Dirt Track Racing

Rating:
Summary: Very addictive
Review: I have owned several racing and sim games but none have come as close to fully addicting me as DTR. I grew up watching dirt racers and feel this is as close I have seen. The way the game is set-up with career mode makes it impossible to stop playing. I also really like the sliding difficulty control.

Highlights for me are the poorly lit tracks and incredible differences between tracks. Each track has its own character. My only problem with the game is that I have not seen other cars crash to the point of being out of it. They are always pretty much together but they do jostle each other a lot. Great game!

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Awesome
Review: This is surely the second best driving sim to Grand Prix Legends. Forget the fact that this game takes place only on Ovals and Dirt. This is sooooo much fun. With outstanding (and fast) graphics and a very realistic driving model this game will have you staying up till the small hours of the morning regularly. The sensation of speed is brilliant but probably even better is the way the game puts you right in the middle of up to 15 other cars so realistically. The AI is great. You run a little hot into the turns and somebody is sure to slip up the inside. Each race is different. Sometimes one driver clears out. Other times, 6 or 7 cars battle for the lead for the whole race. The cars handling is superb. You can steer the car with the throttle and with (hopefully) just the right amount of opposite lock balance the car through the turns. Just like the real thing! If you like sliding a rear wheel drive car you will love this game.

Rating:
Summary: The Finest Racing Sim Ever...
Review: Yes it is. Ratbag Games made Powerslide the most fun, but Dirt Track Racing takes the joy of PC gaming to a new level. The Program is bulletproof, airtight and fast. FAST! Even on a very modest PC or 3D card is generates very smooth frame rates at very high resolutions. The learning curve for enjoyment is tiny. Yet there is depth enough with the different cars, tours, tracks, and set-ups that you can still be improving your level of play for months of gaming.

The game can be played enjoyably with any quality joystick but with a wheel and pedal combo this really shines. But the real joy is the Best use of Force Feedback in any sim. In most racing games FF is an annoyance... a distraction. In the otherwise great Midtown Madness games the FF is 'canned' effects that make the wheel shake when you hit things. OK. In DTR and also Powerslide, the FF is generated by the same physics engine that drives the car. It HELPS you feel the track, the surface, the turns and other cars. Since the FF correspondes to what is actually happening it ADDS to the emmersion rather than just making your knuckles numb.

The damage modelling rewards racing but allows the demolition style of cornering if you can afford to pay for the repairs! The tracks seem similar at first but with greater experience you come to see that they are all very unique. The different banking, length, layout and surface make these tracks totally individual and challenging. I have even stopped off in my travels to look at the REAL tracks depicted. At Paris, Texas for instance the game depicts hills in the backround. It is actually fairly flat but the TRACK is exactly right. I mean EXACTLY.

And how can you go wrong spending ... for this level of quality? And Now you can find the still amazing Powerslide for ... These two games alone fully justify buying a ... expensive wheel and pedal and top drawer video card. But they can also be a boatload of fun on a cheap setup and together cost half of one inferior game.

Finally, though the 'Difference Engine II' make use of excellent textures and detailed models and looks great as is... Full Screen Anti Aliasing makes this approach photo realsim. I'm not trying to sell 3dfx products here... if you can make FSAA work in Direct3D on your GeForce or Radeon card you're in for a rare treat. If I were king of a video card company I'd have this baby bundled in every product I sell. Buy it, play it until your neck hurts from leaning over in the turns, and wait for DTR Sprint Cars!