DiRT: Colin McRae Off-Road

Console Gameworld

DiRT seems to do just about everything right.

Cheat Code Central

Even though DiRT has a few faults, there is no denying that the game is the most fun you will have with a racer because, despite those faults, DiRT delivers on a level that is something to marvel from rally racers.

Game Over Online

Despite its slight gameplay and extensive loading problems, DiRT still delivers the most exciting and rewarding racing action I’ve experienced on the 360, and the finest rally racing experience I’ve ever had in a game.

Games Master UK

A magnificent return that joins the ranks of "Test Drive Unlimited," "PGR3" and "Forza 2." [Aug 2007, p.62]

Gamer's Hell

Racing in DiRT will make your heart pound and your hands sweat, but at the same time you’ll be yearning to floor it all the way through.

Game Chronicles

If you enjoy intense racing, against the clock or against other cars, realistic scenery, and the occasional fender bender, you won’t find a better racing game than DiRT. Rally racing has been reborn...welcome to the next generation.

Thunderbolt

The graphics are some of, if not the, best I've seen on the system, and the variety of racing available ensures that you'll never be bored or wanting more.

Play Magazine

One thing I can say for DiRT is that aside from being the most beautiful, it's among the most all-inclusive Rally games to date. [July 2007, p.65]

XboxAddict

This title will definitely change your views on off-road racing as the look and style of game play is up to par if not more for current Off-Road Racers to date.

Gamestyle

DiRT is very much an offline game, so if you're looking for online thrills, look elsewhere, it does not deliver. What it does deliver, however, is a single player treat that is nothing short of fantastic.

Official Xbox Magazine

So don't let Dirt's pointed non--"PGR"-ness stop you in the slightest--if all you care about is great gameplay, it's easily one of the best 360 racing games yet. [July 2007, p.74]

TeamXbox

Brilliant physics, handling and damage engine are well utilized in this be-all,-end-all ode to four-wheel dirt racing.

Gamer 2.0

So in all, DiRT definitely stands out as a premiere racing game. The gameplay is great—though it may take a bit of getting used to for those you stick to common racing games—and the graphics help push it along as well.

Game Almighty

With graphics and sound like this, only the staunchest of racing-game-haters will be able to skim over this game on the shelves of their local retailer. When you get into the gameplay, it’s pure fun and pure fast – the perfect combination for a racing game. DiRT is easily one of the best looking racing games we’ve ever seen, and provides an amazingly challenging and fun experience – at least in single player mode.

GameTrailers

If you’re looking for the perfect replication of sliding around a gravel corner with all four tires holding on for dear life, then buy it with no reservations. The learning curve is just right regardless of your experience level, there’s a ton of content despite the lack of true online play, and it’s a very pretty game, despite some occasional draw-in.

GamerNode

DiRT is a great rally racer for anyone who enjoys the thrill of this sport. It is also an excellent racer at its core, and thanks to an amazingly deep damage system and graphical appeal, you should definitely sink your teeth into DiRT.

Planet Xbox 360

From the moment you put the disc in the tray, everything about this game says “first class”, until you try to play on Xbox Live. If you’re a gamer that is not completely turned off by wretched multiplayer support, then DiRT should be a welcome addition to your library.

GameZone

It’s a dazzling-looking game with plenty of challenges and a lot to love despite a few weak spots here and there.

Xbox World Australia

DiRT does plenty right and features the most realistic forest and desert environments ever seen in an Xbox racing game.

Kombo

Despite a range of flaws both large and small, DiRT remains a worthy purchase for racing fans.

ZTGameDomain

There is more than enough to see and do and I guarantee once you nail down the vehicle handling you will find a rich and vigorous experience that will entertain you for hours on end.

MS Xbox World

With driving fans having to pick between Forza 2 and this it’s really just a matter of preference even though Forza 2 has more fans, arcade style racers will feel more at home with DiRT.

GamePro

With games like Forza Motorsport 2 pushing the boundaries of Internet racing, the inability to put even two human opponents on the same track is breathtakingly lame. It's testament then to DiRT's groundbreaking graphics, chaotic flare, and infectious love of all things dirty and damaging that it delivers a good gaming value in spite of such a startling deficit.

Da Gameboyz

With great graphics and instant playability this game's overall score is only slightly hampered by the vehicles floaty feeling, some minor frame rate issues and a lack of racing in an online mode with other players on the same track at the same time.

IC-Games

For now DiRT is the only serious rally experience on a next-generation box, fortunate for us then that it’s also pretty damned good as well.

Armchair Empire

Rally fans should have already grabbed this, but I’d even go as far as to challenge non-racing fans to take Dirt for a spin – the challenge of trying to master any given stretch of beautiful road is made compelling enough to try again and again.

Computer and Video Games

Not the rally sim fans will expect, but despite a more arcade-like take, its huge selection of races and high-speed thrills, DiRT is fantastic fun.

IGN

When you can count every leaf on every piece of brush across a three mile track, that's a major graphical accomplishment. If only every aspect of DiRT matched the graphics and presentation, it would be among the top racers on Xbox 360. DiRT still hasn't fixed Colin McRae's longtime use of a central pivot for turning and the racing feels floaty at times.

Jolt Online Gaming UK

For fans of rallying, who have been spoiled for choice in previous years, this is the first really good rally simulation on a next-gen system and as such is pretty much a must-have.

GameSpot

As a graphical showpiece, DiRT is an unbridled success. It also happens to be an entirely enjoyable rally racer.

Game Revolution

A fantastic rally racing game that aims to be a fantastic all-around off-road experience, but like internet porn, next time it needs to get a little dirtier.

Gaming Age

All in all, this is the game that just might finally put the name Codemasters into gamer's minds that haven't enjoyed their past successes like Colin and Pro Race Driver. DiRT isn't too simish or arcady but finds that nice blend that goes down smooth everytime.

Gaming Target

Combining realistic graphics – on par with MotorStorm, no less – with realistic yet arcadey gameplay, you really can’t go amiss with this awesome release.

GameShark

DiRT is a great game to show off your Xbox 360’s graphical capabilities and is a fun and addictive racing game with a high amount of replay value.

Xbox World 360 Magazine UK

A beautiful and varied title, but you feel it might be holding something back. [Aug 2007, p.66]

Electronic Gaming Monthly

For me, this is what I had hoped "MotorStorm" would have delivered. With the exception of online racing, Dirt delivers on much of what that game so sorely lacked. [Aug 2007, p.78

DailyGame

Definitely more inviting to non-rallycross fans, and the graphics and modes are certainly a boost. Unfortunately, the online mode is a letdown, as are the framerate issues.

DarkStation

With beautiful visuals and solid gameplay mechanics, I would highly recommend any racing fan checking DiRT out.

GameTap

Dirt is an excellent counterpoint to the shallower, more arcade-y MotorStorm, offering serious racing fans a full-bodied game replete with HD-gen graphics, physics, sound, and a great depth of off-road racing types.

Video Game Talk

The extensive single player career mode will have you playing for weeks on end. Unfortunately, the multiplayer design flaws hurts the replay value after the single player is completed.

GameSpy

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of DiRT is the poorly implemented multiplayer portion of the game. Instead of allowing you to try some of the head-to-head events that are included in the single-player game, like the Rally Raids or CORR events, you're limited to single-car hill climbs and rally events against times being uploaded by other players in your session.

PALGN

DiRT is a great rally game and a return to grace for Codemaster's Colin McRae rally series. With a fantastic damage model system and absolutely gorgeous graphics this is a game that could even sway those who are normally put off by rally games.

Play.tm

While DiRT certainly does offer the best traditional rally experience around at the moment, by including the chance to race directly against other vehicles in the CORR events it almost accidentally reminds you that racing that way is actually more fun. If you're a serious rally fan then this is easily the best game of its type, however, anyone just in the market for a decent racing game may want to stop and decide if this is really going to be their cup of tea before they part with their money.

AceGamez

It's wonderfully well presented and designed throughout, from the slick menus to the jaw-dropping spectacle of the visuals. The lonely feeling of playing on Xbox Live is a blow however, something that ghost competitors could easily have rectified.

G4 TV

Along with the huge single-player campaign and the various online modes mixed with the sheer variety of the racing on hand makes for one awesome racing game. And when you mix all that with the now-standard Colin McRae level of excellence, you have a game racing fans shouldn’t pass up.

Worth Playing

A worthy follow-up to the last Colin MacRae game, but while it's competent and looks fantastic, it leaves a little something to be desired in a few key areas.

Game Informer

Another example where the game gets caught in the middle is with online. True to rally racing, you don’t race against others, only their times. I can’t imagine most online players want to play this way.

1UP

Slightly flawed in some spots -- its Career mode, for example, is a pyramid of increasingly challenging events rather than a glimpse into a racer's life -- DiRT is nevertheless a big, beautiful game that goes places previous McRaes have not. It's quite simply one of the finest driving-centric titles to hit the still-new 360 world.

GameDaily

The stylish menus and helpful narration give way to eye melting graphics featuring realistic tracks and cars with sick damage modeling.

VideoGamer

The core racing is thrilling yet accessible and the amount of content on offer will keep players enthralled for some time. Some inexplicable frame rate problems and a lacklustre online multiplayer mode prevent this from being a classic.

Edge Magazine

As a game of corners, conditions and the times in which you master them, DIRT is an outstanding engine of online competition, powered by an outstanding engine of sight, sound and physics. [July 2007, p.88]

Total Video Games

A whole new Career structure, expanded vehicles, and the lack of stronghold rallying locations like Sweden and Finland, have all worked together to push the franchise in a new (and yet, not a wholly welcomed) direction.

Official Xbox Magazine UK

You play "Forza" for the modding, community stuff and realism; you can play Colin because it's a bloody good, old-fashioned arcade rally game. [July 2007, p.96]

Eurogamer

A wonderful package and a triumphant return to form for Codies, DiRT sets a mean precedent for future rally games to match and really manages to capture the excitement, the fear and the challenge of off-road racing. It's, like, totally sick, dude. Killer.

Pelit (Finland)

The super powerful brakes and dumbed-down controls do a lot of damage to an otherwise decent off-road fest. Rallisport Challenge 2 did the same things much better. [Aug 2007]

games(TM)

Gamers can see through inconsequential improvements in wind physics and engine noise-capturing techniques that in real terms bring little new to the table. [July 2007, p.124]

Boomtown

What we've been given is a game that looks like rallying, but the cars have so much grip, so much power in the brakes, that in the rally sections there's no feeling of driving off road at all.

X360 Magazine UK

Not quite enough variety twinned with not quite enough freedom leaves DIRT as merely a snack between Gothams and Forzas. But then we all eat badly, once in a while. [Issue 21, p.82]

NTSC-uk

It retains the feel of McRae, but not the subtlety or precision. The car doesn’t feel different enough across the various surfaces, while the ability to stop almost instantly in the majority of cars on any track is a sign that they are not interacting with the ground as they should. They feel loose, almost distant.