DiRT Showdown Pregled

The latest creation to date from the renowned studio Codemasters has sparked heated debates among racing fans. Some disliked the arcade style and excessive simplification of everything, others found the two-minute boring races and lags in multiplayer off-putting. It can only be said that everyone is right in their own way: DiRT Showdown has too many controversial aspects.

It was hard to imagine that Codemasters would stoop so low, but games like DiRT Showdown are usually churned out by little-known studios in two weeks. Apparently, everyone at Codemasters is busy developing GRID 2, since a project like DiRT Showdown only needs two and a half developers. See for yourself: Showdown only nominally belongs to the Dirt series, offering an extremely simplistic take on arcade racing. After the fairly successful DiRT 2/3, announcing a game where you’re required to ram, ram, and ram your opponents again can only be described as tiranija. And it would still be bearable if not for the boredom that takes over in multiplayer, not to mention the dreary single-player campaign.

The game looked great and fun only in the trailers. In reality, it was simplified so much that it’s noticeable from the very first to the very last race. There are no proper tracks in the game; there are only platforms for "derby" and round, ball-shaped circuits for "races." The competitive mode is also gone (the game is way too easy), as is proper car handling (and the cars themselves feel slapped together).

All you’re required to do is smash your opponents’ cars as quickly as possible and protect your own car from hits for as long as you can. As for other modes, I can recall just a couple of "Gymkhana" runs and a few extremely simple circuit races. Unfortunately, each race rarely lasts more than two or three minutes... my game menu, with all the RaceNet and Steam social systems, takes longer to load! So what does that mean—I spend more time fiddling with menus than actually playing?!

The controls in the game are just insane, and it’s hard to steer not only with a keyboard, but even with a gamepad. If you turn the wheel at the wrong place or time, you’ll immediately go into a deep skid or spin in place until you come to a complete stop. There isn’t even a brake pedal in the game (right, who needs it), nor an acceleration pedal. All the cars drive at pretty much the same speed, regardless of their real-life specs. All that’s left is to use "nitrous oxide" to go faster and let off the gas to go slower. That’s what the controls are like in this game...

Načrt več igralcev je dolgočasen, a še vedno boljši od enojne igre. Vsaj z resničnimi ljudmi je prisoten element presenečenja, medtem ko lahko AI robote ujameš na vsaki napaki. Vendar pa načrt več igralcev trpi zaradi še enega problema: skoraj ni igralcev. In če imaš srečo, da zbereš kvorum, po približno petnajstih minutah trčenja drug v drugega vsi odidejo igrati kaj bolj zanimivega. Možnost, da prijatelju pošlješ posnetek dirke ali ga naložiš na YouTube, prav tako ne navdihuje navdušenja. Razlog je preprost: ni česa pokazati, ker videoposnetki nimajo vznemirjenja ali adrenalina—samo kup ponavljajočih se trčenj.

Grafika v igri očitno ne ustreza ravni, navedeni v sistemskih zahtevah. Ni jasnosti slike—vse je megleno in izprano, učinki in upodabljanje trčenj so na ravni iger pred petimi leti, in ni HD tekstur ali anti-aliasinga. Zdi se, da so razvijalci vse to opustili, da bi konzole lahko obvladale igro. Ampak zakaj so optimizirali igro samo za AMD grafične kartice? Le poslabšali so stvari, saj je na sistemih z Nvidia karticami igra strašno polna napak in nalaganje traja večno.

Dirt: Showdown vam pusti le eno vprašanje: "Za kaj smo plačali naše denarje?" Izkazalo se je, da je to za slabe kontrole, zastarelo grafiko, dolgočasen način igranja tako v enojni kot več igralni različici, in celo imenovati Showdown za dirkaško arkadno igro je pretiravanje. Ni pravih prog ali dirk, napredovanje likov je brez smisla, avtomobili pa so le poškodovani odpadki.