The cars are also a little too ‘airy.’ While it’s understandable that when on dirt or any sort of soft surface your vehicle it probably going to slide with a slight movement of the wheel, DiRT is extremely sensitive to any vehicle movements. Just a slight turn is enough to cause spinout.

The tracks are quite enjoyable – a one car race never felt so much fun. The environments feel and look real and it’s not too often you’ll be able to race up Pike’s Peak or an off road raceway in Wisconsin. The co-pilot is very helpful (and not annoying) when giving you a heads up about the next turn. In prior games, you really just wanted to shoot your co-pilot because you’d see a hairpin turn on the map and he would tell you this just as you got into the turn (thanks for the help). DiRT does not have this problem; if anything you are told too early about what’s coming up. The game provides a nice balance of simulation and arcade experience and if you feel it’s not balanced enough, you can adjust the difficulty level accordingly.

The online play is rather misleading: although up to 100 players can be on the same race at the same time, it’s not like you’re actually seeing those other 99 people race. Each gamer is racing individually – which is true to rally racing but really isn’t like you’re racing 100 people at the same time – it feels more like a leader board type of game where you check to see who has the best time. The PlayStation 3 version’s leader board does not update results instantly. After every race, the game shows ranking as “TBC” (to be calculated, I’m guessing). What’s odd is that the game places time correctly on the leader board but doesn’t provide a ranking.

Regardless, DiRT is a great game to show off your PS3; it’s gorgeous, fun, and is easily one of the very best racing games available for the console.