funny to see the visual style from the 2000s making a comeback amidst the sea of high saturation youtube thumbnails and deconstructed internet culture. maybe i’m skewed by nostalgia hard but i'm genuinely enjoying this game. although the race events feel a bit short, they add to a more punchy and fast paced gameplay. the donut media tie in actually makes sense here in comparison to the donut media update in forza horizon, where they should have doubled down on top gear. the arcade physics are forgiving enough that you can full throttle the entire race for dumb fun, yet drifting around corners feels engaging and satisfying. the soundtrack is genre appropriate and adds so much flavor to the game. i appreciate how it fully embraces itself as a concussion of colors and aesthetics, which might be a turn off but at least it has a distinct identity and isn't afraid to be self referential. it's truly a breath of fresh air in an industry where many racing games have become stagnant and even regressed in pursuit to become palatable to the masses.
A bit of a blast from the past, design wise. Really feels like an early 2000s racing game with it's menu-based design and tacked-on story. Not necessarily a bad thing, as the graphics for this game modernizes the feel with some of the best lighting and particle effects I've seen in some time. But the game's handling struggles to feel all that challenging and the depth isn't quite there.
“Dirt 5” isn’t gonna blow anyone away, but if you’re looking for a decent off-road racer this will fit the bill. What it lacks in refinements and polish, it makes up for with the boldness of the racing itself. That’s assuming you’re into this type of racing, which I am not, and in that I hated this game so much. I was terrible at it. I chalk most of that up to personal preference tho.
Aesthetics and location wise this game is up there with the best in the Dirt series but the handling is far too arcade-y to satisfy rally enthusiasts like myself. It's too easy and you never get the sense that you're having to work for it to win a race. There's some good variety with challenges and it's nice to see an attempt at a story mode (with voice acting veterans Troy Baker and Nolan North) but it's just so tacked on.
I always liked the mainline Dirt games. Skipping the very first Colin Mcrae game, the 2nd was a blast. 3 was a treat. 4 was a rally... But it helped me to get introduced into that scene. All dirt games somehow worked. 5 was the weakest link for me but going back to the arcade roots was probably a necessary step. It had cool game modes had similar aspects to ONRUSH (which is another game I liked around those times) but it was nothing special.
Yet another episode of "Codemasters doesn't know what to with its franchises". Featuring decent visuals with an explosion of color that gets boring quickly, and cool audio design that gets rolled over by the annoying festival music.
Saddest of all is the gameplay, which can't decide whether it wants to be Dirt, OnRush, Motorstorm or an unholy combination of all of them. Oversteery cars, overly winding tracks and some of the worst fucking rubberbanding this side of Most Wanted. It's masterable, but dull.
Having two meh games in a row coupled with the EA acquisition leads me to believe this is the last we'll see of the franchise for a long-ass while, as Codemasters will probably just stick to pumping out F1 and WRC games yearly and nothing more.
Saddest of all is the gameplay, which can't decide whether it wants to be Dirt, OnRush, Motorstorm or an unholy combination of all of them. Oversteery cars, overly winding tracks and some of the worst fucking rubberbanding this side of Most Wanted. It's masterable, but dull.
Having two meh games in a row coupled with the EA acquisition leads me to believe this is the last we'll see of the franchise for a long-ass while, as Codemasters will probably just stick to pumping out F1 and WRC games yearly and nothing more.
the worst of the dirt series, i dont know if they messed up the car physics but it seems broken somehow. also why are developper afraid of damage model all of a sudden, back in dirt 1 2 and 3 you could really start with a clean car and end up driving a wreck trough the finish line. The game is also soooooo repetitve the only redeeming quality is the fact that codemasters seems to be the only racing game developper that still cares for local multiplayer.