Dirt 4

[Daehawk]

Steam

Dirt 4 rewriting the rulebook

[jztemple2]

I really like the "Your Stage" idea. I get rather bored running the same stages in DiRT Rally even with different vehicles. I'm a little surprised that there is no Steam Workshop support, I thought that perhaps this would be the mechanic for sharing tracks, assuming that tracks can be shared.

This reminds me of another rally game from some years ago that had locations like those proposed in Dirt 4, and an editor to build your own stages. But the editor was complex and clunky so it didn't go too far. Hopefully Dirt 4 will learn from that experience and make it more fun.

[jztemple2]

More good info, Dirt 4 Gameplay: 6 Things You Need to Know About Dirt 4 from outsidexbox. My takeaway highlights:

- The game uses (used?) the My Stage stage generator to build the stages for the campaign, resulting in 300(!) unique stages. I really like this idea that you aren't going to plow through the same stages in your campaign, just in different vehicles.

- The narrator mentioned that the My Stage custom stage builder process works by you picking the location, length and complexity of the stage and the game generates the stage. You can then tweak the time of day and the weather. Five locations in the world are included as the basis for the My Stage robot.

- No official WRC vehicles in the game, as the rights to those vehicles are tied up by other games. This really doesn't bother me as I don't mind if I'm just racing something similar, as you can see in the Automobilista game.

- Also no recreations of actual WRC rally stages, for the same reason. As before, I don't really mind.

- The game does have the blessing of the official Rallycross folks, so there will be five actual Rallycross venues recreated in the game.

- There will be two distinct physics and control modes in the game. One is supposedly even more realistic than DiRT Rally, which might finally drive me (ha!) to getting a wheel. The other is called "Gamer Mode", which more of an arcade mode, designed for folks with gamepads, but still pretty realistic. And the online leaderboards will be split between the two modes.

- And 50+ cars, which is cool, although that includes vehicles from the Land Rush mode, which includes Trophy Trucks.

[Octavious]

I have a free key to Dirt Rally from the bundle. First person to PM me gets it...

*Taken*

[jztemple2]

I broke down and preordered from GMG to get my 20% discount. One week to go.

[jztemple2]

First reviews are coming in, since I believe the game is available on consoles today. This one from Gamespot is very complimentary. The review intro is below:

2015's Dirt Rally was a game designed for off-road enthusiasts. With its steep learning curve, uncompromising difficulty, and an adherence to nerve-wracking authenticity, it was an altogether different beast than the Dirt series' more histrionic entries. Rather than go back to the mainstream, American flavoured well with Dirt 4, Codemasters' latest feels like a natural continuation of Dirt Rally's grounded, white-knuckle philosophies; but with one key difference: there's been a concerted effort this time around to appeal to both veterans and newcomers alike, bridging the gap between the impenetrable and the accessible.

[Octavious]

It's pretty much Dirt Rally with more of a game wrapped around it. I would be shocked if they turned around and screwed this one up and it looks like they haven't. Didn't realize the console version comes out today. I might consider grabbing the PS4 version over the pc. Hmm...

[Octavious]

Oh and I should mention I watched a video of how the track generation thing works and it's brilliant. It's super simple and the tracks it generates actually look like real tracks. That feature alone makes it a must buy for me.

[Octavious]

Went by the store at lunch and they had it. I resisted as I really should finish the Witcher, but we'll see if that even lasts the day.

[jztemple2]

DiRT 4 is now available for pre-load on Steam. It would appear that the game will be unlocking early Friday afternoon here on the USA East Coast.

[Kasey Chang]

There's a reddit impression on Dirt 4 from Dirt Rally player. Seems they made the driving model a bit more accurate and less forgiving.

[Octavious]

I grabbed it on Tuesday for the ps4. I put in 4 hours that day, but didn't have any time yesterday. I had a blast. I don't care which is more realistic or blah blah blah. The weather was the big standout for me. I did one course where there was dense fog in the middle and it was terrifying. I don't recall anything like that in DR. I also have a horrible memory so there is that.

[jztemple2]

It seems that the game has been released on Steam, downloading the final files right now. Early Steam reviews are "Mixed", lots of complaints

[Octavious]

I have no mixed reviews. 6 hours and I can't really find much to complain about. I'm just having a blast flying off courses in new and interesting ways... Maybe there's PC issues?

[jztemple2]

I have no mixed reviews. 6 hours and I can't really find much to complain about. I'm just having a blast flying off courses in new and interesting ways... Maybe there's PC issues?

Some are PC unique, frame rate and graphics, but a number of folks are saying the handling is a downgrade from DiRT Rally. Me, I'm still waiting... the files have downloaded but it seems to be taking forever to install. I don't know how much time I'll be able to get on it tonight (probably not much) and tomorrow we're busy all day, so maybe no impressions till later in the evening.

I'm going to be playing on an X360 controller and probably with the "Gamer" driving physics rather than the "Sim" option, since I'm old and whatnot.... Ah, installed! Going off to play.

[jztemple2]

Well, I've put in forty minutes, which is tinkering a bit with the menus and running the tutorial race four times to determine which of the two handling modes I prefer (as I expected, "Gamer" rather than "Simulation"). And it also rates how well you drove the car and surprisingly it thinks I'm at Champion difficultly, one step down from Fearless . I'll try that for now. I also created a stage in Your Stage and even though I picked the simplest and shortest it was still pretty nice. I also ran the very first career rally event and placed first, but it was a pretty simple stage and hey, I am a Champion according to the tutorial!

Impressions are very good. My rig is Intel i7 4770K 3.5GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 780 3GB, Win7 64bit Home Premium, 480GB SSD main drive. I'm running graphics at High, one step down from Ultra and everything looks great at 1920x1200 and I'm getting a steady 60 fps in rallying. I'm using an X360 controller, just as I did in DiRT Rally and it works fine. The driving physics are easier than they were in DiRT Rally, which is fine with me as I seemed to crash out a lot in DR.

I'm pretty happy with what I'm seeing so far, but it is early days.

[jztemple2]

I'm at 73 minutes in the game now and off to bed. I've done several of the Dirt Academy lessons which are very good. I'm learning a bit, but I still suck at driving at speed.

I also did a Community Event and since it's Throwback Thursday it was in a Mini on a snowpacked road. The stage (of eight segments) was 8.27 miles long and I completed it in 9:33. It will be later today as to whether that's a good time or not. I did manage to not roll the car but I did bang it up a bit. And since I'm playing in Gamer mode, rather than Simulation, I actually completed the stage; I often went completely into the ditches when running these in DiRT Rally.

Driving impressions are pretty good. It's not as hard as Dirt Rally to drive, but then I would expect that in Gamer Mode. I'm using the default Champion difficulty assist settings, which I imagine are fairly minimal. I'll tinker with those once I get more time in the game. The good news is that the for those of us using controllers rather than wheels and who are getting on in years, rally driving isn't as daunting as in Dirt Rally. For me that's a good thing.

[Kasey Chang]

Supposedly, the only way to drive the Mini (I assume this was the OLD Mini) is master the Scandinavian flick and change the setup so your brake bias is almost all the way in the back so you can swing the car around even if it's FWD.

[jztemple2]

I've played another hour and I've now discovered in Career mode the fun of having your own team. I made 48K from last night's community event, placing just above half the field; I wonder how they would feel about knowing they got beat by a 63 year old . Anyway, with that money I bought a car and the game said, hey, wanna start your own team? So I did and I now have my own paint scheme and colors. And I've started hiring staff members, which is more interesting than it was in DiRT Rally. And I also am buying/building facilities. These aren't like those in Motorsport Manager, rather it's a catering upgrade and more spots in your garage and the ability to have more than one sponsor at a time. A nice update to the way things were done in Dirt Rally.

And I went back and re-ran the first rally event and my sponsors weren't impressed with my second place. Apparently this is a mechanism to discourage players from just running old events over and over. Still, interesting.

I also ran today's Community Race, some eight miles in Wales through fog . Not for the faint of heart. I'm very happy with my result, not all that fast but I avoided going into any ditches or trees. I'm really liking this Gamer mode. I have all assists off except for a little ABS, I even have restricted myself to in-car views only for a few more percentage points of payoff.

So far, a big thumbs up from me.

[Punisher]

Supposedly, the only way to drive the Mini (I assume this was the OLD Mini) is master the Scandinavian flick and change the setup so your brake bias is almost all the way in the back so you can swing the car around even if it's FWD.

Is there an English version of this game?

[Kasey Chang]

Here is a better explanation...

https://www.reddit.com/r/simrally/comme ... t_braking/

[jztemple2]

Got in some more time on the game today, in spite of a busy schedule doing some work on the house plus watching racing (Formula E from Berlin, F1 qualifying from Montreal, America's Cup from Bermuda and Indycar from Texas ).

I'm still liking the rallying in the game. Gamer mode was just made for me and my X360 controller. Assists off I'm still competitive, so I'm guess that the experts are finding it too easy. Not for me. Also I'm really liking the way the team mechanisms work with the staff and facilities, much better than Dirt Rally. And I like the idea of looking for cars in the classifieds, it's fun.

I also did a Landrush series with the buggy and won all the three events. And then I bought a Crosskart and started that series and absolutely stank. The car is almost uncontrollable at speed. And as I ran practice after practice, I asked myself, am I having fun? And the answer was no. Even in the buggies where I did well, it was still smashing into other vehicles and it was more luck that skill, plus several restarts. So I've decided I'm going to sell my Crosskart and I'm also going to sell the Trophy class Landrush truck I got as a pre-order bonus. It will free up two garage slots and give me cash. And I think this is going to be my thinking on Rallycross as well.

I also tried several co-drivers in the rally races and found I like the young lady best. I've been married 37 years and I find it easier to understand her than the others .

I also like the sponsor system, although the payoffs aren't huge. I guess that's OK, it keeps that part of the game from being too dominant.

Finally, I want to address the issue of graphics, specifically the details on the stages generated by the Your Stage system. That includes all the rally stages in career mode by the way. I've seen comments over in the Steam forums about how boring and a letdown these Dirt 4 stages are from Dirt Rally, but it seems to me that I'd much rather have the nearly-infinite number of different stages possible in the game than the fixed set in Dirt Rally. By the time I'd reached 40 hours in Dirt Rally I was bored with the stages, I'm seeing the idea of all these different ones as something I'd prefer.

[Octavious]

You can totally play sim with the controller. Hell on QT3 the one guy was posting the top times in Dirt Rally playing with a controller. I'd love to have a wheel setup, but there's just no f'n room for that crap right now.

[gbasden]

You can totally play sim with the controller. Hell on QT3 the one guy was posting the top times in Dirt Rally playing with a controller. I'd love to have a wheel setup, but there's just no f'n room for that crap right now.

Controller and sim just don't go together. It's like saying you could play a flight sim with a mouse. It's just not a real simulation.

[jztemple2]

So, some more impressions after twelve hours of gameplay on Steam. Still enjoying the rally portion, I'm ignoring the other stuff as I discovered I really don't care about circuit racing. No lockups or crashes to desktop. Running at High graphics (one step down from Ultra) I've getting a rock solid 60 fps. I'm really liking how the staff and facilities system works, it makes career mode a bit more interesting. Heck, I've even bought the chief engineer Perk Clean My Car; I thought it was just cosmetic, but it turns out it helps make the time determinations more accurate in the service area actions to figure out how long it will take to fix stuff. Be sure to select Options when looking at each staff member, that's where you find Perks and other, well, options .

I'm still playing in Gamer mode using my X360 controller. Overall difficulty is a 85%. I'm playing the AI at second from the top setting and it's a sweet spot for me. I can win stages against the AI but I have to push and as Denis Jenkinson coined the phrase, sometimes I have to drive at 11/10th to capture that stage win. Good stuff, just what I want to get out of a game.

Still really impressed with the "Your Stage" generator which Codemasters used to make the Career stages. At first I was a bit dubious and maybe thought I was seeing too many familiar scenes from the same rally location, but now that I've put in a few more hours I'm impressed with how different the stages at the same location can be. For instance, in Spain I was finding a lot of open space roads with curbs and then I'm running through tight gullies; add in some really steep ascents and descents and it's a "wow" moment. Australia is just plain insane at times, I'll be weaving left and right and suddenly it's a several hundred meter long straight shot down a road, except that it has bumps and dips and suddenly you're flying. And I haven't even done any of the snow locations yet.

And another shoutout to the developers for the lighting effects. When the sun is low and suddenly you go into the woods the road becomes hard to make out and it becomes really, really important to listen to the co-driver. This is also true in heavy rain. I've set the difficulty option to "no exterior cameras" but in the only heavy rain stage I've done had to go to an outside view. Maybe I'll be braver next time.

Also I'm seeing some of the cool little extras that have been included in the stages. I had a butterfly flit across the windscreen just before a start, which was a bit startling. Also during a stage the occasional drone right at eye level in front of me (they need to ban those things!) and cars broken down partially on the road. The coolest thing I've seen is a helicopter hovering right over the course, throwing up such dust as to blind me for a moment. A really scary moment

One last thing maybe someone knows. In the screenshot below, you'll notice that around the trophy there are two filled and two open segments. I'm not sure what those represent, and in other cases I've seen all four segments filled in and sometimes none. Anyone know what those represent?

[jztemple2]

Interesting article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun from someone different than the usual gaming journalist... Wot I Think: Dirt 4

The intro:

This is my first time contributing to RPS, so I’m going to start out with a little (pertinent) information: I’ve driven a lot of cars. As an automotive journalist I’ve sat behind the wheels of everything from the aggressively unremarkable Dodge Dart to brilliant machines like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series, the Subaru WRX STi, the Audi R8 V10, a rally-prepped Ford Fiesta, and even a pair of formula cars. I’m pretty quick on tarmac.

And his conclusion:

As it stands, Dirt 4 offers infinite replayability for stage rallies, and some good options in other disciplines. I’m hoping that in the future Codemasters is going to add some more courses for Land Rush and Rallycross (GRC, with its Red Bull addled, Vegas-XTREME antics and massive jumps would be a great addition), but for now I’ll be happily enjoying the bountiful content in the main game. Dirt 4 is right up there in the top tier with iRacing and Project Cars, and it has me loving low traction in a way I haven’t before. I’m itching to give it another go in the meatspace… this time with the ditches as mere scenery.

I'm up to 17 hours on the game and still enjoying it, but I'm further into the Career mode where a championship is composed of two events each with five stages, which can eat up a good hour of gaming time. That's nothing wrong with the game, but my old joints are starting to feel the pain of too many hours racing in just a few days

[jztemple2]

A short YouTube clip that shows why I'm the Wild Man of Wales.

[gbasden]

I have to say I'm disappointed that they didn't put in the VR support that they did for Dirt Rally. I'd have bought this game already if it was in, but after playing Project Cars and DR with my Rift I can't go back.

[jztemple2]

I've uploaded a YouTube video of me running a snow stage in Sweden, Snow is really, really harder than you think!

[jztemple2]

And one more video. Running a rally stage in Michigan, at night and in the fog. Oh, and a tire goes down. Do I want to change it? No thanks, I think I'll just ride it out on the rim.

[Octavious]

I really wish I could play with a steering wheel, but the desk I have won't fit the clamp and also my wife might shiv me. She made me put the old wheel into storage many moons ago. Do they make anything decent that doesn't clamp to a desk? Asking for a friend.

[jztemple2]

I really wish I could play with a steering wheel, but the desk I have won't fit the clamp and also my wife might shiv me. She made me put the old wheel into storage many moons ago. Do they make anything decent that doesn't clamp to a desk? Asking for a friend.

Hmm, don't know about that. I use an X360 controller but know it would be better with a wheel. I've looked at wheel and pedal sets but they seem too expensive for just one game.

[jztemple2]

Another video, this time in Sweden: DIRT 4 | In the snow, here I go, hope the roof holds.

[jztemple2]

And one final one for tonight, Snow, a dashcam, a helo and a flat.

[Daehawk]

Helo was totally unhelpful. It started the mess.

Kinda strange how on almost all the places the crowd stands is on the outside of a curve or turn. Id stand on the inside so if the car lost it Id be ok.

[jztemple2]

Yup, it's been three years, but I recently started playing it again. Here is an especially tough rally stage in Australia. I took out some fences but left behind a door in exchange. Sorry that the resolution doesn't seem great at times, the source video is really sharp.