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Played this on 360 for about 3 hours last night with some friends online, really good fun, love the physics on the Morocco stage, real nice weight to the car and the slides feel great when you pull them off

Does it look the same on the 360.

Didn't know you could play online, thought it was just sp.

Will try that later.

its fast.. nice solid flawless framerate (a big plus over the first dirt).. nice graphics, although the car models were abit of a let down..lacking the shine of Forza 3, or shift.. and more akin to last years effert Grid.
The menu is very impressive, and a nice touch over the menu in Dirt 1.
And multiplayer is as you would expect good fun, with little to no visual downgrade.

The only negative thing i can say about it is they've added some really poor in game voice over "quips"...treating this like its a Tony Hawks game, rather than a competitive racing game - thats the impression i got.

forgive my ignorance but is this demo only out in EU?

yeah i dont think its hit america yet.. probably cause the retail release is a little earlier here.

Played EU psn demo today. Well interface is amazing, XP system and items are surprising and music is annoying (for me, love electronic in grid/dirt1). I believe US demo will be available 27 aug.

Having great fun online. Graphics are top-notch, and handling is the same love or hate thing.

Played the ps3 demo 4-5 times now. It's superb and it looks great on the ps3 too. Solid framerate, good AA. But most importantly, nice handling esp the morocco stage. Nice sensation of speed and you can slide quite well in a number of ways.

Day 1 now for me, and then pickup the pc version later this year.

I played both PS3 and 360 versions of the demo and I didn't notice any difference between the two. They both look and round great.
This is a day one purchase for me :-)

@morpheus
I have to say the ego engine they are running now is holding up well by the looks of it. grid and now this.

For me a racer must be fast, its got to feel fast. Sueprcar Challenge is shaping up nicely and its out in 8 days. Then under 2 wks later, Dirt 2. Then Need for speed shift, and then a few weeks later forza 3.

Why all at once? I've been waiting ages for one decent racer to come along.

I live in America, we got the demo as well. I got it on XBL so not sure if same for PS3. I'll look later if I get the time.

I thought the demo was ok. Nothing great but a little better than the first Dirt. The online is really fun but the physics still have a LONG way to go before dirt feels like anything more than an arcade escape from truly great games like Forza, PGR, or GT.

I will note though, that the effects of mud and/or water splashing on the windshield of your car looks fucking fantastic. The car models look pretty bad though, compared to how good the rest of the game looks.

I don't like the game at all. Seems no rally game anymore. :(

Even if a like the game a lot, the demo feels a little bit too short, they could have at least included a rally stage, other than that, the graphics are not very different, and the frame-rate is a lot better now.

Forgive my ignorance, and I'll probably get a lot of flak, or worse the dreaded boullet time, but I just hate how they've "Yanked up" this game. They should take the man's name off the brand right now, because McCrae this is not. This is a joke now. I'm sorry, but as soon as I heard that pleb Block (or some other American) starting to throw about hip and cool phrases a'la Tony Hawk games or some other extreme sports game, I almost vomited. No offense, but Americanised phrases should not be anywhere near a rally game, or anywhere near rally whatsoever. I have fond memories playing McCrae 2 on the PSX hearing Collin's co-pilot calling out the way in that Scottish accent and it belonged. It was pure rally bliss. This? This is just shite and a complete turn-off whenever you crash into a barrier only to hear "not cool, man!" Just everything about this game from the menus to the overall theme seems like it's just tailoring for Americans, and that's a sad thing. The WRC is, or was, a primarily a European event with most of its stages in Europe and the odd one or two in other places like Australia and sometimes Japan and Africa. Why Codemasters have decided to go all MTV on it, is beyond me. I'm not even going to comment on the gameplay aspect.

@dingleberry
I agree with what you say regarding removing Mcrae's name from the game as imo the series has changed to such an extent that it's no longer a serious rally sim and has become a more arcady racer like Burnout for example.

However if you take it as it is, the presentation, graphics and sound make for a very impressive and fun racing game.

The real question is, will we ever see another serious Colin Mcrae Rally game? sadly I doubt it.

The game itself isn't terrible, but it's just lost it's soul. It's not rally anymore. Sure the graphics are great, and that's another thing that's a real shame, because with this engine and a proper WRC experience, it could have been one to remember like McCrae 2 was.

Unfortunately the Myspace, Facebook, iPhone MTV, Big Brother watching generation of gamers have been the major factor in devs taking this kind of artistic approach on the design of certain genres. And you know what? I hate it!

You could have just put Morons.

lol, dingleberry. You have managed to get yourself out of the negative respect level I had you in. I'm making a list of people who dislike this game, I'm calling it "people who know their shit". Seriously, this does not feel like a rally game.

First of all, it's that Baja stage. Except for ONE turn, you don't have to let go of the gas once, not even once. How is that fun? It feels completely wrong. And then there is the Morocco stage. Sure, it doesn't feel as bad as the other one, I got some fun from it, but it feels very arcadey--yet, that's not the problem (see Rallisport Challenge). The handling is inconsistent, sometimes there is too much understeer, then too much oversteer--and the bad part? you don't feel like you've got the control.

I agree with the menu design. It's a nice idea, but it gets annoying rather quick. I just want to see the next menu *now*, I don't want to wait 3 seconds for the next thing to come up. Readability is also lacking at times, the important stuff is lots among all the clutter. And I totally agree with the drivers commentary. Why the f should I care about Dave Mirra, Block, or whatever? It sounds sort of childish to hear them talking in-race.

Perhaps the most telling factor here is that one of the key things from rally is the co-pilot giving you instructions. You don't see that here at in the demo. Is it in the full game? I don't know and I don't care, it's clear that this is not a rally game--or that they are trying to make it one. This is an average off road racers with some unbelievable graphics. We have yet to get a proper rally game this gen. The greatest rally games of all time are still Richard Burns and Rallisport.

Lol, classic... :D

Ok, now I just can't resist!
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/funny-pictures-your-cat-is-also-making-a-list.jpg

But yeah, I agree. Amazing graphics, but it all goes apeshit when the handling's still crap. And it seems this is the case. Codemasters just don't seem to know how to get this right...

Who cares if its not a simulation, none of the Colin games were sims, thats what Richard Burns Rally was there for..
I loved this demo, absolutely stunned by it.
This and Forza 3 = win win

I care. McCrae 2 eats this for breakfast, dinner and lunch and it's on a system two gens old. You got a proper sense of rally on that game, and everything just felt so right. It was half sim, half arcade in many respects, but the gameplay was just superb. Here, it's just monotonous. Hmm, lets make a game where you just do not have to use the breaks whatsoever. As Lebato says, the handling is way off. The cars have ridiculous amounts of oversteer where you just don't worry about needing to slow down to turn, because the car will do it for you.

I agree with the people who are underwhelmed by dirt 2. People saying it's arcade so take it for what it's worth don't understand that we aren't bitching it's not sim. We are bitching that the controls are just too inconsistent and clunky. The physics are an unpredictable mess in a lot of ways. sure you get used to it, but it shouldn't be so much work to get the handle of the simple parts of racing.

When I pick up a GOOD racing game for the first time. I have a good handle of the game by the end of one or two laps. In Dirt and Dirt 2, it takes a lot more practice to get over how the cars handle SOOO much differently than you expect them to from the experience of playing other, better games.

I love offroad racing and so I give games like this a chance, but only b/c there isn't much options out there. Rallisport Challenge is a perfect example of what a great rally arcade game should be like.

If we had Rallisport Challenge gameplay with Dirt 2 graphcis then I and I bet most others would be in heaven.

Bah, I have never played a racing game( be it sim or not) that is exactly like doing it for real. Maybe I don't need a sterile sim, but I thought the handling was convincing(I've never driven a real rally), and the physics seemed quite solid( better feel than some of these 'sims' I've played). I had no problem getting used to the control, although I always thought people played rally games because it is that edge-of-control experience. The game is extremely polished and it kinda galls me to hear people call it garbage when there is real garbage out there. You may not like the atmosphere( I think it's great sans the assinine comments by your co-pilot), but that doesn't mean the game is bad...

DiRT1 after facelifting, nothing special (Codemastres become imo Casualmasters this gen). For me it's a pity that Evolution Studio isn't making WRC games. They know how to make a good car handling (something right between CMR and RBR, more sim than arcade). Knowing also how awesome (IMO better than DiRT2) MotorStorm PR looks (with many cars and a lot of action on track) another rally game from them could be the best rally game this gen (so far there wasn't any TRUE rally game this gen and... I don't see it's coming).

I didn't like the demo at all. What happened to the Colin series ? It used to be a very good rally game and now it looks like some crappy racer made in america with all the horrible, deaf tone music and cheap design that only an american 14 year old can enjoy. Give me back the old rally game...