About a year after gushing about Dirt Rally, I’m back playing the newer Dirt 4. As its title indicates this is a more mainstream title meant as the newest entry in the franchise and is therefore more accessible. However it does allow you to opt for either simulation or gamer levels of realism. Major improvements were made with the weather system, the damage model and a more complete career mode. In addition to rallying there are the rally cross and land rush events which will also be familiar to those who played the earlier titles of the series.
Naturally I picked simulation mode and turned almost all assists off or down. Even so, the difficulty level is markedly lower than Dirt Rally. Whereas even cleanly finishing a track at a reasonable pace was a challenge in of itself in the previous game, the tracks here are much more forgiving. It’s almost miraculous how the handbrake allows you to instantly change directions for example. The rally cross and land rush events were also very easy to complete, with the only challenge being in getting out in front early because otherwise the dust thrown up by the other cars cuts down on visibility a lot. I still played against the easiest AI opponents because I didn’t want to spend too much time on the game and I’m sometimes frustrated by the very wide variances in the AI’s posted times. On the whole though I think I did quite okay coming in first all the time, which I found to be impossible in Dirt Rally.
Thankfully the weather system and damage model helps make this title stand out. There are now heavy rains, snowstorms and thick fog. I especially loved the way that the weather can change during the course of race, and you can feel the difference in the traction when it’s raining heavily and when there’s just a light drizzle. You can even do such fun stuff as driving in the rain at night. Personally I don’t like the fog as it does nothing except cut viewing distance and I hate even more the random hazards like helicopters throwing up a dust cloud or drones hovering just in front of you on the road. These are quite rare but it always feels like such an arcadey affectation when they pop up.
I am however a big fan of the much improved damage model, even when it does nothing more than cause your car to make weird noises during a race. You can only repair your car before specific races during an event and even so your repair time is limited so you might not want to push a car too hard if it risks doing too much damage that will carry over to the next race. It is a pity that this mostly matters for events at the end of the career mode as the earlier races and events are too short for damage to matter that much. Since hiring engineers costs money and if you’re driving properly you shouldn’t be colliding into things. The later events and races however are so long that wear and tear alone becomes a factor even if you are accident-free and it gets hard to completely avoid mistakes if a race goes on for nearly 10 minutes. Remember that you can only change your team composition in between championships so better make sure that you have a full roster of engineers before starting a long championship.
Finally the career mode has you earning money from events and sponsorships in order to expand your team, buy cars and improve facilities at your home base. It’s fun I suppose but I don’t think it matters that much except that you get a feeling of achievement from collecting a big garage full of cars. I do like that the sponsors system gives you incentives to do things a little differently, like focusing on running a clean race or upping the difficulty level. On the other hand, you could just race for other teams instead of building your own. There’s also an obstacle course type event but I never like those.
My biggest disappointment is that there are so few rally locations, one fewer in fact than Dirt Rally. There are a lot of championships and events but since they all use the same locations, what’s the point? The game has a system that generates random tracks based on a toolbox of parts but you can actually recognize the same pieces being used over and over again, especially when they recur within a single long track. I feel that this system makes the tracks feel more generic. Combined with the more forgiving nature of the track design, the game is missing what gives each track so much character in the previous game.
Anyway I’d say this is still a great game with a ton of content. It’s great fun trying all of the different cars and marvel at how differently they handle even if it’s on the same tracks. I don’t really like the land rush events even I did complete them all for the cash winnings in career mode but rally cross is okay in my book. Other people might get more mileage out of the extra content. One day I might even learn to drive rear wheel drive cars enough to give the Historic Rally events a real go. I think I might need to buy a driving wheel before that’s possible however. Overall however I still like Dirt Rally a lot more than this one, so much so I might go back to it one day. This one, it’s been fun but I don’t think I’ll reinstall it once I’m done.
