Dirt 2 - Time To Drive Dirty On Your Xbox 360

Dirt 2 isn't just a off road racing game suitable for gamers who prefer to get dirty, it's also a racing title that's easy enough for the casual driver to pick up and play. Dirt 2 still retains its rally focus with rally-cross, Baja, and cross-country racing, but they have changed the career structure and online ability of this title to keep the series at the front of the grid.

Dirt 2 increases the importance of the car purchasing experience in this title and it improves the entertainment value over the original Dirt. You'll feel a lot closer to the cars you purchase and enjoy riding in a car you know you paid for. The performance of your purchases isn't as upgradable and doesn't offer the ability to customize as Forza. They do however provide a nice selection of items you can use to personalize the look of your cars interior. You can purchase conversion kits as you progress that allow your ride to improve as your career standing improves. This design made me have pride in the cars that I drove into the ground over the miles of dirt roads that they carried me over.

The only complaint I have with Dirt 2 is that you end up having to race on some of the tracks too often, which is a problem with racing games like Grid. You need to win on these tracks quite a few times, so tracks like Battersea's rally cross track will become very familiar to you. This is a minor problem that really doesn't affect the driving experience and the fun of playing Dirt 2.

Sitting and watching Dirt 2 is certainly entertaining, they included a presentation that's gorgeous to look at and very appealing to the eye. Eventually you're going to want to get behind the wheel and take this title for a ride and this is where the presentation kicks into high gear. The cockpit mode you'll see while driving has some amazing water splash effects for your windshield and the dirt flies in the air beautifully to obscure your vision as it would in the real world.

The soundtrack included with Dirt 2 isn't ground breaking but it keeps you entertained during the races. The voice over's by Travis Pastrana and Ken Block are real and you can even select a nice American female or Scottish gentleman as the voice of your co-pilot.

Dirt 2 has a nice sensation of speed that immerses your senses in the visual wonderland that Codemasters has created and pumps the adrenalin straight into your blood stream. The online portion of Dirt 2 has been expanded and improved with full-on multiplayer races and the traditional staggered start of a rally competition. This title tracks your statistics in all the modes and presents them to you as you progress through your rally racing career in a useful and satisfying way. It even tracks your online adventures, like how long you were airborne and then seamlessly adds them to the weekly online leader board tournaments.

They added a garage and achievements to the career mode, along with an open structure that makes Dirt 2 better than the original Dirt. New world locations open up nicely as you progress through the career races and there's always another race for you to take part in.

Dirt 2 has hair raising rally racing, more technical rally cross tracks and even off-road truck races that add a nice variety to the game play. It has the sophistication of a racing simulation and enough easy to learn driving fun for both casual and hardcore racing fanatics. Dirt 2 definitely puts Codemasters into the front of the racing-genre grid in the up coming race for your virtual racing time.