This is not one of those rally games that demands perfection, where you can be driving down an extremely long route for 15 minutes then clip a ditch at the side of the road, tumble onto your arse and suddenly the entire race is a write-off. Most of the race types have you taking part against other cars at the same time, and while there’s obviously plenty of the powersliding you’d expect in a more serious rally game, the handling is designed to make it relatively easy to pull these off with grace. Instead, this feels like an arcade style racer that happens to have rally cars in it: far more Sega Rally than Colin McRae.

There’s obviously a place for that in gaming, but this isn’t it. This isn’t a po-faced time trial affair where you race alone and try to clear a set course quicker than a bunch of CPU opponents you never get to see. The important thing is that like many of its predecessors, Dirt 5 is a rally racing game, but crucially it’s one that doesn’t take itself seriously. Look, it doesn’t matter, nobody cares about these context bits anyway. Well, ACTUALLY actually, it’s the 14th if you count all the Colin McRae Rally games too, because the first game in the Dirt series was Colin McRae: Dirt. Well, actually, it’s the eighth, if you count Dirt: Showdown and the Dirt Rally games. But do you know why I’m not so bothered about that with this new generation? Because we have Dirt 5 instead.ĭirt 5 is the fifth game in the series.

The days of buying a new console and a new Ridge Racer are gone. We haven’t had a proper Ridge Racer in over a decade, and if you’re talking proper numbered entries the last one was nearly 15 years ago. The PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, Vita, Xbox 360 and 3DS were all blessed with a Ridge Racer game in the launch line-up, and they were always a safe bet because you knew you were going to get two things: a shitload of arcade racing greatness, and something visually impressive that would make your new console DANCE on day one. There was a time when the launch of a new system often meant something almost equally as exciting: the launch of a new Ridge Racer game to accompany it. Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, PC, Stadia (Xbox Series X version reviewed)

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