➤ Dirt 5, the review: the crazy races of Codemasters are back 🎮

If you have played Dirt Rally and have not followed this new title in the past months, the expectations towards this latest effort by Codemasters could lead you to think of a realistic video game. Well, know that there is nothing further from the simulation here and the Dirt 5 review will explain in detail why.

A naked and raw arcade, dirty with mud from head to muffler, rough, wet, colorful and over the top like few driving games in today's and past market. The light-hearted hours spent driving the most disparate car models can make us confidently say that this is the rally title that almost all of us have been waiting to play for quite a while.

Career

Dirt 5, the review: the crazy races of Codemasters are back

The main mode of Dirt 5, the career, does not have much to tell as far as history or lore is concerned, on the other hand how deep could a narrative be that revolves around the repetition of challenges, laps, drifts and ramming? Trust little, very little. But be aware that the developers have found an interesting trick (not that it's the first time in a sports game, anyway) to tell the events behind our climb to success.

A kind of podcast-comedy who with his jokes between presenter and runners will be able to make you escape more than a few smiles. The races take place in the classic way, going to unlock on a tree of connections as the previous ones are completed up to a kind of final challenge, obtainable only after having achieved certain objectives.

The competitions are divided into categories, five to be precise: Stampede, Rally Rush e Ultra cross which are more or less the same type, ie a 3 or 5 lap race; Ice breaker instead it is a challenge like those mentioned but takes place on a totally frozen track; Land Rush it is simply a long descent between curves and overtaking, with no laps to repeat; Sprint it will make you spin like tops on a ring, in 5-lap races; in the end Gymkhana will put you inside some arenas with various obstacles and tests, asking you to perform this or that other trick.

Before even starting to compete, however, you will have the opportunity to choose one (to become a sponsor) which, by completing certain objectives, will guarantee you the money and points necessary to unlock liveries and textures for your cars, or some parts to customize your character card. This is a sort of "business card" that can be customized through backgrounds, effects, stickers, lanyards and various nicknames. Each sponsor will guarantee you different customizations, so as to make it essential to change it often or in any case to achieve a certain goal.

At the end of each race they will be distributed to you money, career points, achievement points and collectibles. You will need the money to buy a little bit of everything inside Dirt 5, from cars to stickers, from cards to liveries. That's right, the game doesn't skimp on money and you won't have any particular difficulty in buying your favorite car or the style of card you prefer. The career points then, are the ones that will raise the overall level, regardless of the chosen sponsor. This rank will also allow you to unlock certain player card customizations. The sponsor level, on the other hand, is linked, as you can imagine, to the selected brand. Each of them has 15 steps, during which it will allow you to unlock customizations for the player card and particular liveries but not only. At the end of each race, if you reach the set objectives, you will have a cash bonus given by the sponsor of the case.

As we mentioned earlier, to advance in your career you will have to face some sort of end of chapter challenges, five to be exact. To gain access, however, you will need to have achieved specific objectives, accumulating a certain amount of goal medals. These can be obtained by achieving certain actions during the races, such as performing a defined number of drifts or ramming, or having spent a few seconds in the air or even having crossed the finish line in reverse. Once you have reached the necessary medals, you will be able to face the level challenge and, if you reach at least the first three, you can move on to the following events.

On the side of the main career then there are some 1vs1 challenges unlockable upon reaching certain objectives (which you cannot know, which bothered us not a little) that will allow you to face the strongest drivers in the game. There longevity finally it is not really a strong point of this mode: you can finish everything in about 5-6 hours, obviously leaving out the completism, which can double the hours of play.

Arcade

Dirt 5's arcade mode is what everyone expects but lately few are able to offer. It is divided into two categories which on paper are practically identical, were it not for the type of race, that is timed challenge and single race. In the first you can decide the duration of the competition, while in the second the laps: simpler than that is impossible. The tracks to choose from are all those of the career mode, being able to also set the time and weather conditions.

Playgrounds

Here we are at the section that is the real beating heart of the title. As its name suggests, Playgrounds it's a kind of mode editor, totally customizable. At the beginning the game asks us to choose which type of attraction we intend to create between Gate Crasher, Gymkana e Smash Attack.

The first is an event designed to cross the checkpoints we have created in the shortest possible time. We have already talked about the Gymkana, while in the Smash Attack we will have to destroy all the objectives to reach the established score in the shortest possible time. Basically, however, apart from the different incipit, the editor always remains the same: once inside we will have to decide the size of the arena first, and then find ourselves in front of a very good variety of obstacles, arrows, platforms and objects that can be placed on it.

All this, once you have mastered the simple editor, is definitely exciting and exhilarating, especially in the company of a friend "rally architect" with whom to share ideas to create the definitive track. Speaking of sharing, once you are satisfied with your extraordinary track, you can save it and upload it to the game server to be able to try it also for the rest of the community. As well as, of course, you can test the tracks created by other users.

Technique and gameplay

Once on the track it is impossible not to fall in love with the feeling returned by the arcade driving model revised and corrected by Codemasters for Dirt 5. Every single corner, every single extra kilo, every horse and every puddle will make the game experience so varied, fun and different that you want to try all the tracks with every car to get the chance to test its features and find the most suitable one.

There are a total of 12 categories of cars to choose from, with cars belonging to the biggest car brands, from Ford, to Aston Martin, passing through Fiat and Peugeot. You will have the classic rally cars, but also the super light ones, the trucks, the heavy pick ups and so on and so forth. All the additional machines have i perfectly visible damage but that, as a good arcade, will not affect the gameplay. The accelerator is positioned on the right backbone while the brake on the left one, with the left analogue you can steer the car and with the right one you can look around. Our test was for the vast majority in automatic mode and we have always had a good time, on all the tracks, but a manual gearbox is also available for those wishing to experience the thrill of it. L'artificial intelligence it does its job, always putting in difficulty and cutting off the road, trying in every way not to let us win: among other things we have noticed that even among them, the cars controlled by the CPU push each other off the road.
Technical and artistic side Dirt 5 has pleasantly impressed us. Some tracks and above all certain side effects have left us speechless many times, among other things occasionally distracting us from the actual race. Codemasters did a truly applauding job, with particles, light reflections on cars, water and ice, sudden snowstorms that limit the view, nighttime fireworks, colored lasers, smoke bombs, variable weather and a myriad of other details. There are tracks that make you shiver by the amount of detail and work behind them, such as the Chinese bamboo forest or the Italian marble quarry. The change the time of day, then, it gives that hint of realism that makes everything even more spectacular. The sensation of speed is also very well returned with the usual well-balanced side blur effect and used only when it really feels the need. Frame rate anchored without the slightest jump and absolutely splendid soundtrack, with punk rock pieces that "rock", are the icing on the cake of all this excellent production.

The online mode remains out of our test, not available at the time of the test and on which we will return at a later time, with the servers on.

Comment

Tested version PlayStation 4 Digital Delivery Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store Price 69.90 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.8

Readers (42)

8.1

Your vote

Dirt 5 is a very successful synthesis of arcade rally games. Fun, light-hearted, colorful and fast, it will remain in the hearts of all gamers for a very long time. We are sure that Codemasters has set the standard for upcoming productions of this type, both in terms of entertainment and in terms of graphics. We can only recommend it to everyone.