#FF00AA

If the first Dirt was an interesting draft, with hardly acceptable framerate drops and a general sterile feel, it seems like the developers learned very aptly from their lesson; Dirt 2 looks like an absolute must-buy.

Everything’s just about perfect: the graphics, sound, physics, the damage system, and even then menus. I’ve only got one issue, and it’s both rather major (as in, when I get the game I’m going to end up cursing it a lot) and somewhat superficial: the mini-map that displays upcoming turns is so small and faint it’s damn near unusable, and makes it absolutely impossible to win a race until you’ve memorized the whole track — or I guess could stretch it a bit and decide that it’s a feature, making you play the game longer.

Multiplayer works fine and, obviously, people behave like assholes in the race modes that handle collisions… but it looks like the full version will let you choose to only race in modes with, or without, collisions, depending on whether you prefer the fun of bumper cars or the seriousness of time trials against ghosts.

Oh, and I love little touches like being able to customize your cockpit with, among other things, you Xbox Live avatar hanging from the rear-view mirror.