Gavin Raeburn, Executive Producer, over at Codemasters, got around to answering a few quick questions, explaining a bit about their latest project, DIRT: Colin McRae Off-Road - the new installment in the well-established rally simulation series, Colin McRae. For the first time the game features racing against multiple opponents, as opposed to the familiar beat-the-clock single-car rush noted in earlier editions of CMR. This will no doubt be an important turning point for the franchise.
DIRT: Colin McRae Off-Road is being developed for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms and is expected to hit retail some time in the second quarter of 2007.
Steam has slashed 75% off of several Codemasters' racing titles including GRID, FUEL, DiRT, DiRT 2 and ToCA Race Driver 3 along with a bundle containing all five titles as part of its weekend deal promotion.
The first DiRT title was released just before McRae's horribly premature passing, and saw Codemasters essentially rip everything up and start again, giving the franchise a face-lift fit for the next-generation. It highlighted the tone of a series moving increasingly further from the realistic, 'pure' brand of rallying in the earlier games to a more arcade-orientated, thrill-seeking approach. Whether seduced by the bright-lights of, for example, Project Gotham Racing, or whether Codemasters were just seeking change for the sake of change lest creative stagnation take hold, DiRT 2 (yes the strange lower case 'I' is intentional) represents the consolidation of this new approach.
Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (Dirt 2 outside of Europe) is a racing game scheduled to be released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series after Colin's death. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and will feature the late Colin McRae as well as Ken Block and Travis Pastrana.
With the game engine being created by Codemasters in conjunction with Sony, looks like this will be optimised for PS3 first and then ported to other consoles. To be honest, I always preferred Rallisport Challenge (RC) over CMR titles. Where is RC3?????
the screenshots look really good as well; crisper and better than motorstorm's
is the second to last one of the Subaru. Not sure if rally games are my type of game, but it does look pretty (well that one picture anyway). Sony just needs to hurry up with the details on Heavenly Sword and Ninja Gaiden Sigma. They're the only games that make me even think about buying a ps3. Hope there will be some nice, unexpected surprizes along the way, like what happened with the ps2.