It's about driving solo with 900 horses under your right foot, each and every one of them seemingly hell-bent on throwing you into the scenery.

Replays do a good job of showing off the improved EGO engine, and they can be uploaded to YouTube at the press of a button. Here, in the midst of DiRT 3's tour and in amongst Michigan's maple forests, is a point-to-point event in machinery so raw, brutal and terrifying that not even the co-driver can be convinced to come along for the ride.

There's a sweet irony in the fact that Codemasters truly rediscovers its off-road roots deep in the American Midwest. It's even clearer in a track list that moves away from the more exotic destinations of the past two DiRT games and returns to the locations that rally can more traditionally call home - though that's not to say that it has quite lost the transatlantic twang the series has picked up this generation. The heritage is explicit in a car list that boasts of the Mini Cooper piloted by Paddy Hopkirk in the sixties as well as its distant German descendant that's at Kris Meeke's disposal in this year's WRC, as well as every other conceivable flavour in between. There's a proud sense of heritage, both for Codemasters' rich past with the Colin McRae series and for the sport itself, that sits seamlessly alongside a spirit of innovation that the studio has quietly made its own in recent years. It's the inclusion of two separate elements that set it apart, and that help elevate it above its predecessors. There are Land Rush events, pitting four-wheeled monsters against the Kenyan plains, nestling alongside rallycross races that cascade their way across Monaco's harbour, and wintry duels between a car and a bobsleigh in Norway's X-Games.īut DiRT 3's real achievement and its real charm don't come from its litany of ways to churn mud, gravel and tarmac.

This is, after all, an outfit that in 2006's TOCA Race Driver 3 had players racing in a lawnmower one moment and an F1 car the next, all the while keeping the straightest of faces.ĭiRT 3 continues the open-armed approach, embracing every element of off-road racing you'd care to think of.

Codemasters has always brought the kitchen sink along with it for its racing endeavours.

Dirt 3 vs dirt 4