Apologies for the wall of text....
Bearing in mind that I was playing RBR earlier today, jumping into DiRT 4 was a bit of a shock. DiRT 4, particularly on gravel, just has so much grip.
To me, it feels like "the Forza of rally games" - designed for the mass market, but with simulation elements. Compared to RBR or even DiRT Rally, this will take some getting used to...
Compared to RBR and even more so to
Rally, the change of balance of the car when going from on-throttle to off-throttle on gravel is much more extreme and this seems prevalent in some cars more than others (in FWD cars I expected this behaviour to a certain degree - but it also seems to vary between cars of the same class). It's very off-putting, particularly on the brakes. Hairpins are simply not satisfying at all as the car just has so much grip at low speeds
Tarmac is not bad, but I miss the responsive bite that the DiRT Rally tyres had upon turn-in, particularly for FWD cars, even if it may or may not have been unrealistic. Sweden is really nice, and I'm personally thankful that the snowbanks are more forgiving!
I'm liking what I've seen of the stage designs thus far. You do have to listen to your co-driver and he or she is usually pretty accurate, which gives me confidence to attack the turns. Elevation changes are very much appreciated.
Good news! You're no longer guarenteed to crash the moment you bring a wheel ever so slightly off the stage. The car feels much more settled than
Rally in this regard (and is also much more predicatable over bumps & jumps - no more praying for your life during each and every jump!). On the other hand, the rear end of the car suddenly seems to lose all of its grip in these situations, which makes life difficult.
As a "controller" player, I tried the chase cam view which worked well for me in
Rally. Nope. For whatever reason it serves to make Rallying a harrowing experience. My experience with on-car cameras was completely different, for the better. Chase cam is still neat for RX and Landrush, though.
Speaking of crashes - DiRT 4 is extremely satisfying in this respect if you do muck it up. The physics and damage models are definitely a step up from DiRT Rally
RBR still has it beat in a few areas (particularly sensitivity) though.
Rallycross feels good - it really benefits from the reduced floatiness of cars compared to DiRT Rally
Group Bs feel tame as they, like the rally versions, are neutered and in RallyX it really makes it feel like just a feeder series to the Supercars. Landrush is just downright fun, although the tyres seem to have an awful lot of traction...
Which brings me to my single biggest bugbear - to me it feels like there is too much traction in places (who needs traction control - says the keyboard player?), particularly on gravel and in RWD cars. Realistic or not, I feel that a Lancia 037 with no traction control should be trying to spear me off the road when I apply full throttle - the RWD experience has been brutally neutered. As said many times over in the community, the gravel tyres have tons of lateral grip and it makes the gravel rallying experience the worst part of DiRT 4 for me
On a different note, team customization is not very in-depth but it is still a nice feature - I have a car that looks about as good as an Opel Adam can get! It's also really nice that you gain credits just for doing free play events.
As a skinner, it's disappointing to read that Codemasters have taken to further trying to restrict modding capabilities. Before you get unlocking stuff there's a lot of plain-liveried cars that I really would like to see with something more realistic and/or inventive, official content or not.
On a positive note - attention to detail is insane. The service areas, car detail (you can see fans spinning, etc), strength of signs, fences & bollards (they're no longer immovable solid objects
), the whole presentation of the game... I love those little bits. I also love the soundtrack.
The summary;
The good
- Your Stage
- Co-drivers
- Landrush
- Rallycross improved
- Sweden improved
- Crashing
- Attention to detail
- Soundtrack
- Visual presentation
- Team system
The bad
- Physics feel less sim-my
- Ridiculously grippy tyres
- (Really these two are pretty big negatives - they serve to castrate the RWD experience and make gravel not very pleasurable)
- Hairpins
- Chase cam in rallying is dreadful, even to controller players
- Tougher on computers than Rally (particularly Wales)
- Not sure if there is enough content
Do I feel that this is a compelling sim game? No - as I said earlier, I'm treating it as a "Forza of rally games".
Will I keep playing DiRT Rally? Of course - I have unfinished business with Pant Mawr! Seriously though, DiRT 4 is not a successor to DiRT Rally, intentional or not -
Rally is hardcore and seriously fun to play. I can also use custom skins on it.
Will I be asking for a refund? Honestly.... that remains to be seen. I haven't really made up my mind on it yet. Cancelling my physical pre-order and getting the digital version instead has at least easily opened up that possibility. (I'll be keeping the soundtrack, though!
)
Am I jumping on the "I hate DiRT 4" bandwagon? No - there are some good things about this game. Sadly it's not completely good
I should stress that I play with a keyboard and that I've never driven a rally car for real in my life
So of course, this is all my own opinion, feel free to agree or disagree - but hopefully this will have been helpful to some people