Review: Dirt 3

Playing Dirt 3 is like a trip down memory lane. Or, perhaps more fittingly, a drive down memory lane. It's filled with fresh terrain, new vehicles, and uncharted regions so beautiful and so vast it could make a player stare at the screen in awe, motionless, wondering how the developers crammed so many polygons into one spectacular environment.

As expected, this sequel is remarkably fast, hardcore and cutting edge, just like its predecessor. The game picks up where the last one left off, albeit with a greater emphasis on free-styling and trick performance. This means that you're going to have to hone your drifting, jumping and donut hole-spinning skills if you want to succeed. And believe me: once you start playing Dirt 3, you will want to succeed and see this game through to the end.

At the onset, players will begin to recognize all of the familiar Dirt traits that have made this franchise so unbelievably successful. The controls, for example, are joyously smooth and wonderfully refined. They are quick and responsive enough to provide the player with the precision he/she needs to persevere while simultaneously delivering an unparalleled package of mechanical depth. When combined, these two elements produce one of the finest control and steering systems in off-road gaming history.

It's nothing short of a crowning achievement, to say the least, as this is the very foundation that Dirt was not only founded on but continued to thrive on to this day.

Dirt 3 comes with a slick new layout that bakes a traditional menu screen into a triangular layout that puts the best DVD menus to shame. When selecting a new race mode for the first time, the game provides a tutorial to introduce you to the experience. Oddly, it does not appear that there is any way to skip the tutorials, which is a bit of a bummer when you come to a mode you've already played in the previous Dirt games. However, these tutorials will come in handy when the game begins to unveil the Gymkhana mode, which challenges the player to drive in style.

Gymkhana mode includes more than a jump here and a spin there; players will have to enter spin zones (a small, clearly marked square in the road) and spin like crazy. They'll have to smash through yellow blocks within a brief time limit. They'll be tasked with gaining as much air as possible while driving across some very unusual (read: flat!) ramps. They'll be required to spin around a circular barricade to perform a perfect donut. Finally, they'll need to drift through gates – sideways!

If all this sounds like a bit of a challenge, that's because it is exactly what the developers had in mind. While any experienced gamer can get behind the steering wheel and conquer the time trial modes and standard race competitions, players will need a whole new skill set to take on these obstacles.

Graphically, Dirt 3 is downright flawless. The frame rate is consistently fast (very fast), the environmental details are lush and realistic, and the overall sense of speed is remarkably rich and intense. Aside from its two predecessors (both of which are must-own games), you won't find any racer on the market that is quite like Dirt 3.

In the end, that makes it very easy to recommend the latest in Codemasters' hit off-road racing series. Fans of the previous iterations will be just as enthralled by this sequel as they were with Dirt 1 and Dirt 2.