STACK April 2016 Issue 138

60 / 98

dirt
Where does
DiRT Rally fit
into the DiRT
series?
PC: In my opinion
it’s the latest and
greatest DiRT
game. It’s not
a spin off – it’s
just where we
have taken the
franchise based
on what our fans
had been asking
us for.
visit GAMES FEATURE
60 APRIL 2016
GAMES
"W e set out to make the most
authentic rally game ever
made and the result is
something that rally drivers are already
using as a training tool.”
Paul Coleman, chief games
designer at Codemasters, is talking
about the studio's latest racer, DiRT
Rally. Touted as a true sim, Coleman
describes the title as suitable for
“gamers that are up for a challenge”.
“The key thing is that these cars
are not hard to drive in real life and
they are not hard to drive in game; it’s
driving them fast down a narrow rally
stage that is the challenge.”
Almost 12 months ago,
Codemasters put DiRT Rally up on
the PC-only Early Access to garner
feedback from the race community.
Coleman says the response really
helped to shape the direction of the
game and identify important design
flaws.
“The PC sim community judged us
based on our claim that we were a
sim, and were very quick to point out
that the Force Feedback on steering
wheels was terrible. We invited a
particular guy into the studio based on
a YouTube video he put together and
he gave us some good pointers on
where to go with the game.
“We ended up completely rewriting
the system and incorporating a load of
additional features that the community
had asked for. I’ll be honest and say
that it made the game feel completely
new again. It was miles better than
what we had released with and we
have those community members to
thank for it.”
Coleman details how Codies
decided to completely overhaul the
physics engine to fit in with the
studio’s vision of what they wanted
the sim to be.
“We really went deep into our old
codebase and stripped out a lot of
areas that were just plain wrong and
rebuilt them. I guess we had gotten
away with it when we were making
our more arcade-handling games,
but they simply didn’t cut it when
we started to go down this more
authentic route.
“We actually started with how
we model the surfaces of the road;
specifically the density of them.
Once we had that feeling right we
rewrote the tyre model, the engine,
transmission and suspension. We did
a lot of work on the differentials, too.
We worked on pretty much every
component and improved it.”
As for customisation, the options
are available for players to tweak
performance. Or if you prefer to avoid
getting involved and would rather just
buckle up and race, DiRT Rally caters
for that too.
“We’ve made it as detailed as we
possibly could,” explains Coleman.
“Each car has settings related to the
way it is engineered and you can
tinker with plenty of stuff. We’ve
given the cars really decent default
set-ups and we tweak those based
on which location and surface you are
competing on. So if you don’t want to
get your hands dirty, you can just jump
in the cars and drive. But for those
looking to dial in a good set-up, there
are plenty of tuning options available
to them.”
And for gamers looking to take the
competitive streak online, there are
challenging options for that too.
“Our online championships net you
some pretty decent rewards that will
help you buy more cars and keep the
best engineers in your service crew,”
says Coleman. “However, for me it’s
all about bragging rights. Knowing that
you’ve finished an event in the top ten
per cent means a great deal to me and
a lot of our players out there, so I think
that is its biggest hook.”
Chief games designe Paul Coleman chats
with STACK about Codemaster's DiRT Rally.
Dishing the d t
We've made it as detailed
as we possibly could.
• DiRT Rally
is out
April 8