Options abound, with plenty of online features, including a tournament mode, online challenges (which give you specific goals to work towards), and pro tour races for the more serious virtual rally nuts. And fear not - if you’re into things like tweaking gear ratios and suspension, there are options to customize your cars (though the system is nowhere near as deep as it is in more sim-oriented titles).

The physics are fantastic – the varying terrain feels intuitively different, the environments break realistically, and oh boy, are crashes and rollovers ever spectacular. Codemasters clearly knows cars. They also know how to design a very good-looking game – aside from the pretty graphics, the overall design and presentation is top-notch. Everything from the menu screens (done up as a set of interactive maps and press passes) to the fantastic audio is polished and slick.

The soundtrack deserves special mention. Each of the real-life racers in the game (including headliners Dave Mirra, Ken Block, Travis Pastrana and Tanner Faust) speaks to you (or directs you around the interface) with well-produced audio snippets. The music is excellent, featuring all manner of X-games friendly punk and dance rock, though the races themselves are relatively quiet, tense affairs. I say “quiet” because they proceed without music, but you may not notice – the tearing car engines, audio cues from other racers and your occasional co-driver, and off-track events are always in your ears, keeping you in the moment.

At its core, this puppy has taken its serious sim roots, mixed in a few casual-friendly options and thrown in a plethora of content (both online and offline) to keep finicky gamers interested. It kept me coming back even after failing an embarrassing number of races with my overzealous steering. Highly recommended.

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