On medium settings, the game still looked very good, and ran smoothly at about 70 FPS. On ultra high settings, I was able to consistently to hit a stable 40 FPS with the RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU in my gaming laptop. To Codemasters’ credit, Dirt 5 is scalable so that you can decide whether you want better graphics or a higher framerate. Of course, that’s difficult to notice when you’re speeding by at 90 mph. Trees barely move, and spectators are as wooden as ever. Cars are detailed well enough, but there’s very little happening on the sidelines during races. Dirt 5 consistently keeps the experience fresh, even mid-race.Īs impressive as the dynamic weather effects are, graphics are somewhat spotty. That’s pretty cool, but what’s really game changing is when a sandstorm suddenly kicks up on a Monaco track, or a calm nighttime drive through Norway is interrupted by heavy thundersnow. The sun regularly sets or rises on many of them, completely changing the look of each track. But the best part of these courses is the dynamic changes as you progress. Any rally car is going to be able to run circles around the competition on the Manhattan tracks on a sunny day, while driving on the frozen East River is a struggle for even the mightiest racing truck. Don’t expect a roster of vehicles on par with Gran Turismo, but the cars, trucks, and buggies from manufactures like Porsche, Ford, and Volkswagen offer a good amount of options, and they’re almost all a blast to drive.Įach track terrain, whether its dirt, asphalt, snow, or ice, feels distinct. And since you’re free to choose your route through the career’s branching paths, you can switch locales pretty regularly.

Along with the fantastic voice acting, Dirt 5 boasts one of the best and most varied licensed soundtracks in recent memory, with songs spanning multiple genres from the likes of The Chemical Brothers, The Raconteurs, and Chaka Khan.Ĭourses do eventually get a little repetitive, but with 70 routes set in 10 different locations, including New York City, South Africa, and Norway, there’s still a ton of variety. It’s weird to compliment the story in an arcade racing game, but all four of these performers do a fantastic job of setting up the rivalry with Durand, although sometimes the podcasts did drag on a little too long when I just wanted to jump into the next race.

They’re joined by your mentor throughout the career, Alex “AJ” Janicek, who is played by Troy Baker, and your rival on the racetrack, Bruno Durand, played by the incomparable Nolan North. All of this is accompanied by a surprisingly good story told in a series of podcasts between races hosted by entertaining real-life podcasters James Pumphrey and Nolan Sykes. The star of the game is the branching five-chapter, 130-event career mode, which, along with the previously mentioned races, features a handful of time trials over tough terrain and gymkhana events where the key to getting a high score is big air and long drifts. Instead of racing against the clock on rally stages, most races have you take on 11 other drivers in circuit or point-to-point races featuring plenty of drifting, crashing, and high-flying jumps.

The racing game has much more in common with Codemasters Cheshire’s previous racer, the criminally underrated Onrush, than other games in the series. Dirt 5 foregoes nearly all of the formalities of rally racing for a full-on arcade experience, and a damn good one at that.

Dirt 5 review