then when news surfaced of a change in direction for the series. Since the Colin McRae name was dropped from the box, the nature of the game began to swerve more in the direction of arcade with every outing, and now a full split of the series seems to have taken place, with DiRT: Showdown being released for the quick, instant gratification, loud noises and flashing lights the kids love these days, and the as yet unannounced classic rally game we used to know sating the oldies at some point in the unknown future.
DiRT: Showdown embraces and rewards what is often avoided and punished in most other racing games: crashing and destruction. A very generous helping of game modes are served up including standard races with incentives for crashing, figure of 8 races with a large possibility of crashing, full on destruction derby where you destroy the other cars in an arena by crashing, sumo type events where you knock other cars off the platform by crashing into them, and survival races where you try to avoid being crashed into for as long as possible. If you look closely, you can just about see the common theme. However, while the scrap industry's struggling to find time to do anything but swim in their 6th swimming pool filled with million dollar bills, you can break up the action by sliding your way across gymkhana events and try your best to avoid crashing. Variation! Your thirst for destruction will take you all around the world as well, with events in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Nevada, Michigan, Colorado, Battersea, Miami, San Fransisco, and Yokohama. Think of the air miles! You'll see some familiar tracks too, with a decent chunk of them returning from previous DiRT games but with a healthy sprinkling of ramps and piles of tyres.
You're going to have a tour-id time winning all these
In most race events, all your crashing will net you boost that you can use to get the edge on the competition, although your rivals also have the same ability so you're not at an advantage. You start with a full tank and then the severity and point of impact of your collisions determine how much more you're supplied with, meaning races become a balancing act between keeping good speed by avoiding impacts and careering into the side of a stranded vehicle to top up your tank. A slow recharge is also granted to you so if you drive like a delicate little flower you'll still be rewarded with a patronising amount of boost to play with, whilst the game taunts you with the jackpot amounts by having opponents seductively flash you their unprotected sides. Boosting induces a shaky cam, FOV expanding assault on your eyes, but you hardly feel like you're moving much faster. Coupled with the lack of a speedometer, it makes it difficult to tell what gains you're really making and I rarely felt I was catching up with those in front as quickly as I'd have expected.
Raising its ugly head once more - and what I think is the core of the problem - is catch up logic, or rubberbanding. Firstly, I should state I initially began playing at the Advanced difficulty setting, which is the hardest available, with Intermediate sitting in the middle, and Casual at the easiest end of the scale. This was a huge mistake. Please don't do it. The catchup logic is some of the most brutal I've ever experienced. All cars 30ft beyond you take an arrow to the differential (I'm so sorry), and those lagging behind are driven by The Stig's suicidal cousin until they catch up, meaning you can never break away from the pack. The result is an angry school of metallic fish, with each participant seemingly afraid to leave the safety of warm nitro and thundering engines. OK, so it's a familiar system, designed to keep the race exciting for the entire length, but it only succeeds in creating artificial fairness which ends up feeling exactly the opposite. Driving well for the entire race feels pointless as you look in the rear view mirror after a lap of apex perfect cornering and well timed boosting only to find the entire pack still right on your heels. It's de-motivating and frustrating in equal amounts, immediately erasing any sense of achievement. A single spin can see you go from first to last before you've even fully rotated. Similarly, your mistakes aren't punished for the majority of the race as you know you can catch right back up. You can decide whether you like this system or not, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Frank had only gone out to pick up some milk
Change to Intermediate difficulty and the catchup system throws up its hands, declares "I no longer give a fuck!", and skips out the room. Arguably it goes too far the other way, with races significantly easier to win, but it makes the whole experience immensely more pleasurable and reinstates fairness to every race. I felt instantly more relaxed and could really enjoy every crash and close shave. Additionally, it allows the AI to perform unhindered and you soon realise the game doesn't need to employ any fancy tricks to make your opponents seem competitive as they're a superb triumph Codemasters should feel proud of. They tussle for position, overshot turns and spin out, boost at all the right times, and have evidently undertaken years of police training to completely master the PIT manoeuvre. They're the closest to human opponents I've played with in a racing game. The only thing missing is last place driving backwards round the track and hurling obscenities at you through a muffled microphone.
Cars can be upgraded with the cash you earn from podiums. Each has its strengths and strengths. Seriously, put money into strength.
Breaking away from the races, the pure destruction events hold the real appeal in DiRT: Showdown. Eight cars, simultaneously gliding into the arena from raised platforms amongst a crescendo of pyrotechnics and burning exhausts, hurtle towards each other with a flagrant disregard for common sense and self-preservation. The resulting carnage is as fun as you remember it from the wonderful Destruction Derby games of yesteryear by the then excellent Reflections. Points are awarded for every impact depending on power and location, with the big numbers won for T-Bones and getting the finishing hit on an opponent. Bonus points are awarded for wrecking the leader and double points are offered in the closing 30 seconds of a round creating zero to hero moments as last ditch efforts can net you a generous amount of points. In the knock-out mode (that I will refer to always as "sumo" mode) everyone starts on a raised platform and your goal is obvious. Points are no longer dished out for impacts - only boost is collected - instead you're awarded for every opponent you successfully ram off the platform. Matches quickly become frantic escapes from dangling precariously off the edge, to perfectly timed boosts towards a vulnerable car dissolving into oh my god I'm going to miss and drive straight off the edge panic. Far and away my favourite mode: pure, condensed fun. Computer controlled opponents seem to slightly favour targeting you over everyone else (massively in Advanced difficulty) and once again the AI shines in their ability to predict your movements and plot a path to intercept you at just the right moment. When you're finally wrecked and your car is now your crumpled metal coffin, you respawn back on the drive-in ramps ready to re-enter again, the only punishment being the points your opponent received for besting you and the precious time wasted to get back into the action. My only criticism of the destruction events would be the limitation of your reverse speed, making the 'reverse everywhere like a fucking lunatic' tactic I once loved so much upsettingly unfeasible.
The competition to be the first to ride in the balloon was intense
An interesting and rather baffling addition is Gymkhana, a sport where riders compete in equestrian races and timed games to-....what? What do you mean there's another definition for gymkhana? Oh, how disappointing. So Gymkhana returns suitably in cars, with events dotted in between the carnage of the main tour, as well as its own challenge based game mode called 'Joyride'. Events in the tour consist of head-to-head matchups with Ken Block, the man responsible for more friction burns than a whole generation of teenagers, as well as colour coded block smashing circuits to test your ability to follow instructions. The placement of these events feel just right, a welcome interlude to recharge before diving back in for some more mayhem. The Joyride mode is the same as DiRT 3's offering, allowing you to complete a veritable smorgasbord of challenges such as "double donut the scaffolding" and "slalom the lampposts", while hunting for a number of hidden packages kept out of sight or in hard to reach areas. Handling for cars in this event class has been refined, with donuts easier to keep consistent for multiple rotations and drifts easier to keep under control. Again it fits with the full arcade makeover, but I find it holds your hand too much, and I somewhat pine for the more technically challenging drift controls implemented back in GRID. Handling all round is a lot more forgiving, with cars easy to recover from skids and simple to float round corners. The left trigger of your controller will collect dust too, as there's no reason for anything but a brief tap of the handbrake to conquer even the tightest corners. Not entirely my cup of tea, but it suits the game as there's no lap times to worry about or racing lines to adhere strictly to.
More videogame violence. When will it end?
Visually, this is the usual pixel caressing high quality of the Ego engine we expect now from Codemasters. Whether the abundance of bloom, overly shiny surfaces and orange colour pallet gets you going or not I'll leave up to you, but the definition and performance awarded by the engine is consistently impressive. The swanky 3D menu system returns - I enjoy navigating through its slick transitions as they're quick enough to be browsed through hurriedly rather than excruciatingly waiting for the animations to finish (I'm looking at you, pre-patch Hard Reset) - and car models rotate on the loading screens with the usual zooming controls. Every inch of the screen is suspended in a permanent state of celebration, with never ending fireworks and lasers, and a bustling audience disregarding the 'No flash photography please' signs in the stadiums, while your dope narrator announces how you're consistently 'killing it!'. Yes, Codemaster's answer to EA's DJ Atomika returns, proudly hollering the nickname you selected in character creation when you sign in, but still manages to be slightly less annoying than his over-acted rival. But unlike in previous DiRT games, this aesthetic fits with the vibe of the game, complementing the arcade nature rather than being a cringe inducing juxtaposition to professional rallying.
An additional option has found its way into the graphics customisation menu, tagged "Advanced Lighting", which more than halved my frame rates when enabled. Its purpose is to allow all sources of light to become truly dynamic, such as the headlights reflecting off other vehicles and the shadows cast resultantly. However, because of the performance hit associated with it, I can't vouch for the improvement it offers as I left it turned off. Widescreen support is flawless as expected, but at the moment multi-monitor resolutions are deeply flawed. The FOV is being incorrectly calculated at extreme resolutions, resulting in massive amounts of vert- (if you're new here and unaware of our terminology, check the FAQ!). This creates an incredibly constricting, claustrophobic feel to races and completely erases any sense of speed to the point where your momentum is unclear and subsequently distances are difficult to judge. Running the game in windowed mode fixes the problem, with the correct FOV displayed, but the obvious performance hit that brings might make it unplayable depending on your hardware (also the HUD no longer centers). If you would be purchasing it solely for the Surround/Eyefinity experience, I would suggest you hold off until a fix is found. I played the majority of the game windowed and took the performance hit, as when displayed properly it looks fantastic, and the immersion in racing games afforded by a multi-monitor setup is not to be missed, but considering all previous DiRT games have had great multi-monitor support, this is bitterly disappointing. Especially when the extra awareness granted by super-wide resolutions is genuinely useful for avoiding incoming attacks and plotting the course to your next victim.
The latest benefit reform had its critics, but it certainly changed the look of council estates
Longevity is earned by a healthy amount of multiplayer modes, as nearly all the single player events return for more vehicular violence with your peers. Additional modes make an appearance too: there's a capture the flag event where you're tasked with thieving a flag from a random location and depositing it at a choice of points around the map while your opponents try and smash into you to take the flag for themselves. Another is a similar idea, but you've simply got to hold onto the flag as long as possible, trying desperately to avoid being torn apart by the incoming assault from your enemies. The matchmaking generally works well from my experience with it, and you rarely get any disconnects, but the actual races tend to suffer from a slight amount of lag. Everything appears quite solid - cars don't flick back and forth across the screen like in some games with poor connections - but the collision detection can be a bit off. The result of your impacts vary wildly from gently tickling your prey's hub caps, to launching them 20ft across the track. This slight schizophrenia makes destruction events occasionally frustrating, as you line up a perfect strike only to receive no reward for it. Generally this would only happen a couple of times a race so can be considered a small blemish, but it's worth mentioning. Finish well in your multiplayer exploits and you're rewarded with fans (XP) to help you level up. Gaining levels unlocks rewards like extra liveries and packs of horns to enhance your beep beep. Overall the multiplayer component is an extremely competent addition to the mayhem and holds enough variation to seduce you into that "just one more go" mindset.
Being a fan of the original Colin McRae series and even staying loyal of the previous DiRT games, I was extremely cynical of the direction Showdown was taking, yet I find myself leaving with mostly glowing praise. Ignore the name: this isn't a DiRT game like you know, it's a separate entity, complete and self-supporting, strong enough to survive on its own merits without leeching off an already popular brand. The price is reasonable (it's been as low as £15 in places in the UK), there's no GFWL (there are real, salty, joy filled tears running down my face), and the usual supplement of, now Steam, achievements to insist you're not wasting your life. Depending on how sadistic you feel, there's further longevity to be had in finishing it on Advanced difficulty, and the various multiplayer offerings will always give you real people to smash into a thousand pieces after a particularly tiresome day. If the multi-monitor support was working as it should be, I'd highly recommend it for instant, dumb, arcade action that you can't get anywhere else right now. As it stands, and this being the WSGF, I have to suggest you sit fidgeting in your seat for a little while longer until your peripheral vision can be properly filled with scrap metal projectiles and the glee of imminent raw, juicy T-bones.
DiRT: Showdown is out now in Europe and North America.
