Dirt 4 is a great middle ground between arcade and sim racers further propped up by its essentially endless procedurally generated tracks.
Dirt 4 is a mixture of simulation and arcade rally racing game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. Codemasters’ Dirt series originated in 1998 when the first game in the Colin McRae Rally series released, while the sequel Colin McRae Rally 2.0 released on PS1 in 2000 before making a debut on PS2 in 2002 with Colin McRae Rally 3 followed by two sequels in 2003 and 2004. The series moved onto the PS3 with Colin McRae: Dirt 1 and 2 in 2007 and 2009 respectively before focusing on the Dirt brand with Dirt 3 in 2011 and Dirt Showdown in 2012; meanwhile the Dirt series finally moved onto the PS4 in 2015 in the form of Dirt Rally. Can Dirt 4 deliver not only the best game in the series, but also the best racing game for each of its four racing disciplines?
After being inspired by a voice-over to be fearless when driving in Dirt 4; the player gets the opportunity to customise their driver including first name, last name, age, nationality and driver appearance from 5 male or 5 female drivers as well as your preference of multi-platform or PS4 only online leaderboards, followed by a choice of a more arcade or simulation handling style. In order to become more familiar with the handling; your first event is a Dirt Open event which is essentially a tutorial that sees the player being instructed by their co-driver in how to accelerate, brake, handbrake and learning the specific meanings of pace notes at Sawtell Sprint in Fitzroy, Australia.
Immediately after completing the tutorial, you are taken to a Dirt Academy track named DirtFish Rally School. At Dirt Academy, you can learn a variety of lessons including basic and advanced driving techniques, drive types, disciplines, surfaces and conditions and track features that includes a multitude of lessons within each set of lessons while driving a car from the rally, land rush, rallycross or historic rally car categories. Dirt Academy is an important gameplay element as it is where you will earn your first licence that unlocks your first set of career events in a similar fashion to Gran Turismo.
Career mode comprises of four disciplines including rally, land rush, rallycross and historic rally cars, although in a career mode progression system reminiscent of Gran Turismo; only the first event of the rally discipline is available at first before unlocking the next event on the way to earning new licences that open up further events and disciplines such as the National Stadium Pro-1 licence and the International Off-Road C-1 licence. Career mode begins with the Dirt Clubman Cup within the rally discipline at the National Clubman entry level which includes a single stage sprint through Wildwood Forest in Michigan, USA as you drive a Ford Fiesta R2. Successfully achieving the targets set by the team within the single event unlocks the DirtFish Graduation Rally spread across two stages in which winning the event will earn your National Rally A licence and in the process help you to spread your wings from a regional driver to a national competitor; therefore providing the start of bigger and better events to come. At the culmination of every event and championship; you will be rewarded with a rapturous podium celebration, while land rush, rallycross and historic rally car events will be unlocked after completing 4, 10 and 15 events respectively.
Purchasing a car from the dealership or classifieds instead of loaning a car; allows the player to form their own team from the ground up in what is essentially a management mode integrated within the career mode. After purchasing your car; it is time to fully customise and brand it from choosing a team name, a team pattern followed by a primary, secondary, tertiary and detail colour to create your preferred unique style of paint job, alongside a driver number, colour of the number and names of the driver and co-driver. Despite the investment in creating your own team; a major advantage over loaning a seat at a separate team is that you do not have to pay a percentage of your earnings to a team that you would only be racing for temporarily, while also being free to open negotiations with sponsors. Sponsors offer your team a varying amount of credits in return for achieving the sponsor’s target with their brand logo adorning front, rear, left and right of your car for the duration of your contract that differs in length ranging anywhere from 2 to 4 championships depending on your chosen sponsor. Your success in achieving the sponsor’s targets is important as it will influence the relationship with your sponsor to such a point that it could affect the outcome of whether or not the sponsor decides to renew their partnership with your team after the initial contract has came to an end.
A PR agent, co-driver, rallycross spotter and land rush spotter are all hired on your behalf, but it is up to the player to hire a chief engineer and an engineer. Every chief engineer has three skills including tuning, estimates and diagnostics albeit at different qualities resulting in the chief engineer and engineer being available for anywhere from free to 4,000 credits plus a small percentage of the team’s earnings, while engineers also have three skills including the power-unit, drivetrain and chassis. The chief engineer has 5 perks that can be purchased for a specific amount of credits such as leadership training for an improved team morale for all engineers costing 25,000 credits, while the wash bucket perk automatically cleans the car for free at the service area after a 12,500 credits purchase, alongside the clip-board perk that increases the estimates skill; the analysis pack perk which increases the diagnostics skill and the toolbox perk that increases the tuning skill for a cost of 31,250 credits per perk. Engineers also have their own range of perks such as a manufacturer handbook relating to the country of origin for your team’s car; a repair manual for the car’s original manufacturer; 4WD, FWD and RWD repair manual which improves the drivetrain skill; and much more besides for a wildly diverse quantity of credits. Further interesting gameplay elements are gradually introduced such as being able to hire three additional engineers following a purchase of higher quality accommodation facilities to open up the capacity for you to house more engineers, alongside the ability to accept multiple simultaneous sponsorship deals through upgrading the sponsor hoardings facility. It is also of importance to notice that the best facilities and upgrades in general cannot be purchased at any price until having increased your reputation status to a significant level by achieving positive finishing positions in events.
Joyride mode makes a return from Dirt 3 in which players can free roam or take on any of the six challenges contained within the ten chapters. Challenges include a time attack were the player has to beat a time in order to successfully achieve a bronze, silver or gold medal, although driving through a green circle will stop the clock for one second saving you precious time in the process, but accidentally driving into a red triangular penalty marker will result in one second being added to your time. Meanwhile, smash attack tasks the player with smashing through a particular quantity of blocks within a certain time limit to earn a bronze, silver or gold medal.
Due to the official WRC videogame franchise having all of the cars and environments exclusively licensed; Dirt 4 does not have any of the 2017 WRC season content, although there are many classic rally cars. However, despite the rally environments not being of 1:1 scale; there are five environments including Australia, Michigan, Spain, Sweden and Wales which is combined in perfect working harmony with a genuine game changing feature called Your Stage that essentially takes areas from a track and re-assembles them to create a randomly generated rally stage. All the player has to do is set the location, time, weather, length and complexity, then Your Stage generates your rally stage route; allowing you to create, race and even share your own rally stage routes with other players from around the world in mere moments. For players who prefer officially licensed tracks or rallycross instead of WRC, then you will definitely be happy to know that Dirt 4 is actually the official game of the World Rallycross Championship featuring rallycross tracks such as Hell, Höljes, Lohéac Bretagne, Lydden Hill and Montalegre in the official 2016 FIA World Rallycross Supercars, RX Lites, Super 1600s, Group B and Crosskarts.
Dirt 4 does not have the official World Rally Championship license for the cars from the 2017 season, although there are numerous cars from multiple categories within each of the four disciplines totalling to over 50 vehicles. Rally car manufacturers include Ford, Mitsubishi, Opel, Peugeot and Subaru, while rallycross manufacturers such as DS 3, Ford, Mini, Opel, Peugeot, Renault, Seat and Volkswagen, alongside buggy manufacturers including Jackson, Larock and Speedcar Xtrem. Players can purchase cars with in-game currency earned from positive finishing positions in the career mode and online multiplayer. The dealership sells cars manufactured between 2013 to 2017, while classifieds feature cars from previous eras including the Mini Cooper S 1964 H1 FWD model, Renault Alpine A110 1600 S 1969 H2 RWD model, Lancia Fulvia HF 1972 H1 FWD, Subaru Impreza 1995 Group A model, Seat Ibiza 1997 F2 Kit Car, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI 1999 Group A model, Ford Focus RS Rally 2001 up to 2000cc 4WD model, Subaru Impreza 2001 up to 2000cc 4WD model and much more besides. Cars bought at the dealership are brand new, featuring fresh racing liveries and are accompanied by a greater quality of tuning; whereas the cars found within the classifieds are pre-owned with a varying degree of miles driven, no racing liveries and some cars have suffered breakdowns from crashes during events. Classifieds also introduce rally cars by manufacturers that are not sold by the dealership such as Audi, BMW, Fiat, Lancia, MG, Mini and Seat in addition to further ranges of cars by manufacturers before their more modern day iterations such as a Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 H3 RWD model dating as far back as 1989 instead of a Ford Fiesta R2 model produced in 2017.
Car setup can be customised by tuning the vehicle prior to the start of an event including a choice of anywhere from 0 to 2 spare tyres; a 5 point slider for balancing between a low, medium or high braking force and a 4 point slider for adjusting brake bias to emphasise the rear or front brakes; an open or locked front differential; perfecting the gear ratio for each gear and the final drive; a set of 3 point sliders to adjust the front and rear slow bump and slow rebound; and a set of 3 point sliders for calibrating front and rear ride height, spring rate and anti-roll bar. When purchasing your own team’s car; you can upgrade the car before a stage or event commences at a service area, although there are important factors such as the quality of parts. For instance, a better quality part has a higher strength attribute which will receive less damage in a collision or natural wear when putting miles on the clock, while simultaneously being more expensive to fit and repair, although it is crucial to choose the appropriate parts as you cannot change them until the start of the following event. Your car mostly comprises of D quality parts on a scale of E to A in which the engine’s and turbo’s power-unit; the clutch, differential and gearbox of the drivetrain; and brakes, dampers and springs on the chassis are all upgradeable, but only after investing in improving your team’s research and development facilities to the required standards such as having a grade C research and development department before being able to upgrade a part on your car to the equivalent quality.
Dirt 4 continues not only Codemasters’, but also the Dirt franchise’s tradition of precisely depicting damage modelling on every vehicle. For instance, a punctured tyre on the right rear of a rally car affecting that side of the car, although the player has the choice of easing off the accelerator to prevent the puncture from losing the tyre’s carcass as pushing the tyre to its normal limitations would increase the wear on a damaged tyre, while a land rush buggy would provide a reaction that was distinctive in its feeling. Crashing into competing vehicles and trackside barriers or obstacles will inevitably result in crumpling bodywork that is just as visceral to the car’s aesthetics than that of Dirt 3’s damage modelling as bodywork is strewn across the track; becoming a potential hazard on subsequent laps.
Handling is responsive in the sense that modern rally cars, historic rally cars, rallycross cars and land rush buggies all react appropriately to even the slightest steering input from the player which is important as every car individually handles exactly how a motorsports enthusiast would anticipate it to do so. Handling is entirely unique between each of the four disciplines as modern and historic rally cars retain grip and traction for as long as you approach braking in accordance with your co-driver’s pace notes, while rallycross often requires tight cornering due to challenging entries into the joker lap, alongside land rush buggies that are equally as capable of missing the apex of the corner and ending up in the barrier as probable as they are to jump long distances in the same lap; therefore accurately portraying the handling and simultaneously capturing the advantages and disadvantages of each vehicle and discipline within each of the four disciplines.
Weather conditions includes sunny and dry, cloudy, overcast, fog, light rain and heavy rain, alongside snow that is specific to Sweden in which every weather condition changes the behaviour of your car such as how it handles at high speeds and through corners. The time of day also plays a huge factor by increasing visibility during daytime events or severely reducing visibility throughout night-time events in the same way as foggy weather conditions would prevent the player from seeing into the distance; therefore having to rely on your headlights for any visibility of your imminent surroundings and your co-driver’s pace notes within rally events.
There are 6 excellently positioned camera angles including two third-person perspectives positioned a little closer to the car and further away from the car; a first-person camera mounted to the front of the car looking ahead; a camera located on the centre of the bonnet; and two interior views with the first of which positioned behind the steering wheel on the driver side of the dashboard and the other located around the driver’s line of sight with his hands on the steering wheel. Every interior and exterior viewpoint has the capability of being fully rotated around the car to provide genuine immersion as players can see more of the surrounding environments in greater detail at any angle or the location of a nearby car attempting to overtake you to assist in covering off their racing line. Camera angles can be adjusted by increasing or reducing camera shake on a 20 point slider, while the player can adjust their seating position which brings the camera positioning of the cockpit view from the driver’s line of sight gradually further forwards or backwards, upwards or downwards to the player’s personal preferences, alongside an additional customised element of the cockpit view to display the steering wheel without your driver’s hands and to remove the steering wheel entirely.
You can watch a full replay of the event that you have just driven on with the ability to rewind or fast forward in slow motion or quickly, pause, change the camera angles for a different view of the action and loop the replay back to the beginning to watch it all over again. You can view the replay from 3 camera angles including a dynamic camera angle positioned away from the car amongst the scenery, closer to the car, from an overhead helicopter and the car’s dashboard changing from camera to camera in the style of Gran Turismo, alongside the car’s dashboard and an aerial view from onboard a helicopter that is reminiscent of WRC Powerslide. The player can also customise the replay’s presentation including a broadcast mode, a game watermark, a particular song, co-driver calls audio and displaying your time. All 3 camera angles can be moved to the left or right and up or down in order to view your car in more detail as well as the nearby scenery, although both third-person perspectives and the driver’s eye cockpit view camera angles are unavailable during replays. It certainly would have been amazing to see such a dynamic camera make the transition to being playable as you are driving as it would further complement the experience, while it would have been the same sentiment if gameplay could have been played from the helicopter camera angle from high above the circuit following the action with the sound effect of the helicopter in the audio mix.
There is a small amount of downloadable content available for Dirt 4 which is certainly less than the fairly small amount released for Dirt Rally and drastically less than that of Dirt 3, although that is technically a positive in itself as it speaks to the quantity of cars and tracks in Dirt 4 that it does not need downloadable content to make it a complete game. Dirt 4’s downloadable content includes the Hyundai R5 rally car for a price of £1.99, while the Team Booster Pack provides a unique team offer, a unique engineer and two unique facilities for a cost of £1.49.
It is disappointing to not see a Dirt game come to Vita given the quality of Codemasters’ Collin McRae Rally games released on PSP including Colin McRae Rally 2005 Plus and Dirt 2, although remote play is a consolation. Dirt 4’s remote play performance is excellent as the graphics, audio and general performance is the same quality as the PS4 version which is an ethos that is complimented by the fully optimised remote play control scheme which sees accelerating re-mapped to R, braking mapped to L and looking back moved to tapping the bottom right of the touch screen; resulting in a comfortably enjoyable remote play experience.
The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller and are almost fully customisable. The default control scheme consists of pressing R2 to accelerate; pressing L2 to apply the brake or reverse the car; pressing X to manually shift up a gear; pressing square to manually shift down a gear; pressing triangle to change the camera angle; pressing O to engage the handbrake; pressing R1 to switch the headlights on or off; pressing L1 to switch the windscreen wipers on or off; pressing down on the d-pad to recover your vehicle back to the track; pressing up on the d-pad to perform roadside repairs; moving the direction of the left analogue stick to the left or right to steer your car accordingly; moving the direction of the right analogue stick forwards, backwards, left or right to appropriately manoeuvre the camera angle to look in that direction; pressing R3 to look back; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. Further control inputs that are not initially set to a particular button, but can be chosen by the player includes engaging the clutch for manual starts, a shortcut button for instantaneously selecting 1 of 7 gears or a reverse gear, adjusting your seat position and pushing to talk during online multiplayer.
Despite the customisable control scheme; there is no way of mapping the steering to the gyroscopic motion sensing functionality and the touch pad can only be mapped to once instead of the left and right sides having their own purpose. It is surprising as the gyroscopic motion sensing functionality could have provided an alternative steering method to the left analogue stick for players that do not have the luxury of owning the most recent steering wheels and pedals. Meanwhile, touch pad implementation is under utilised as it only opens messages from the menu screens, although there is no light bar support which could have produced a light shade of green to represent a healthy car and set of tyres gradually descending into dark green, yellow, orange and red to showcase a decline in your car’s health and quality of the tyres before flashing red to signify that your car cannot progress any further without a serious amount of repair. Vibration reflects acceleration on varying track surfaces such as the roughness of gravel, heavy landings after a long jump, crashing into other vehicles or trackside obstacles and increasing degradation of punctured tyres.
A range of steering wheels designed specifically for racing games on PS4 are supported including Fanatec CSL Elite Steering Wheel P1, Fanatec CSL Elite Wheel Base, Fanatec Clubsport Steering Wheel BMW GT2, Fanatec Clubsport Steering Wheel Formula, Fanatec CSL Elite Pedals, Fanatec CSR Elite Pedals, Fanatec Clubsport Pedals V1, Fanatec Clubsport Pedals V2, Fanatec Clubsport Pedals V3, Fanatec ClubSport Shifter (SQ), Fanatec Clubsport HandbrakeLogitech G29 Racing Wheel, Thrustmaster T80, Thrustmaster T100, Thrustmaster T150, Thrustmaster T300 RS, Thrustmaster – 599XX EVO 30, Thrustmaster – F1, Thrustmaster – Ferrari GTE, Thrustmaster – TM Leather 28 GT, Thrustmaster 2-Pedal Pedal Set, Thrustmaster T3PA Pedals, Thrustmaster T3PA Pro pedals and Thrustmaster TH8A Shifter.
Graphically, Dirt 4’s car models, track surfaces, trackside details, lighting, shadows, lens flare, variable weather conditions ranging from the glare of the sun to rain droplets on certain camera angles, mud splattering onto the car’s bodywork and damage modelling rendering crumpling bodywork have improved in comparison to Dirt 3, although it must be stated that Dirt 3 still looks and performs amazingly on PS3. Both PS4 and PS4 Pro maintain a frame-rate that is pretty close to a consistent 60 frames-per-second during gameplay. PS4 Pro support includes a range of enhancements such as increased multisampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) on the scene rendering, increased shadow resolution, improved reflections and accuracy and increased resolution on environments, alongside MSAA applied to the rendering of the rear-view mirror. However, there is no HDR support on PS4 or PS4 Pro which could have further improved specific graphical elements such as the skies, sun, weather conditions and reflections cast from pools of water. Dirt 4 does not support PlayStation VR at launch, although Codemasters has not ruled out implementing full virtual reality compatibility in the future as they did with Dirt Rally which received PlayStation VR compatibility 10 months after Dirt Rally’s original release on PS4.
Dirt 4’s polished presentation is appropriate to the nature of racing which is realised by a close-up panning camera angle focusing on a rally car. The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, career mode menus, events menus, online multiplayer menus, online community events, online leaderboards, options menus and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, while tapping the touch pad opens the messages, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick.
Voice-overs include actor Ruaraidh Murray introducing game modes and gameplay elements in addition to real life co-drivers calling out their pace notes which can be customised on a 20 point slider for earlier or later calls. Male co-driver Nicky Grist was the long-term co-driver for late, great rally legend Colin McRae and had previously voiced the co-driver in the very first Colin McRae Rally game until Colin McRae Rally 2005 and ToCA Race Driver 3, while female co-driver Jen Horsey who returns from her role in Dirt 3; competes as a rally driver or co-driver in the Ontario Performance Rally Championship and drift racing, alongside having presented and produced TV coverage and written journalistic articles about motorsports. Sound effects include cars from each discipline accelerating as they shift through the gears, braking, jumping a distance with a heavy landing, flapping bodywork after crashing into another vehicle, trackside barriers or obstacles and a punctured tyre rattling against the surrounding bodywork; accompanied by a soundtrack of licensed rock and pop music. There is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation which could have produced the narrator’s voice-over when introducing gameplay elements during menus, alongside your co-driver’s reading of their pace notes throughout rally events.
The trophy list includes 49 trophies with 35 bronze trophies, 11 silver trophies, 2 gold trophies and 1 platinum trophy. Easier trophies include the Thanks for Coming bronze trophy for completing the welcome event; the First You Have to Finish bronze trophy for finishing in first place in a career event; the Now Watch This Drive silver trophy for completing all of the advanced driving techniques at the Dirt Academy; and the Chapter and Verse bronze trophy for setting any time in every challenge in a single joyride chapter. Harder trophies include the Always Believe bronze trophy for achieving 10 gold medals in joyride; the Precisely bronze trophy for setting a gold medal time in a time attack challenge without hitting a penalty marker; the Kenneth? What’s the Frequency? bronze trophy for smashing through 100 blocks within 60 seconds in joyride; the Double Yolker bronze trophy for taking two joker laps and winning a rallycross race; and the Limp Home bronze trophy for finishing three sectors of a rally stage with a flat tyre. Online multiplayer trophies include The Day Today bronze trophy for finishing in the second tier or higher in a daily community event; the Delta Force bronze trophy for finishing in the top tier in a delta daily community event; the Flavour of the Week silver trophy for completing back-to-back weekly community events; the Dirty Dozen gold trophy for completing all 12 stages of a monthly community event; the Tankflybosswalk bronze trophy for completing an event in jam session; the Taps Aff bronze trophy for finishing a rally stage in sunny conditions in community events; the Up and Up silver trophy for getting promoted to a new tier in pro tour; and the Sweaty silver trophy for completing 25 pro tour events. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 25 to 40 hours to platinum the trophy list.
There are five A.I. difficulty levels including competent, challenging, demanding, tough and brutal in which every step up in A.I. difficulty produces a faster, more aggressive field of opponents. A.I. controlled cars are also capable of crashing or braking down as a car will be seen on occasion parked on the side of the track with smoke billowing out of its engine. There are four preset difficulty levels including racer, pro and champion with a fearless preset difficulty level that the player must unlock as a reward for substantially progressing through the career mode with each level containing their own respective driving assists. For instance, racer keeps the A.I. difficulty to the lowest difficulty of competent, while affording unlimited restarts, auto repairs, anti-lock braking system set to 5, off-throttle braking on 2, automatic windscreen wipers for when mud splashes against them, the ability to utilise exterior cameras and launch control, stability control set to 2, traction control turned off, automatic transmission, no clutch override and time braking set to 5. In contrast, pro turns the difficulty up by increasing the A.I. difficulty to challenging, reducing the quantity of restarts to 10, switching auto repairs off, anti-lock braking system reduced to 3, off-throttle braking reduced to 1, stability control is turned off and time control braking reduced to 2. Elsewhere, the champion difficulty increases the A.I. difficulty to tough, further reduces the amount of restarts to 5, decreases the anti-lock braking system to 1, off-throttle braking switched off, launch control is turned off, transmission becomes semi-automatic, clutch override is switched on and time control braking is turned off.
Despite Dirt 3 and Dirt Showdown being two of the most entertaining split-screen multiplayer racing games; Dirt 4 follows on from Dirt Rally by not including split-screen multiplayer.
Dirt 4’s online multiplayer performance is just as good as single player with the same sense of speed, graphics and up to 8 players, although you cannot join an in-progress race and when creating your own Jam Session; you cannot fill out the field with A.I. controlled opponents which results in the player creating the online lobby having to wait for a second player to join before being able to start racing, while you can spectate a race from four camera angles when following any competitor, albeit only from the first complete race after you have joined the lobby and players cannot spectate from the driver’s eye cockpit view, dynamic camera or helicopter view.
Online multiplayer allows players to join an online lobby or create an online lobby in the returning Jam Session mode in which players can customise their online lobby to be a public or private session, gamer or simulation handling style, a race end timer for players in second position onwards to be able to complete the event between 30 to 180 seconds after the first placed driver has crossed the finishing line, allowing or not allowing assists and for the length of a championship to be anywhere from 1 to 6 events in any of the 4 disciplines on any of the discipline’s respective tracks or a track that you have previously played or created within career stages, my stages, stage history or received with a format that reflects the discipline such as up to 12 stages per event for rally and historic rally car events or your chosen amount of events in land rush or rallycross events. Choosing to join a Jam Session instead, allows players to select their preferred handling style, discipline, location, assists and session status before searching.
Players can also create their own online clubs reminiscent of Driveclub’s concept as players can recruit their friends to race within their team. However, you cannot create your club during gameplay as you will have to visit Dirt 4’s official website in order to create the club before inviting your friends to compete within it.
There are a variety of online community events including a daily community event titled Dirt Daily Live in which players have to attempt to set the fastest time on a particular rally track in a pre-selected car, while the Owner’s Club is a further daily community event in which every participant must own the designated vehicle before entering the event. There are two weekly events within separate car categories on different tracks were players are attempting to set the fastest time in an owned or one of a small collection of loaned vehicles. Monthly events are far more complicated as every player has one month to complete 12 pre-selected stages in a vehicle you own or one of four loaned cars, although you will have to pay for the loaned car through your prize money, so it may be a better idea to earn enough credits in career events to be able to afford your preferred car before entering a monthly event. Monthly event prize money is dependant on the tier you place within from the times you set with prize money increasing if you finish towards the top of a better tier out of the four tiers worth of gradually improving times and results.
Pro Tour is essentially the online multiplayer ranked mode that sees players vying to earn points for positive finishing positions to be able to earn promotion from their current tier into the tier above as you continue to progress from your starting place in the third division into the second division and onto the first division. On paper, Pro Tour’s concept is intriguing, but its undoing is the insistence that players are required to wait in matchmaking for as long as it takes until enough players are present in order for you to be able to participate. Pro Tour’s matchmaking can feel as though it is an infinite waiting period as it is somewhat questionable if Pro Tour’s structure of competing against players from within the same tier or division as you are situated at that particular moment; therefore making it impossible to compete against the same players when earning a significant promotion if your competitors have not been promoted at the same pace that you have which is perhaps the very reason as to why players are finding it almost impossible to join even a single Pro Tour event.
Online leaderboards focus on fastest lap times from each player with rankings covering every track across all 4 disciplines with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; driver name; the vehicle and vehicle class used during the player’s fastest time; the best time set by each player; and the difference between each player’s fastest lap time in comparison to the fastest time of all on that particular track, while players can compare their positioning on the leaderboards with players that occupy the top positions, globally, from your friends list and to immediately find and display your position within any given leaderboard.
Dirt 4’s replayability is technically infinite due to the sensational procedurally generated stages courtesy of the Your Stage feature, alongside the unpredictability of online multiplayer racing in addition to daily, weekly and monthly online community events as well as a career mode that fuses driving throughout four disciplines and team management, over 50 cars from past and present, officially licensed world rallycross championship tracks and cars and a multitude of difficulty levels, weather conditions and times of day that will keep players returning for quite some time.
Jason plays all genres of games and enjoys all different kinds of experiences that the games industry has to offer. Jason’s favourite PlayStation exclusive franchises throughout various eras include: Crash Bandicoot, God of War, Gran Turismo, inFamous, Killzone, Little Big Planet, MotorStorm, Resistance, Spyro the Dragon, Uncharted, Wipeout and various games that never became big name franchises. A special mention goes to Black Rock’s superb Split Second: Velocity as it is rather unbelievable that it will never receive a sequel.
Jason now mainly plays modern PlayStation games on home console and portably, but occasionally returns to the old retro classics on the 3DO, PS1 and PS2 such as discovering Cool Spot Goes to Hollywood 20 years after its original release on PS1. Jason is happy to see gaming coming full circle with updates for retro classics such as Alien Breed, Superfrog and Crash Bandicoot.
