DiRT Rally 2.0

After playing Dirt 4 for many hours, I decided to give Dirt Rally 2 a go. I must admit, at first I struggled with the the handling of the game, deleted it several times before reading on line that the wheel was best set at 540 rather than 900. Once I started to grasp this, and learned how to handle the cars from FWD to modern AWD, the game became very enjoyable, now Dirt 4 has been put away and Dirt Rally 2 is now my main racing game I play. Nearly 500 hours and I'm not yet bored. I love the fact I can set my own championships, in different weather conditions, day, night, I can choose which country and which car to play. I never bothered with the career mode from the beginning, just creating my own custom races. As a 65 year old , I absolutely love this game on my wheel, pedals , handbrake and gear stick. The persevering has certainly paid off, when I started this game I was still on my 12 year old PC, new Pc with newer and faster technology, and for an old game in 2026, I just cant put down.

I bought WRC7 for $2 because I forgot I had this game.. I installed them at the same time.. I did 2 races in WRC7 and it crashed.. I did 2 series of races in this game and had to take a break because I was sweating from the intensity. This is by far the best racing game on Steam. It looks beautiful and plays great. Get this game.

I was reluctant to buy this game over Assetto Corsa Rally when I saw it was an Electronics Arts title. I took a chance on it however, and was pleasantly surprised to see EA hadn't done anything to sabotage their own game. Turns out Codemasters developed the title while still independent and got acquired by EA afterwards, so thankfully they never got a chance to throw a wrench into this game. I'm very much a casual racing game player. I don't know much about cars and don't even know how to drive a real one. The idea of rally racing really intrigued me though, and I want a sim racer, or at least a simcade style game to have something I can really sink my teeth into and experience a cool journey of growth in a game genre I know nothing about. Dirt Rally 2.0 felt like the ideal game to begin such a journey. I wasn't even sure if DR2 would be a good fit for me as a layman. Fortunately I happen to have a PlayStation Plus Extra membership, where I could install the game on my PS4 from their online catalogue of games. I was told this was " the Dark Souls of rally games", but I was actually having an okay time with it even if I didn't know what I was doing. Being able to test the game out beforehand convinced me picking it up on PC would be the right call. I can't praise the realistic driving physics because I wouldn't know good physics if it landed on my head. I can't tell you about how authentic the selection of cars are to the real thing because again I wouldn't know. What I can tell you is that the game is very well optimised. I'm playing on ultra settings at around 220-240FPS, and even though it's a 7 year old game, it still looks pretty good. One of the main reasons I picked Dirt Rally 2.0 over Assetto Corsa Rally was controller support. Based on some googling, ACR seems to be for the type of person who owns a racing wheel and such. It *has* controller support but supposedly it's not ideal. Maybe this information is outdated and its controller support is much improved now, but I didn't want to take the chance. DR2 on the other hand supposedly has its car handling and physics tuned around the assumption many players are going to be on a controller. This not only gave me peace of mind on my PC controller, but also meant it would feel good to drive on the Steam Deck. It also isn't an always online game. If you're playing offline, you lose access to online leaderboards, but otherwise you're free to keep racing and progressing. The excellent optimisation along with the lack of always online are important to me, because it means this game plays great on my Steam Deck too. Even though officially DR2 has no Deck support, you can run the game on medium graphics settings at a stable 60FPS. It's quite a little joy being able to play this at a café while I enjoy some a beverage. There's also no annoying EA launcher when you hit the play button on Steam. There's no ten years of licencing logos and an FMV you try to furiously mash ESC key on to get to the main menu after launching. There's no obnoxious grand soundtrack with a metric ton of licenced music that was probably going to eventually get the game taken down from Steam when those licences inevitably expire. There's no music when you race, just your engine and the elements. You get some generic, easy listening tunes for the menu navigation I can only assume was produced in-house by Codemasters. Downloadable content seems to be cars and tracks. I bought the GOTY edition for $17 during the sale, which gives me all the DLC for an additional $5 compared to the base game price. Feels like a bargain. So, at this price, with more than enough content for a layman like me to slowly chew through, this game is an easy thumbs up from me.