So I figured I should probably do this while I’m actually playing the game a bunch, and having a lot of fun while doing so. Dirt Rally is highly regarded as one of the best Rally games of all time, and one of the best racing games of all time. I do think it’s also very hard if you don’t have a wheel, but I won’t deny that probably is some fun to be had if you just want to pick up the game casually. Dirt 4 was then released in 2017 with a similar format to Dirt Rally. The game was recently de-listed from Storefronts alongside a bunch of other, in what seems a move due to the EA/Codemasters buyout, but you can probably find keys or a copy for cheap on Ebay.
But still, this was a game that I was really curious about after playing Dirt Rally? So was it at least good? Let’s find out.
So starting off, I will just say, this game is a LOT more beginner friendly than Dirt Rally. 1st of all, it has 2 different handling models, Gamer and Simulation. I chose a gamer because I don’t have a wheel. There are also a lot of tutorials that tell you what certain things do, like the handbrake, which is useful for getting around tight corners.
Progression in this game works like so: you run a race team, and you have to get to the top of 3 different disciplines of off-road racing, Rally, which involves you driving cars on either gravel, snow or the tightest roads known to man, Rallycross, my personal favourite, which involves you driving on tracks with both asphalt and gravel against other competitor’s, and Landrush, which is kinda dirt track racing but with bigger tracks.
You own a team, but you can choose to drive events for other teams, where repairs during the event are free, but they do take up time, which if you go over 30 mins for, you get a penalty. Of course, if you are driving for yourself, you pay for the repairs, which can be costly, but the prize money balances out when you do well. Cars for each discipline can be customized if you’re racing for your own team, with sponsors and car colours, but I still can’t weeb up my ride! Gonna keep saying it till I can do it in one of these games!
Cars for each discipline are bought from the dealership or the classifieds, and the cars range from classics like the Mini Cooper and Audi Quattro to more modern machines like the VW Polo and the Ford Focus RS RX, to more specialised machines like the Crosskarts and Stadium Trucks. There’s something for everyone in this game, but the question you’re probably wondering is how do they work?
Rally is the same discipline as it is in Dirt Rally, where you race on open roads on Gravel, asphalt, and Snow. There are 5 locations, Australia, the USA and Wales all use varying types of Gravel, Sweden brings the inevitable snow psychics and the horrors that come with snow psychics in any game, and Spain brings some familiarity with just straight-up asphalt roads, though you may run into some cobblestones on the way when you run into some towns.
The way that stages work is that they are randomly generated, and if you are using the Freeplay mode, you can actually choose the length and complexity of the stage, but I will say the random generator very clearly doesn’t have enough stuff in it, as corners and certain sequences tend to repeat during stages, but I’ll be honest I’m having too much fun in this game to care because the handling of the cars is amazing with a controller.
I said when I looked at Dirt Rally, that the cars were fine-tuned for steering wheels, but here, they feel a lot better to handle with a controller and it’s awesome to just drive these things, and I’m happy about that because it makes the game a lot more fun. I haven’t reached the top category in rally yet, but cars like the Subaru Impreza, the Mini Cooper and the Mitsubishi Lancer are really fun to drive around these challenging courses, where corners are often blind, speeds are high, and bravery is needed in spades.
The feeling of racing these cars around these circuits is a lot better to me, and it’s something that I hope it added to the new WRC game that Codemasters is apparently making, which if that plays like Dirt Rally, I’ll probably just skip it because I don’t have the money or space for a wheel to play games like that! I’ll leave that to the sim racing pros like Jimmy Broadbent.
Weather can also play a big factor in rally, as you race no matter how bad things get sometimes. There was fog on one of the stages I played, and it’s hard to race when you can’t see s**t, but you have to do it in rally. I guess Rally is the only motorsport that can stick it to Mother Nature sometimes. I’ll also just say now that Historic Rally is the same thing but in older cars, they try to sell you on it being different, but it’s really not.
Landrush, I like said before, is basically dirt track racing on bigger tracks in buggies, and later, super trucks. I honestly haven’t gone back to it since I played it for the career mode, and it feels like it’s a nice mini add-on to what is already in the game, but not a selling point. It’s better than Hillclimb in Dirt Rally, and that’s kinda all I have to say about it.
As for Rallycross, man I love it, but there were just a few small steps away from hitting a home run with this mode. The gameplay of the rallycross cars themselves are perfect, I love how every car from the 1600s to Supercars feels, they are fun to drive with my controller, and the racing with the ai is pretty close, and involves a lot of beating and banging as it should. The tracks feel very nice to drive on and very different to each other, from the undulating gravel of Hell in Norway, to the very fast-flowing circuit of Lohéac in France. But there also comes the problem with this mode, there are only five tracks to choose from, and 3 of them are carryovers from Dirt Rally. The 2 new ones are Lohéac in France and Montalegre in Portugal. I appreciate that since Lohéac is really cool, I love the Joker Lap Merge on it, but if you don’t enjoy Rallycross I can see why it would be repetitive.
Another disappointing thing is that there are no Audi’s in this game at all, so you can’t even play as Robin Larsson, Topi Heikkinen, and the World Champion at the time this game came out, Mattias Ekström. I get that licences are hard, but MAN, that sucks. Still, I do find a lot of fun in Rallycross, it’s probably the mode I’ve put the most time into, but I just feel like they could have done a little more honestly.
There are also some joyride challenges that kinda serve as a Gymkhana mode, as these usually involve you smashing through blocks or setting the fastest time you can through abandoned buildings, crates and ramps. Pretty fun overall honestly, even if I haven’t personally spent much time on it.
Dirt 4 is a great game that’s lacking in certain aspects, and honestly, in terms of rally and rallycross, it might be the best product out there on the market for casual gamers, or people who don’t want to deal with sim racing setups in order to play a form of motorsport they like. I know that this game is harder to find, especially since they have taken this game off digital stores, and why did they take this game off digital stores, but if you can find a copy or a key, it’s worth a shot. You can get it on the PS4, Xbox 360 and Steam,
Man, it’s been a while since I wrote about a racing game. These games are why I invented the rambling format in the 1st place, to write about these without the pressure of having to 100% them, which is always a plus.
Next time, I’ll be talking about my new favourite character in Genshin Impact, Deyha. I predict that blog post will be me simping for a fictional women quite a bit. We’ll see.
But for now, thanks for reading, and I will see you next time.
NMarfoBlogs 