Colin McRae: DIRT review - Xbox 360

Colin McRae has gone truly transatlantic, with an all-new American co-driver and licensed courses that will take you back and forth across the pond like a yo-yo from Michigan to Yorkshire and California to Fife among others. And that's not all - the game has had a bit of an overhaul generally since the last Colin McRae outing. So what's new in Colin McRae: DIRT, and is it still the same great fender-bending rally game at heart that it always was? Read our Colin McRae: DIRT for Xbox 360 review to find out!
Click here to read our Colin McRae: DIRT review for Xbox 360 now!

Colin McRae: DIRT review for Xbox 360
Something of a British gaming institution, you used to know where you were with your Colin McRae Rally: typically tearing down a country lane in a Ford Focus with a Welshman barking directions in your ear. The clipped tones of McRae’s long time co-driver Nicky Grist were a huge part of the experience, often the difference between posting a winning time and careering into a tree.
It’s immediately apparent that something has changed in DIRT when your co-driver turns to you and drawls in an American accent, “Knock ‘em dead, Tiger.” Worse is to follow when he cheesily advises, “Smooth and steady. I’m Mr Smooth and you’re Mr Steady.” And as a final dagger to the heart of all that is right and proper, how about this as an intro to one of the stages: “Ahh, England… warm beer, cottage pie and lovely countryside – not!”
What’s going on? The game is still developed by Warwickshire-based Codemasters, but appears to be not so much pandering to the US market as pissing in the eyes of its UK heritage. As well as removing the word Rally from the title, McRae himself has been largely airbrushed out of the picture, his name appearing in pencil-thin font above the massive word DIRT on the packaging, and nowhere at all in the ingame titles. The dour Scot’s cachet is on the wane in this country, so presumably he has yet to break America.

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360Zine is a full, free to download magazine dedicated to Xbox 360 gaming. This issue includes over 30 pages of games, all written by UK games journalists. In this issue, we have huge previews of some of the most hotly awaited games of this year, including Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty 4, Project Gotham Racing 4, Devil May Cry and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground vs SKATE. In reviews, there's a bit of a driving theme, as we look at Colin McRae: DIRT and Forza Motorsport 2 - we also have a massive review of the online FPS Shadowrun. Fans of the hilariously evil RPG Overlord won't want to miss our interview with Codemasters' executive producer Kevin Mullard, who tells us what he thinks makes the game great and where he sees it heading in the future. All this and much more - check out the Community section, gaming news and all your Xbox 360 questions answered. Simply click to download and you will get the complete magazine with all the Xbox 360 games previews and reviews included.