Colin McRae: Dirt 2

Get ready for a high intensity, down and dirty driving experience that not only looks spectacular, but is packed full of extreme attitude. But how can something so dirty be so good? Colin McRae: Dirt 2 answers the question.

In Dirt 2 you are more then just a rally driver. You’re a rally driver with attitude, with tattoos and, most importantly, with two hot girls in your trailer. Although the naked girl in your shower may be your chief mechanic and the one making breakfast in the eyeliner and singlet may be your business manager, they probably aren’t. But even if they were, you get the feeling that this is not your traditional Colin McRae Rally game.

Your trailer is the basis for all the game’s racing options. Here you’ll have access to your collection of licensed cars and can launch into the game’s World Tour. While there is still the single car time trials on the back roads of Asia, Europe and Africa there will also be a number multi car races and stadium events. More importantly there will be a far more feature laden online component, making up for the only failing of the original game.

Colin McRae and UK developer Codemasters were kicking up mud around the world for ten years until McRae's unfortunate demise. Featuring an updated version of the EGO engine, the same engine that powered their highly regarded racer GRID, Dirt 2's graphics and gameplay will hope to do a Sebastien Loeb on the rest of the world’s racing sims.

Online, Dirt 2 promises a far smoother experience. Finding friends and events will be easier with plenty of race options, leader boards, live updates as well as an automatic tracking feature that notifies you when your friends beat your best times.

Also improving on the original will be Dirt 2's graphics. In Dirt 2 the cars will have an unprecedented level of accuracy and detail. Lighting and particle effects, environments and damage modelling will to combine for a spectacular and unprecedented gaming experience.

Colin McRae: Dirt made a great impression with its release in 2007. Before Dirt the Colin McRae games had concentrated on traditional rallying, placing the emphasis on driving technique and accuracy. However the reboot, as the name suggested, incorporated a lots of off road elements and also began to feel much more like an arcade racer. From crossovers to hill climbs, the game embraced fast and furious off road action.

Colin McRae was killed in a helicopter accident immediately after Dirt’s release in 2007, and though his rallying career, which took off with a win in the rally of New Zealand in 1993 and a world driver's title in 1995, was winding down, he was finding a place in the US market. Most notably at the ’06 X games where despite rolling his car he still managed to finish only a fraction of a second behind winner Travis Pastrana.

The inclusion of Colin McRae’s name in the title comes after plenty of consideration and discussion between the team at Codemasters, many who worked with him since 1998, and the McRae family. The game will also include a Colin McRae memorial trophy. However, nobody involved has lost sight of the game’s ultimate purpose to deliver a great looking, thrilling arcade style racing sim. In a couple of short months, it’ll be time to get dirty.