It’s not a new mechanic, but it’s presented in a flashy style that might not be everyone’s cup of tea. As you level up you open new events, and so on and so forth. Key to progression is XP, earned through race performances and any in-game tasks you complete. And set-up is just whether or not you want to tinker under the hood or not. Vehicle damage can be set to be on or only visual, meaning you can be driving a heap, but still running in peak condition. That’s right, flashbacks from last year’s GRID are in DIRT 2, so if you make a mistake you can rewind time as if it never happened. Difficulty is quite self explanatory, although the harder the setting the more money you can earn and the less flashbacks you can use. The key things here are difficulty, vehicle damage and vehicle set-up. When you’re ready to actually start an event you’re greeted with a set-up screen that lets you customise your experience slightly. Finally you can see your currently selected car and head off to the race event. There’s also a notice board, which we assume will give you vital in-game updates, but it’s locked in the build we played. The My Rides menu lets you look over the cars you own, and those you don’t, letting you spend hard earned cash on new rides if you fancy something different. Step outside the caravan and you’ve got a raft of other options to choose from. In our preview build the rest of the menus were locked away, but the final game will include a suite of multiplayer options so you can play with friends online.

This is housed in your tour caravan, complete with info on various in-game tasks to complete (distance travelled, height jumped – that kind of thing), stats, info on your relationships with various other characters in the game and a list of co-drivers.

Gone is the simple, stylish, easy to use grid event structure, replaced with a white canvas with events popping up as they’re unlocked. Right off the bat the difference between this and the original DIRT is plain to see. Has Codemasters’ attempt to make DIRT a fashionable game backfired? Something could hurt this though – say, for instance, a trendy front end and lots of people talking as if they’re the coolest people to walk the Earth. Not much can beat the feeling of powersliding a Subaru around a long, tight corner, gravel being churned out behind your tires, spectators getting the perfect view from the most perilous positions imaginable. I’m a big fan of the Colin McRae Rally series of video games and racing games in general, so when a teaser build of DIRT 2 popped through the letterbox I revved my engines in glee.

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