TBGixxer
07-09-2007, 10:18 PM
I really needed a more realistic racer for the 360. Burnout is fun but was getting old. I rented Forza 2 (mostly b/c of all the hype it got on this site). Forza was great but I didn't want to make a purchase until I tried DiRT. I popped in the demo and never went back to Forza. I'll apologize in advance if there are a lot of "DiRT vs Forza" comments in here but I've played them both this week. Here's how it breaks down...
Graphics:
Great. The cars look awesome. Less "jaggies" than in Forza. The damage modeling is more accurate. Cars progressively get DiRTier;) throughout the race. The scenery looks great! The crowd cheers you on and reacts if you drive at them, interesting little feature.
Sound:
Great. You can hear the crowd cheering and the engines revving. The vehicles make different noises (pings, dings, etc) as they are damaged. 5.1 surround sounds great.
Replay value:
Medium/high. The tracks really require that you learn the obstacles in order to get an excellent time. You must master the series of turns that each obstacle offers. Play on Live adds to the replay value as always. The career mode is very lengthy and offers 46 different vehicles. Besides the career mode there are 3 other tournaments you can enter. It'll take a while before you complete the single player... then move onto Live.
Other notes:
The Co-driver feature in DiRT is pretty cool. He warns you of upcoming obstacles (turns, jumps, etc) and gives you recommended gears for each turn ("left turn, 6"). It's an interesting skill to learn that really helps you improve your time. This replaces the suggested brake line used in Forza. The vehicle customizations are very limited in DiRT. You can only purchase pre-made paint jobs. You can't do your own paint and such like in Forza nor can you but exhausts, wheels, etc. You get what you get. The fun factor of the racing itself out weighs this down fall though. DiRT offers no split screen racing like Forza does, either. It does off 2-100 player races on Live (the larger races are more like time trials where you compete to beat the other 99 players race times. You don't see the other people racing). DiRT does offer 6 different race types that all have different cars and a different feel to them. There are off road, track, combination, uphill climb, and a couple others.
I give DiRT a 9/10 (would have given Forza an 8/10 so I pretty much agree with the critics!).
Graphics:
Great. The cars look awesome. Less "jaggies" than in Forza. The damage modeling is more accurate. Cars progressively get DiRTier;) throughout the race. The scenery looks great! The crowd cheers you on and reacts if you drive at them, interesting little feature.
Sound:
Great. You can hear the crowd cheering and the engines revving. The vehicles make different noises (pings, dings, etc) as they are damaged. 5.1 surround sounds great.
Replay value:
Medium/high. The tracks really require that you learn the obstacles in order to get an excellent time. You must master the series of turns that each obstacle offers. Play on Live adds to the replay value as always. The career mode is very lengthy and offers 46 different vehicles. Besides the career mode there are 3 other tournaments you can enter. It'll take a while before you complete the single player... then move onto Live.
Other notes:
The Co-driver feature in DiRT is pretty cool. He warns you of upcoming obstacles (turns, jumps, etc) and gives you recommended gears for each turn ("left turn, 6"). It's an interesting skill to learn that really helps you improve your time. This replaces the suggested brake line used in Forza. The vehicle customizations are very limited in DiRT. You can only purchase pre-made paint jobs. You can't do your own paint and such like in Forza nor can you but exhausts, wheels, etc. You get what you get. The fun factor of the racing itself out weighs this down fall though. DiRT offers no split screen racing like Forza does, either. It does off 2-100 player races on Live (the larger races are more like time trials where you compete to beat the other 99 players race times. You don't see the other people racing). DiRT does offer 6 different race types that all have different cars and a different feel to them. There are off road, track, combination, uphill climb, and a couple others.
I give DiRT a 9/10 (would have given Forza an 8/10 so I pretty much agree with the critics!).