DiRT Rally 2.0 DiRT Rally 2.0 - Codemasters Masterpiece

[Paul Jeffrey]

DiRT Rally 2.0 – Codemasters Greatest Achievement yet?

Following on from the surprisingly impressive DiRT Rally of 2015, Codemasters have plenty of expectation resting on their shoulders for the new game – and they have seriously delivered.

The wait for a true successor to the fabled Richard Burns Rally has been a long and often frustrating journey for rally fans, with many pretenders stepping into the ring only to be seemingly knocked straight back out again, including it has to be said Codemasters themselves - although the original DiRT Rally was certainly the closest yet to dethroning the widely acclaimed king of rally games.

Despite lacking an official World Rally Championship licence, and initially shipping without some of the more popular content from the original title, DiRT Rally 2.0 immediately comes out of the starting gates with plenty of headline grabbing new features and goodies, over and above the original title and even introducing things that have yet to be seen within the rally game genre.

Dropping the well-intentioned but poorly executed stage generator from Dirt 4, Codemasters have instead switched their attentions to developing deformable surfaces within this new release – introducing a crucial element of the real world category into the simulation and opening up a significant aspect of strategy and tyre management that was so starkly missing from the first title.

Codemasters have done stage deformation very, very well, adding to DiRT Rally 2.0 a significant increase into the depth and richness of the driving experience, whilst also increasing the useful playability of the game. With this new feature active on all locations within the title, in theory each pass of the same stage can present a wholly different driving experience, depending on the conditions of the roads and weather at the time of departure, as well as your running order in the rally itself. Start further back; expect to encounter a less than ideal road surface when out on stage.

This aspect alone makes DiRT Rally 2.0 worth the price of entry for me, and is one of the single biggest improvements Codemasters have made to any of their racing game franchise in the last 10 years. It’s that good.

The feel of the road under your wheels, and the way the car reacts to those different road surfaces, is improved considerably over the original game – itself a step above the competition in the rally game marketplace. Codemasters have clearly spent much time fine-tuning the car reaction to different racing surfaces, and these details shine through clearly when strapped into your virtual car of choice.

While we talk about cars, DiRT 2.0 does a very respectable job of presenting a nicely entertaining selection of vehicles right from the very off – with various different classes of car represented in the game more than making up for the lack of a modern WRC licence. Returning once again are the Group B monsters from the 1980’s, however Codemasters have attempted to mix things up a little by sprinkling a wide variety of different cars into the sim – so lovers of modern machinery still have something to enjoy thanks to the R5 class – featuring such beauties as the Skoda Fabia and VW Golf amongst others, while those of us with longer memories get a bonus with plenty of historic content – the ultimate king of which has to be the 90’s Group N era and the stunning Subaru Imprezza of Colin McRae, still iconic some 24 years after the great Scotsman took to the stages of the world in that wonderful car.

Traditional point-to-point rally cars aside, DiRT Rally 2.0 also does a very good job of representing the FIA World Rally cross category of racing – with plenty of content from the main series and various support categories available to do battle over what appear to be significantly updated and improved rally cross stages. More of which are set to come in future DLC packs for the game.

DiRT Rally 2.0 Full Car List

This category really has stepped up over the original DiRT Rally in almost every way, now offering a very convincing and visually stunning experience for players to enjoy. WRX has impressed me the most this time around, really stepping up in every aspect to present a very, very enjoyable representation of the category within DiRT Rally 2.0.

Moving on to the driving experience itself, I need to talk about wheel support for a little while – boring I know, but worth a few moments of your time.

I am using the SimCube OSW Direct Drive wheel for this test, and it needs to be noted that this isn’t a supported device out of the box, so some fun and games need to be had in order to get it working and producing force feedback within the sim. Plenty of google searching and overwriting of internal game files later, the wheel is now a functioning device within DiRT Rally! However, although “working” and producing force feedback, at least at this early stage I’ve been left very underwhelmed by the level of detail the force feedback is producing through my wheel. Ok, I’m getting some weight in the wheel, and the absolutely major hits and jolts are registering, but the very fine detail and the small things that communicate from the road surface to the car just aren’t present at the moment, which has frankly left me feeling a little bit disappointed.

The surface detail just doesn't feel present in the game, leaving me the impression of driving over smooth surfaces no matter what car I choose. I suspect this is specific to my own wheel, however increasingly I'm hearing of others with similar experiences, using different wheels, so that could be something to keep an eye out for as more and more people gain access to the title. What I will say however, is that the physics do feel more convincing than DR1, with more of a weight transfer feel than the previous release, and generally just stepping up the feeling over and above the original release.

DiRT 2.0 Supported Peripherals

Now to be fair I’m hearing plenty from the community about how they feel the handling of DR2.0 has improved over previous games, so I’m left wondering if it is more down to my own wheel configuration, coupled with the fact OSW isn’t supported out of the box, that is leaving me with a numb ffb experience from the title. With this in mind, during my review I am going to deliberately step away from further ffb and handling discussions, as I can’t be sure exactly which parameters are affecting my experience at this stage. I will say however, with the OSW patch and my current settings, for a driver at my (low) level of skill, the handling and feedback experience is ok, if a little "flat", although it certainly doesnt reach the heights achieved by so much else within the game…

… and those heights are very high indeed.

DiRT Rally 2.0 is shaping up to be the thing that pretty much every sim racer has been wanting to see since the glory days of Richard Burns Rally back 2004, small issues aside – hard-core, visually stunning, plenty of gameplay depth, audibly outstanding and with enough detail to present a game that you just want to keep heading back to for more and more punishment out on the stages.

Oh, and it finally has good mouse support to !

As for a career mode, DiRT 2.0 does play around with this idea, but somehow feels like it hasn’t quite gone far enough to capture the imagination over longer periods of time. Here you can hire and fire people for your team, however as a long time doubter of the usefulness of career mode style gameplay features, the lack of any depth in this department isn’t something that will keep me awake at night – anything that delays going out on stage – the actual core of the game – is best kept to a minimum in my opinion, and is a sideshow at best. It’s also worth pointing out that all cars and stages are accessible from the off, so no need for any long grinding through the game to get that car / rally combo you’ve been wanting to try.. Thankfully.

DiRT Rally 2.0 does some things very well, and some things can on occasion feel a little bit under loved, almost as if the studio have been that keen to make the action on stage as best as it can be, leaving the stuff on the edges of the driving experience a little bit behind the main gameplay itself. Frankly, this is something that is very easy to overlook, as the good things within this title are just exceptional, and more than make up for any of the small annoyances here and there.

Does DiRT Rally 2.0 deserve the unofficial crown as king of all rally Sims past and present? I think so, and by quite a margin.

DiRT Rally 2.0 will release February 26th 2019.

If you want to discussion the game with our passionate community, and read about the latest news, check out the RaceDepartment DiRT Rally 2.0 Sub Forum for a great place to share your mods, catch the latest news and chat about the game with our community. Give it a go, just keep it DiRTy!

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[Case_]

I'm just saying it looks like they pay you . Period. This sentence says everything:
Please, if you had that experience with the wheel, how you can say masterpiece?, if they fix it in the future, then make a new review and say Masterpiece, brilliant, fantastic or whatever your personal opinion but having problems with the wheel and saying is a masterpiece? is just smells rotten to me, sorry.

I wouldn't go as far as saying RD was paid to write this review, because if nothing else, I trust Paul to have his own opinions, but I have to admit, reading this review, all I could think was "well I guess I should stop reading RD reviews", because they tend to come off (to me, at least...YMMV) as the game being the best thing since sliced bread and the negatives or flaws tend to be glossed over or mentioned like something not really that important. Well, unless it's Project Cars 2 The way the reviews are worded, kinda sounding like a PR piece, probably doesn't help. Again, I wouldn't go as far as calling it a conspiracy, I think that's just how Paul is, focusing more on the positive and quite enthusiastic, but yeah, it's not all that useful as a review in the end.

I just chose to not mention that, because some people are fairly sensitive to any RD criticism and tend to respond strongly to that and it often doesn't end well, and I'm "popular" enough as it is

As usual, people picking faults rather than enjoying it for what it is! It's an early access release, get over yourselves.

I wouldn't call the game "Early access" just because it released 4 days early for some... that term refers to games like Dirt Rally was or ACC is (under development, lower price than actual release), and when a game is in Early Access, it's specified on Steam page
It's full priced full release. Not early access (you don't send out review copies of EA titles either) People paid more to get it first, not less. So it should work.

Exactly. You really can't call a game "early access" when it is a fully promoted public release four days ahead of the "official" release date *and* the people who got it paid *more* to get the game earlier. It's a marketing stunt, nothing more, disguised as "early access". When I was calling the game "early access" earlier, I was being sarcastic, because this is no early access release, people are just paying more to get the final game 4 days earlier because they can. It's a mockery of early access if anything.

 

[Steve007]

Hope they update the FFB, feels like there's at least 1 effect completely missing (road/suspension texture) due to some bug. I hope that's the case. Otherwise great title, but FFB is pretty big elephant in the room. It's not related to DD wheel, I have it on T500 and people with Logitech wheels report it too

There's new driver's out for the T500 I have it with the new driver's and find it very good straight out the box.
https://support.thrustmaster.com/en/product/t500rs-en/

 

[JaimeDK]

Paul is, focusing more on the positive and quite enthusiastic, but yeah, it's not all that useful as a review in the end.

I just chose to not mention that, because some people are fairly sensitive to any RD criticism and tend to respond strongly to that and it often doesn't end well, and I'm "popular" enough as it is

Well I call that review a foot massage to Codemaster, I think as users we want the truth, the positive things and of course the negative things.
If people here has any doubt that they don't get any money from any company good luck, check how the influencers work, this is a lot like that ****, people reviewing stuff they get for free and get paid for that review, for sure.
I don't give a **** if they want to ban me.
If this website was just to organize races and competitions, well, they need money for servers and so on, so is understandable to pay to be a member, no problem with that, but if you do reviews and also some companies have more presence than others, I'm still wondering what kind of races we do on ETS and ATS (remember folks this is RACE DEPARTMENT)... , again something is rotten in the kingdom of denmark....
Farwell!

 

[Kranky Pantz]

I have an issue with the soft lock on classic rally cars. I tried with both 900 and 1080 degrees set in the Thrustmaster control panel, but the issue remains:

After calibrating the T300 in-game and turning the soft lock on, the hand animation is fine with rallycross and modern rally cars, but it is off with classic cars (the virtual wheel turns less than my actual movements). If I set the "Cockpit driver & wheel" option to "Wheel only", then everything is fine, but I can't seem to correct the hand animation. Anyone else with the same problem?

(Btw I see everyone is complaining about the FFB, but It feels ok in my case )

I've never understood why people who use an actual racing wheel while playing would want to have a duplicate one on screen.
Why not just use the dash or hood view, since that's what you would see in real life anyways?
Think of it as your arms + hands are the driver, the wheel + base are the steering column, and the gauges + screen are the dash/windshield...just as in real-life.

Whenever I race using a 2D screen, I always choose a view WITHOUT an on-screen wheel, as it breaks the immersion and becomes distracting when seeing both.

The opposite is true for VR, where obviously having an on-screen wheel + hands adds to the immersion.

To each their own though, but perhaps try a dashboard view (or hood view) and see if that helps

 

[giga1tr]

I really do not understand why Heusinkveld pedals are not supported! what a nonsense, unbelievable! I have the deluxe edition for nothing! I'm really angry

 

[Case_]

Why not just use the dash or hood view

Well I can tell you one reason why not to use a dash view in Dirt (Rally) games - dash view has a fixed FOV. Not sure about hood view off the top of my head.

(I can also tell you why I personally choose to have the virtual wheel and arms on in sims - because it looks better on video.)

 

[MarkR]

On with the game and Argentina at night in the career mode is just superb. The stages are so claustrophobic and bumpy. This is the first time I have run this stage so it includes a couple of mistakes. I was running 4th in class so attempting to both push and take care. Even with the mistake this was a stage win and an overall 2nd place class finish after 4 stages.

I've used the wheel view to show that the wheel is reacting to the stage surfaces, this is exactly how the TX458 wheel in my hands reacts too, perfectly 1-1. I have to move my hands constantly to counteract the car moving around on the loose surface, if that isn't FFB causing that wheel movement someone will need to explain what it is. As the gravel pushes under the wheels a dab of handbrake brings the rear of the car around, it's all so natural. If a bang average racing gamer and track driver like me can get such a good experience from this game I find it a real stretch to reach the 'broken' descriptions others have used. Not to your liking maybe, yes, broken absolutely not.

Admittedly I stared out before Rally Games even looked 'as good' as this, and force feedback meant mashing the keys on a Spectrum, but I did enjoy this one back in the day, it's all we had.

For me DiRT Rally 2.0 is a great game, quite probably the best rallying game to date and I'm sure it will improve further yet. Even the rallycross is good fun and that is just an add on for me rather than a reason to buy the game.

Truly brilliant, well played Codies!

 

[ShredatorFIN]

There's new driver's out for the T500 I have it with the new driver's and find it very good straight out the box.
https://support.thrustmaster.com/en/product/t500rs-en/

Yeah I had the old driver earlier, which probably made things worse. But imo it still needs some road texture. Main parts are in place, and what's there feels good. But for example, when the stage is all rutted (late running order), you can't feel those ruts in the steering at all

 

[balage06]

I've never understood why people who use an actual racing wheel while playing would want to have a duplicate one on screen.

That's fantastic, but I still want it to work properly.

 

[Hoksu]

A masterpiece that can't be played because it requires connection to Racenet which is broken
A masterpiece with broken FFB

DR2 might have many qualities, and it might even become a very good game IF these game-breaking issues are addressed. Or it might not, can't be sure. But calling a game a masterpiece when it's fundamentally broken?

I loved Dirt Rally, and was very much looking forward to this game. But once again it's the sad reality of release first, fix later if ever. It's easy to become cynical when this is what you get for being excited about an upcoming game.

 

[AadHofman]

It seems one cannot escape marketing these days...

Anyhoo, I enjoyed driving the Mini through the Poland stage. Which has been cut in two. And then to smaller bits and reversed. Yes, there's only one longish stage per country, as in DR1. Looks nice though.

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Is it possible to turn off hands and steering wheel in graphic settings?

 

[MarkR]

Is it possible to turn off hands and steering wheel in graphic settings?

Yes a view without wheel and hands is available.

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

@MarkR Thank you. I like default view but without hands and steering wheel .

 

[Ole Andreasen]

What a nice conversation here

As always

 

[Ole Andreasen]

something is rotten in the kingdom of denmark....
Farwell!

I totally disagree with you on every point my friend, but hey it's an opinion... And opinions are like axxholes, everybody's got one, right?
But...
Actually it's "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark" and it's "Farewell"
When you quote, at least quote correctly, and check your spelling.

 

[MapoUK]

I really do not understand why Heusinkveld pedals are not supported! what a nonsense, unbelievable! I have the deluxe edition for nothing! I'm really angry

My HE Pro's work just fine, remember to select the HE pedals in the input menu, then assign the pedals from there. You have to assign your bindings for each connected piece of hardware, I made the mistake of trying to assign the pedals under the wheel and it just wouldn't work!

Hope this helps get it working for you.

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Huge disappointment with RD and @Paul Jeffrey, sorry folks I'm not going to be a premium anymore, looks like you get paid by companies to just advertising their products no matter how bad at launch is.
I thought in this community I could find honest reviews of simracing titles but as It has been said here a shitty FFB plus selling a game in pieces and so on... If I contribute is to make you free and independent from the big companies not just to say masterpiece to something like DIrt 2.0.

Hello

I've not read everything here in the comments yet (super busy), but I felt compelled to respond here. Please note, this isn't an argument starter, but something I wanted to clear up as this annoyed me.

Firstly - paid by devs? Nope, not at all. If I please them, or piss them off, I really don't mind either way - we are way too big in size for critical comments to mean they won't engage with us in future, so I don't need to "keep them sweet". Which is a nice bonus I must say

Now why do I think this is a masterpiece? Well in the context of purely Codemasters, for me this is technically the best game I think they have ever produced (ok so TOCA might have been something pretty epic, but the tech has moved on since then). So from Codies POV, this is the best they have produced.. better than the also impressive F1 2018.

Now from a rally POV, I think it is fair to say that RBR is regarded as pretty much the king of the genre. Because RBR is getting very long in the tooth now, even with community mods, I feel it only holds top spot because nothing better came along, not because by the standards of today it is anything particularly spectacular. With DiRT 2.0 I think the inclusion of stage degradation, the quality of the stages themselves, the audio, the graphics, the customisation and even the car choices and feel are the best available in rally games (note how none of this written here or in the review references it as a "sim", even though sim elements come into play for sure).

As such, being imho the best of what Codies have done, and also a significant step up over DR1 which was itself very, very good, to call it a masterpiece, especially when put up against similar rally games, is a very fair statement.

Now as for the wheel ffb, yeah totally agree this isn't as good as it could be, but it does the job for now, and I personally think that even at the current state it is at, that's still good enough when compared to the other pros and cons to consider this an exceptional rally game. Or, if you will, a masterpiece. The current ffb doesn't spoil the game, but room to make it ever better certainly exists.

As Ross mentioned earlier in the comments, this is my take on it, from the time I've had behind the wheel. Your own mileage may vary of course.

Now to go back to the top of matter and the suggestion that I am in some way "bought"... well that sir is frankly offensive, and something of a daft statement to make. I would suggest you think very carefully before making a comment such as that towards someone who commits uncountable hours of their own free time for the good of the community, when you yourself contribute absolutely nothing. Even going so far as to say you are stopping paying Premium, which helps keep this site alive, in some kind of tin pot protest to an imagined injustice.

That sir, is offensive.

However, we are all entitled to our own opinions and that is fine. Its just that this particular opinion annoyed me more than most

To reiterate this isn't an attempt to start an argument, but I think it fair I have the opportunity to counter your comment with a reply of my own

 

[Andy_J]

I suppose the external replays will be as bad as the original and just about every other rallye sim. Except for Seb Leobs.

 

[LEDzZzEPP]

Masterpiece?