Dirt 3

My time with an early build of Dirt 3, spent having different degrees of success tearing through a series of trick attempts, reminded me heavily of blasting through a particular monster truck demo back on the PSOne.

The name of the game escapes me now, but I distinctly remember blasting through that very simple demo over and over, just enjoying the loose feel of my rig and powersliding through ravines and rumbling over valleys and into gorges.

And its the same with Dirt 3, restricted as I am on a single concrete construction site. Small and rectangular in shape it may be, but it crunches together a wide variety of stuff for me to piss about with.

The reason we're jumping scaffolding and sliding past diggers rather than skidding through dirt tracks is part of Dirt's extended gameplay modes, the third iteration of Codemasters rallying franchise now competing with its peers to boast the most feature-packed racer around.

So here we are with the inclusion of a Gymkhana - a trick-heavy stunt course that requires you to tick off the list of moves on the board in the quickest time possible. Doughnuts round tyres, leaping between rises, navigating atop cargo containers and powersliding under them.

It may seem tomfoolery, but underlining the skids and the reverse 180s is the fact that you're learning to respect the feel of the rallying car. Dirt 3's rides are nicely loose in their handling, a complete break from the static conformity of Test Drive's Off-Road lot, and are just enough of a bitch to learn to control that you feel teased rather than openly dominated.

Squeezing off your first doughnuts round the a set of tires, for example, is a ten minute concentration test in itself. Its all about feathering the stick, light taps rather than pulls. The wheel is very sensitive and we see more wrecked bumpers on this one stunt alone than your average destruction derby.

Difficult? Yes. Enjoyable though? You bet. Watching anyone attempt it is to regress a decade back into childhood; tongues stick out involuntarily, and the appearance of on-screen text notifying a successful spin is a win for everybody watching, high fives and back slaps for the achiever. Then an undignified scrabble for the pad.

The list of stunts haven't any set order - get frustrated and you can try something else. Sure the clock is ticking ever higher, but you can attempt that straight run through later when Leaderboards and bragging rights are an issue.

For now, you just want to see if you can repeat the doughnut around a digger's arm without touching either, or pull off that 90 degree powerslide through a series of half pipes.

The audio effects of the engine is a symphony in itself, the sound of the car's engines as it enters the first pipe deafening, and the bloom effect of the sun when you come out of the shadows blinds both you and the camera monetarily as you squeal out of the turn.

For such a small, simple slice of the game, there's a lot of enjoyable pissing about, and you can almost see the attraction little boy racers have to council estates the country over. You're trapped in your own playground, revelling in the response of the car and the engine noise bouncing back off the four walls its own applause to your antics.

It's more fun than it rightly has to be, and because of it, we can't wait to take the game out onto the open (muddy) road as soon as possible. Note to Codemasters though: make sure you throw this section in as part of any pre-release demo, could you? It'll save me having to dust off my PSOne and hours searching ebay for that demo disc.