Dirt 2 (Xbox 360)

Hey Tom, this game is great!
9/8/2009 7:31 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 2

You've heard your name a million times. You mother used it when you were a baby. Kids on the playground used it. Your first love used it. Your coworkers use it. Your boss uses it. You've heard it in anger and disgust and delight. It has been shot through with subtext and significance. So you know when you tell a salesman your name and he uses it a few times too many? You know how it has none of those qualities? You know how it acquires a grating insincerity?

Welcome to Dirt 2, in which you choose your name from a long list as soon as you start playing. Then, the long hours spent by celebrity rally racers in the voiceover studio come into play. Hey Tom, that last race was a tough one. Hey Tom, you've unlocked some awesome new liveries. Hey Tom, you're in first place. Hey Tom, give me some space over here. Hey Tom, you're pretty far back there. Hey Tom, you've unlocked China. Hey Tom, you're great. Hey Tom, I'm your buddy. Hey Tom, you remember when we first met, 50 races ago? Hey Tom, that was awesome. Hey Tom, you're a legend. Hey Tom, you're the top. Hey Tom, you're a Bendel bonnet. Hey Tom, hey Tom, hey Tom, hey Tom. It's like a thousand Navis from a thousand Zelda games reminding me something a thousand times.

By the way, here's my favorite. "Hey, Tom. I'm always surprised by Morocco. It's such a cool country." Why would Travis or Ken or Tanner or whichever X-Games celebrity recorded that line be surprised by Morocco? Has anyone ever not thought it was a cool country? You can't get any better PR than the movie "Casablanca."

Scrubbing away the Dirt

I probably shouldn't gripe so much about Dirt 2's annoying presentation. Codemasters just wants to sell more copies. You can't really blame it. After years of making dignified racing games and seeing its sales dwarfed by whatever game is pandering to some car-culture demographic, Codemasters has decided to EA-ify its front end. Dirt's clean interface has been scrapped in favor of X-Games event porn. Instead of moving through menus, you move around your trailer. You go outside with the crowd milling about and the location-specific skybox looming in the background behind the banners. Everything is 3-D. Even the piece of paper detailing the current online tournament is a 3-D object you can view from different angles by fussing with the analog stick. Your beautiful car, shoved off to one side, is all but lost in the visual noise. Licensed music from B-list alt-rock bands blares in the background. Listen closely for a precious few B-side tracks from A-list alt-rock bands. A low-rent DJ Atomica does schtick between songs. "I'm pitching a tent, that song was so good," he declares. And Travis and Katie and Tanner talk to you constantly. They are little celebrity ghosts murmuring in your ear, or maybe toadies in your entourage. Hey Tom, hey Tom, hey Tom. Their chatter during the races approximates the experience of an online race over Xbox Live. So, Katie, where you from?

You get constant rewards, many of them meaningless, all of them slamming into the game with the force of an orbital drop. Money? Bah. Liveries? Please. Doo-dads to dangle from the rearview mirror? You'll never play from the cockpit view, so why bother? Your levels thud onto the screen, rattling the game world with their impact. 18! 19! 20! 21! It's all so gratuitously EA and hip and edgy and Gen-X-Games. Will anyone notice the laptop in your trailer, right behind the big map where you pick your next race? The original Dirt interface is running on the laptop, clean and smooth and elegant, without an ounce of fat, and completely out of reach.

When the rubber leaves the road

But the ultimate beauty of Dirt 2 is that all this falls away as soon as a race starts (yes, you can turn off the driver chatter). And that's what you're here for. The racing. If Codemasters has to EA-ify the presentation to sell copies, it can have at it so long as it doesn't mess with the racing. And it doesn't. It's as good as it was in Dirt. Better, given the graphics engine, the wonderful courses and some of the new race modes.

Like in the previous games, you're working your way up layers of more and more difficult races. There are basic rallies, and then there are some nifty gimmicks like the Gate Crasher events that teach you to drive a line. There are the wild and woolly stadium races crammed into a tiny area where the track folds in on itself. There are the grand expansive raids with branching, interwoven paths. There are trucks and buggies and rally cars. It all starts out easy enough, but then you get to the Pro and All-Star tiers that boost the speed level.